After this they were both silent while the cheese was being removed. Verisschenzko was thinking profoundly. Here was a study worthy of his highest intuitive faculties. What possible solution could the future hold? Only one--that of death for either of the men concerned. Well, death was busy with England's best--it was no unlikely possibility--and as he looked at Denzil he felt a stab of pain. Nothing more splendid and living and strong could be imagined than his six foot one of manhood, crowned with the health of his twenty-nine years. "I hope to God he comes through," he prayed. And then he became cynical, as was his habit, when he found himself moved. "I am on the track of Harietta, Denzil. She has a new lover--Ferdinand Ardayre." "What a combination!" "Yes, but who the officer was at the Ardayre ball I cannot yet trace. Stanislass is quite a _gaga_--he spends his time packed off to play piquet at the St. James'--he has no _bosse des cartes_,--it is his burdensome duty." "He does not feel the war?" "He is numb." "What will you do if you catch her red-handed?" "I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a fitting end." "I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman--even a spy." Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes. "My want of civilisation will serve me--if ever that moment comes." Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the time. CHAPTER XIV Amaryllis came up to London the following week to say good-bye to John, so Verisschenzko did not go down to Ardayre to see her. John's leave-taking was characteristic. He could not break through the iron band of his reserve, he longed to say something loving to her, but the more deeply he felt things the greater was his difficulty in self-expression. And the knowledge of the secret he hid in his heart made him still more ill at ease with Amaryllis. She too was changed--he felt it at once. Her grey eyes were mysterious--they had grown from a girl's into a woman's. She did not mention the coming child until he did--and then it was she who showed desire to change the conversation. All this pained John, while he felt that he himself was the cause--he knew that he had frozen her. He thought over his marriage from the beginning. He thought of the night when he had sat on the bench outside her window until dawn, of the agony he suffered, realising at last that the axe had indeed fallen, and that some day she must know the truth. And would she reproach him and say that he should have warned her that this possibility might occur? He remembered his talk with Lemon Bridges. He had been going to give him a definite answer that morning, but John had missed the appointment, so they spoke at the ball.