"Lastly ... take and keep this for me, till I ask you for it again. Hide it
as secretly as you can. It may be sought for, is certain to be if you are
believed to be in my confidence. It must not be found. And I may not want
it again before we land in New York."

She extended a hand on whose palm rested a small and slender white
cylinder, no longer and little thicker than the toy pencil that dangles
from a dance-card: a tight roll of plain white paper enclosed in a wrapping
of transparent oiled silk, gummed fast down its length and, at either end,
sealed with miniature blobs of black wax.

"Will you do this for me, Monsieur Duchemin? I warn you, it may cost you
your life."

He took it, his temper veering to the whimsical. "What is life?" he
questioned. "A prelude--perhaps an overture to that great drama, Death. Who
knows? Who cares?"

She heard him in a stare. "You place no value on life?"

"Mademoiselle," he said, "I have lived nearly thirty years in this world,
three years in the theatre of war, seldom far from the trenches of one
front or another. I tell you, I know death too well...."

He shrugged and put the roll of paper away in a pocket.

"You understand it must not be taken from you under any circumstance? As a
last resort, it must be destroyed rather than yielded up."

"It shall be," he said quietly. "Is there anything more?"