“Hugh, dear,” she sighed, patting his hand, “you do so much better looking after your hospitals and your wounded than unearthing mare’s-nests like this. I don’t think that you’d be a brilliant success in the Intelligence Department. As to the War Office, well, you know what I think of them. Captain Granet a German spy, indeed!” “Neither the War Office nor I myself,” Thomson continued, “have arrived at these suspicions without some reason. Perhaps you will look at the matter a little more seriously when I tell you that Captain Granet will not be allowed to return to the Front.” “Not be allowed?” she repeated. “Hugh, you are not serious!” “I have never been more serious in my life,” he insisted. “I am not in a position to tell you more than the bare facts or I might disclose some evidence which even you would have to admit throws a rather peculiar light upon some of this young man’s actions. As it is, however, I can do no more than warn you, and beg you,” he went on, “to yield to my wishes in the matter of your further acquaintance with him.” There was a moment’s rather curious silence. Geraldine seemed to be gazing through the walls of the room. Her hands were clenched in one another, her fingers nervously interlocked. “I shall send for him to come and see me the first thing to-morrow morning,” she decided. “You will do nothing of the sort,” Thomson objected firmly. She turned her head and looked at him. He was conscious of the antagonism which had sprung up like a wall between them. His face, however, showed no sign. “How do you propose to prevent me?” she asked, with ominous calm. “By reminding you of your duty to your country,” he answered. “Geraldine, dear, I did not expect to have to talk to you like this. When I tell you that responsible people in the War Office, officials whose profession it is to scent out treachery, have declared this young man suspect, I am certainly disappointed to find you embracing his cause so fervently. It is no personal matter. Believe, me,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “whatever my personal bias may be, what I am saying to you now is not actuated in the slightest by any feelings of jealousy. I have told you what I know and it is for you to make your choice as to how much or how little in the future you will see of this young man. But I do forbid you, not in my own name but for our country’s sake to breathe a single word to him of what I have said to you.” “It comes to this, then,” she said, “that you make accusations against a man and deny him the right of being heard?” “If you choose to put it like that, yes,” he assented. “Only I fancied that considering--considering the things between us, you might have taken my word.”