Within the farmhouse of Blaufelden, rather late in a night in March a tall iron-gray figure, slender, buttoned to the neck in a close-fitting uniform coat, paced slowly up and down. A plain wooden table stood in the center of the room. It was lighted by a lamp with a green shade and covered with papers arranged in orderly piles. There were chairs, strongly but simply made, and a sad-colored rug, and the walls were decorated with pictures of hunting scenes, while over the stone fireplace in which the pine logs intermittently blazed, there was a colored lithograph of the Emperor of Germany. It was the kind of room, and the kind of furniture one would expect to find in any of the rural districts of the great empire, with the one difference that nowhere was there visible the touch of a woman’s hand. Whatever its original purpose the room at the present moment contained only the essentials of the barest comfort. And the figure of the man in uniform, erect, silent and austere, completed the impression which the barrack-like simplicity of his surroundings created--order, cleanliness, efficiency expressed in the simplest terms. The German officer stopped pacing the room and touched a bell upon the table. His brows were furrowed and his broad capable hands tapped impatiently among the documents. His summons was answered almost immediately by a man in the uniform of the Jägers, the Imperial Forest Service, who stood silently his heels together awaiting orders. “There has been no word?” asked the officer in German. “None, Excellenz.” “You stationed your men as I directed?” “Yes, Excellenz----” The officer paused. And then, “Send Herr Hauptmann von Winden the moment he arrives.” The man saluted, wheeled and went out, closing the door noiselessly behind him. The tall figure regarded the door fixedly for a moment in deep thought, and then tapped the back of his left hand with the fingers of his right, a habit he had when things were not going to his liking. General Graf von Stromberg, Privy Councilor to the German Emperor and head of the military sections of the Secret Service, was not a person accustomed to have things go wrong, and delay of any kind annoyed him exceedingly. But the door of the room opened and a young officer in uniform appeared and stood awaiting the will of his superior. He was blond, ruddy and well set up and bore all the marks of the army training--a member beyond doubt of the military caste with something in the clearly cut, if somewhat arrogant, features of his face which suggested good blood and lineage. “Ah, Herr Hauptmann!” said the General, frowning. “You have heard?” “Yes, Excellenz. He should be here by midnight.” “What was the cause of the delay?” “He was forced to come down at Ostend, yesterday. It has taken him all day to make repairs. He is on the way now.” Von Stromberg grunted and sank into his chair at the table, motioning the younger officer into one beside him.