Finding that I resisted his demands, he revealed to me the contents of that box which I had conveyed to my uncle. It had contained a French naval secret--a copy of the secret plans and specifications of the new French submarine boat then being built at Brest, for which the British Admiralty had paid him three thousand pounds, a draft for this amount being contained in my uncle's sealed letter. He had, he acknowledged, obtained the plans from a French naval lieutenant, and the pair had divided the proceeds. He was a spy, as well as a blackmailer. I asked what this had to do with me, whereupon he revealed to me an appalling fact, which utterly stunned me. Till then, I was in total ignorance of how entirely and completely I had fallen beneath his unscrupulous influence. But when he explained I saw in an instant that my future was hopeless; that escape was impossible. I was bound irrevocably to him and to his blackguardly accomplices." "And what did he reveal?" I inquired anxiously, as her terrified eyes met mine. "He pointed out, with brutal frankness, that although in England the French law could not reach him, yet in my own case it was different. The French Government could apply for my arrest and extradition for selling a State secret, because, in the eyes of the French law, I was a French subject, I having been born at my father's villa at Cannes, and had never taken out letters of naturalisation as a British subject. I saw his intention. If unable to raise money to supply his needs he would give information against me in Paris, and cause my arrest. He feared nothing for himself, he said, as he was a British-born subject. I alone would suffer. What could I do in face of such a terrible eventuality? He pointed out that although a person born of British parents abroad is under English law British, yet if wanted for a crime committed in the country of birth, the person may be arrested and extradited. I heard him to the end, and saw that I was helpless in his hands. He had entrapped me, and I was as a fly in a spider's web. I saw my peril; therefore, in order to avoid scandal and arrest I was compelled to send him money from time to time. Moreover, he also compelled me to furnish secret information about persons whom I met in society, for what purpose I could only guess--blackmail. Gradually, I thus became a tool of Vickers and those fiends whom I felt were in association with him, although for some time the latter never betrayed themselves. This went on for nearly a couple of years until Ellice Winsloe proposed marriage to me. I was driven desperate, always wanting to reveal to you the truth and ask your advice, Wilfrid, and yet always in fear lest you should turn your back upon me as an associate of a gang of blackmailers. One autumn day, while motoring with Cynthia from London up to visit the Beebys at Grantham, and without a chauffeur, I had a tyre-burst near a place called Stretton, on the Great North Road,