"I have no idea--really I haven't. Only--" She hesitated, troubled, twisting her fingers on her knees. "Only--" he prompted her. She said, with a tremulous intake of breath: "I think I had better tell you, Kervyn. This is what frightened me--what the experience of today seemed to suddenly make plain to me--I mean your coming to Westheath, Mr. Grätz telephoning about obeying you, and informing me of the arrest of my maid--these things, and the war, and what I have read about German spies in England--all this flashed up in my mind at the same time when you turned from the telephone and asked me such terrible questions. "It made clear to me, or seemed to, something else that I had not understood at the time--" She hesitated, her gaze concentrated as though in an effort to recollect and visualize some scene-- "It was last April, in Berlin.... General Baron von Reiter said something to me as I was waiting for his car to take me to the station--I was departing for England again--and he said--he said----" "Yes, Karen?" "He said something about war--the possibility of it. And he said that in case war ever came while I was in England, and if, when it came, I had in my possession any automobile plans from the Edmeston Agency--from Mr. Grätz--that I was to bring them with me to Germany--not to show them to anybody, not to send them by mail, but to bring them back and deliver them to him." "Yes, Karen." "I promised.... He made me promise again. He was very serious. He said that on my obedience in this matter might depend the lives of many people. I had no idea what he meant by that--until today.... And what I fear has happened is that Anna, who went yesterday to London because Mr. Grätz telephoned, was arrested while in possession of papers delivered to her by Mr. Grätz.... And that these papers were _not_ what I had always supposed. And that is why I was suddenly afraid--afraid--Oh, Kervyn!--I cannot describe the fear that leaped up and seized me when you asked me those dreadful questions! Suddenly everything, every detail in the entire matter seemed to grow clear and terrible to me.... I--I went into my dressing-room--and steadied myself against the wall--feeling faint for a moment. "Then I took from my dressing-table the papers which I had from Anna's last visit to Mr. Grätz. They had remained there in the drawer because I had been told not to mail them, and no word had come for me to go back to Berlin. So I had them on my hands. But until you came I gave them no thought--merely conscious that I had promised to take them back with me.