After a silence she turned and looked at him. He .stammered, very
red:

"I don't quite know why you speak to me so."

She herself was not entirely clear on that point, either. After all,
her business with this man was to use him in the service of her
Government."

"What is THE GREAT SECRET?" she asked calmly.

After a long while he said, lying there very still: "So you have
even heard about that."

"I have heard about it; that is all."

"Do you know what it is?"

"All I know about it is that there is such a thing--something known
to certain Germans, and by them spoken of as THE GREAT SECRET. I
imagine, of course, that it is some vital military secret which they
desire to guard."

"Is that all you know about it?"

"No, not all." She looked at him gravely out of very clear, honest
eyes:

"I know, also, that the Berlin Government has ordered its agents to