"But he may be acting in conjunction with that woman in some desperate plot against us!" "I believe he is," I declared. "I believe that whatever has happened to you, and my accident also, are both the result of cunning and dastardly plots directed by this man who has so long posed as our friend. Have you never suspected it?" I asked of her. "Never--until to-night," was her reply. "But if he has dared to come here in order to assist that woman, then his action places an entirely fresh complexion upon the whole affair." "My opinion is that Lionel Eastwell has, all along, suspected that we have perfected our invention, and has formed a most clever and desperate plot to possess himself of our secret, in order to transmit it to Germany," I declared, as I held her hand tenderly in mine. "Yes," she replied, sighing after a pause. "Your surmise may be correct, Claude." "But do you share my views?" "Well--" she responded at last, "yes, Claude--I do! But," she added, "the whole affair is too mystifying--too utterly amazing. When, one day, I can tell you what happened to me you will, I know, stand aghast. Ah! when I think of it all," she cried hoarsely, "I often regard it as a miracle that I am alive and at your side again--at the side of the man I love!" More than this she refused to tell me. I had, at last, established that the hand of Lionel Eastwell, the popular pilot at Hendon, was the hand of the enemy. I had suspected it, but here was proof! His association with the mysterious woman was, of course, still an enigma, but I saw that Roseye herself held the key to it, and now that we had agreed that Eastwell was playing us both false, I hoped that this, in itself, would induce her to tell me the frank and open truth. When Teddy returned he heard from my lips what had happened during our absence, and he stood speechless. "Let's run the dynamo, light up, and examine the machine," he suggested, and though it was already midnight we readily adopted his suggestion. That it had again been tampered with I felt no doubt. That statement of old Theed's that he had heard "sawing" made it plain that some devil's work had been done--and by Eastwell no doubt, because he was an expert in aviation. The expert knows exactly the point at which he can weaken the strongest aeroplane. Well, we soon ran the dynamo, and had a good light going, one that was almost too glaring in that confined space. All of us were present, including the maid Mulliner, as slowly we examined and tested, piece by piece, every bolt, nut, strainer, and indeed every part of the machine. It was past three o'clock in the morning ere we finished, yet we could find absolutely nothing wrong. The engines worked well: the dynamo was in order, the intensified current for the working of the invisible wave was up to the high voltage as before, and as far as we could discover the machine had not been tampered with in any way.