"That's just what I am striving my utmost to do. I have learnt that she was the daughter of a French restaurant-keeper, living somewhere in London, and that after Harborne's death she married a Frenchman, whose name I am unable, as yet, to ascertain." "You will soon know it, Darnborough," remarked the Earl with a faint smile. "You always know everything." "Is it not my profession?" the other asked. "Yes, I shall try to discover this lady, for I have a theory that she knows something which we ought to know. In addition, she knows who killed Richard Harborne." "I sincerely hope that you will be successful," declared the Foreign Minister. "By Harborne's death Britain has lost a fearless patriot, a man who served his country as truly and as well as any bedecorated general, and who had faced death a dozen times unflinchingly in the performance of his duties to his country and his sovereign." "Yes," declared Darnborough, "if any man deserved a C.M.G. or a knighthood, Dick Harborne most certainly did. I am the only person who is in the position of knowing how devotedly he served his country." "I know, I know!" exclaimed the Earl. "And if he had lived it was my intention of including his name in the next Birthday Honours list." "Poor fellow," remarked his chief. "I wonder who that woman Montague was, and whether she really had any hand in the crime? That he was fond of her I have learned on good authority, yet Dick was, after all, not much of a ladies' man. Therefore I am somewhat surprised at the nature of the information I have gathered. Nevertheless, I mean to find the woman--and to know the truth." "Have you any clue whatever to her identity?" inquired the Earl, looking at him strangely. "None, save what I have told you," was the slow, deliberate reply. "But I think I shall eventually find her." "You will, Darnborough. I know well what you mean when you reply in those terms. I have experienced your vague responses before," laughed his lordship. But the great secret agent only grinned, and his grey face broadened into a smile, while the Earl lay wondering whether, after all, his visitor knew more concerning the mysterious female friend of Harborne than he had admitted. Darnborough went on with his secret report, placing before the Secretary of State the exact nature of the war-cloud which once again threatened to arise over Europe, and of which our Embassies in Berlin and Vienna, with all the pomp of their officialdom, were as yet in ignorance. And while the chief of the Secret Service was closeted with the Foreign Minister, and the latter was scribbling some pencil notes of his visitor's report, Jean waited downstairs in the library for the Earl's permission to return to his room. As the soft after-glow of early autumn spread over the western sea before her, she turned at last from the long window and crossed the big room, wherein deep shadows were now falling.