Dinner hour came, but she did not leave her room. She could not bear the thought of sitting at the same table with her father, of seeing him, of breathing the same air he breathed. Nor did he summon her. She did not expect him to send a tray to her room; that would be a courtesy so utterly foreign to him that she did not even give it a thought. Besides, she was not hungry. She could not have eaten. So she sat and waited--waited for darkness and for that stillness which tells of a sleeping house. When it came she would steal out of her room and out of the house to the near-by mail-box to post her letter to Potter Waite. Hours went by. The house was very still. Though she opened the door a crack and listened, she could not hear a sound. It was after ten o'clock, and her father was probably at the Harmonie Society drinking beer and smoking those pudgy black cigars without which he was seldom seen. She threw a wrap over her head and tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs. Very cautiously she passed along the hall, but stopped before she reached the door of the library, for the room was lighted. She drew against the wall and stood very still, listening. Some one was there, for she heard voices. Step by step she drew nearer, and the voices became more distinct, her father's voice and the voice of a stranger. She believed it to be a stranger, for she did not recognize it. Both voices were muffled by the walls and hangings, yet she could overhear what was said, if not wholly, at least in major part. "Boy-Ed and von Papen were clumsy fools," said the strange voice, "and this man Paul Koenig, that got himself arrested the other day, wasn't much better. But those things were to be expected. It wasn't the ridiculous Secret Service of this idiotic country that did it, even then. It was English agents." Hildegarde realized suddenly that German was being spoken. It had not surprised her or caught her attention in the beginning, for she was accustomed to hear as much German spoken in that house as English. "What do you want of me now?" she heard her father ask. The stranger did not reply directly to the question. "Our men have done pretty good work so far, but we must do much better. Our greatest success has been in holding together the Germans here and in creating in their minds a proper attitude toward the fatherland. You and men like you have been invaluable there. But we must take more vigorous steps. A little has been done. We've stirred up a lot of unrest, and we have the pacifists working nicely." He chuckled. "That I. W. W. organization was made to our order." He paused a moment, and then said, significantly, "And there is quite a satisfying number of tons of munitions that have exploded here in America--instead of over the trenches occupied by our army." "Yes," said von Essen, "but what do you want of me?" "More help, of course. You recognize your duty to the fatherland?" "Naturally," said von Essen.