than ordinary human powers. Jocelyn Thew has brought it off against us this
time, but then, you see, one must lose a trick now and then. It is the next
step which counts."

"Oh, the next step will be all right!" she replied, with a hard little
laugh. "He has brought his spoils to England, although there must have been
twenty or thirty detectives on board, and you won't be able to stop his
disposing of them exactly as he likes."

"I don't agree with you," he assured her confidently. "That, however, is
not what I want to talk about. You are in a false position. In the struggle
which is going on now, your heart and soul should be with us and against
Jocelyn Thew."

Her eyes were lit with a momentary terror.

"You don't suppose for a moment," she said, "that my sympathies are not
with my own country and our joint cause?"

"I don't," he replied. "On the other hand, your actions should follow upon
your sympathies. There is something sinister in your present state. I want
you to tell me just what the terror is that is sitting in your heart, that
has changed you like this. Jocelyn Thew has some hold upon you. If so, you
need a man to stand by your side. Can't you treat me as a friend?"

She softened at his words. For a moment she sat quite silent.

"I can only repeat to you what I told you once before," she said. "If you
are picturing Jocelyn Thew to yourself as a blackmailer, or anything of
that sort, you are wrong. I am under the very deepest obligations to him."