mouth and forehead. He had the air of one who lived in an
atmosphere of anxiety.

"To me," Hamel declared frankly, "you look worried. If I hadn't
heard so much of the success of your political career and all the
rest of it, I should have thought that things were going badly
with you."

"They've gone well enough with me personally," Kinsley admitted,
"but I'm only one of many. Politics isn't the game it was. The
Foreign Office especially is ageing its men fast these few years.
We've been going through hell, Hamel, and we are up against it now,
hard up against it."

The slight smile passed from the lips of Hamel's sunburnt,
good-natured face. He himself seemed to become infected with
something of his companion's anxiety.

"There's nothing seriously wrong, is there, Reggie?" he asked.

"Dick," said Kinsley, with a sigh, "I am afraid there is. It's
very seldom I talk as plainly as this to any, one but you are just
the person one can unburden oneself to a little; and to tell you
the truth, it's rather a relief. As you say, these eighteen arrests
in one week do mean something. Half of the Englishmen who have been
arrested are, to my certain knowledge, connected with our Secret
Service, and they have been arrested, in many cases, where there are
no fortifications worth speaking of within fifty miles, on one
pretext or another. The fact of the matter is that things are going
on in Germany, just at the present moment, the knowledge of which is