expression of Christmas good wishes from one friend to another. But to
make his certainty more sure, and at the same time to show that he had
no suspicion anyone was hiding in the room, he carried the letter over
to the window, and at once he was aware of the spy's hiding-place. It
was not the bed hangings, but close at his side the heavy window curtain
bulged. The spy was at his very elbow; he had but to lift his arm--and
of a sudden the letter slipped from his hand to the floor. He did not
drop it on purpose, he was fairly surprised; for looking down to read
the letter he had seen protruding from the curtain a jewelled shoe
buckle, and the foot which the buckle adorned seemed too small and
slender for a man's.

Wogan had an opportunity to make certain. He knelt down and picked up
the letter; the foot was a woman's. As he rose up again, the curtain
ever so slightly stirred. Wogan pretended to have remarked nothing; he
stood easily by the window with his eyes upon his letter and his mind
busy with guessing what woman his spy might be. And he remained on
purpose for some while in this attitude, designing it as a punishment.
So long as he stood by the window that unknown woman cheek by jowl with
him must hold her breath, must never stir, must silently endure an agony
of fear at each movement that he made.

At last he moved, and as he turned away he saw something so unexpected
that it startled him. Indeed, for the moment it did more than startle
him, it chilled him. He understood that slight stirring of the curtain.
The woman now held a dagger in her hand, and the point of the blade
stuck out and shone in the moonlight like a flame.

Wogan became angry. It was all very well for the woman to come spying
into his room; but to take a dagger to him, to think a dagger in a