It was Victor Marbran who came to my rescue. Parrish had sent me over to Rotterdam to fetch some papers from Marbran. At this time I knew nothing of Parrish’s blockade-running business. Parrish never took me into his confidence about it and the whole of the correspondence went direct to him through a number of secret channels with which I only gradually became acquainted behind his back. I had met Marbran several times in London and also at Rotterdam. It had struck me that he had formed a liking for me. On this particular visit to Rotterdam Marbran took me out to dinner and encouraged me to speak about myself. He was very sympathetic, and this, coupled with the wine I had taken, led me to open my heart to him. Without giving myself away, I let him understand that I was in considerable financial difficulties, which I set down to the high cost of living as the result of the war. Without a word of warning Marbran pulled out his cheque-book. “How much do you want,” he asked, “to put you straight?” Nine hundred pounds, I told him. He wrote the cheque at once there at the table. He would advance me the money, he said, and put me down for shares in a business in which he was interested. It was a safe thing and profits were very high. I could repay him at my leisure. In this way I became a shareholder in Parrish’s blockade-running syndicate. The return I was to make was to spy on my employer and to report to Marbran the letters which Parrish received and the names of the people whom he interviewed. Of course, Marbran did not propose this plan at once. When I took leave of him that night, I remember, I all but broke down at the thought of his unsolicited generosity. I have had a hard life, Miss Trevert, and his seeming kindness broke me all up. But I might have known. I cashed Marbran’s cheque and put back the two hundred pounds I had taken from the petty cash account. But I went on speculating. You see, I did not believe Marbran’s story about the shares he said he would put me down for. I thought it was a charitable tale to spare my feelings. So I plunged once more in the confident hope of recovering enough to repay my debt to Marbran. A month later Marbran sent me a cheque for one hundred pounds. He said it was the balance of fifteen hundred pounds due to me as profits on my shares less the nine hundred pounds I owed him and five hundred pounds for my shares. But my speculations had by this time gone wrong again, and I was heartily glad presently to receive a further cheque for two hundred pounds from Marbran. From that time on I got from Marbran sums varying between one hundred and fifty pounds and five hundred pounds a month.