i snatched the key from gretchen, who was now very white and shaky, opened the drawing-room door and was going to rush in, when it occurred to me that if nessa was caught off her guard, she might let out something.

"all right, gretchen, thank you," i said, loudly enough for nessa to hear.

the woman flung up her hands and bolted, and i went in as if making an ordinary call.

nessa had rushed into the conservatory to escape from von erstein and came back as i entered, her face flushed and her eyes ablaze with furious indignation, while he, dumbfounded and looking as black as thunder, scowled at me viciously.

"this man has grossly insulted me, herr lassen!" she cried. "taking advantage of the countess's absence, he got me here on the pretence of a message to be given to her, and then—— ugh! i can't speak it;" and she dropped into a chair and hid her face in her hands.

"i only took your advice, lassen, and asked miss caldicott to marry me," he said sullenly. "and then she——"

"did you advise that?" broke in nessa, starting up excitedly.

that wasn't the moment to explain things, of course. something had to be attended to first. i walked up to von erstein with intentional deliberation, feeling a little thrill of joy at the fright in his eyes, put my hand on the collar of his coat, and led him towards the door. he was too abjectly scared to make more than the merest show of resistance.

"have you anything more to say to him?" i asked nessa, halting when we reached the door.

"no, no. only send him away. send him away," she exclaimed.

i took him out into the hall and then released him. "i'm going to thrash you, von erstein. two reasons. you made your spy here lock this door so that you could have that girl to yourself; and yesterday you said things which made me itch to thrash you then."

"i didn't mean——"

"that'll do. don't tell any more lies."

he tried to bluster. "you'd better not strike me, lassen; i can——"

a smack on the face, given with all my strength, caused the threat to die stillborn and also showed the stuff he was made of. he pretended that the force of it knocked him down and nothing would induce him to get up again. so the fight ended where it began, as i couldn't hit him while he lay on the ground. regretting that the one smack had been such a poor one, i dragged him into the hall, plopped him on to the doormat, and chucked him his hat, swearing that if he stopped in berlin, the job would be finished in workmanlike fashion. he squirmed there long enough to see that no more was coming, then opened the door, paused to curse and threaten me, and bolted.

nessa was furious, and her first question showed that some of her anger was for me. von erstein's little shaft about my "advice" had gone home. "is what that man said true? did you advise him to ask me to marry him?" the emphasis strongly on the "advise."

i nodded; and very naturally her lip curled.

"i wouldn't have believed it possible," she exclaimed.

"he told me yesterday about things and i asked him if he had asked you. if that's advising, i advised."

"and yet you know the kind of man he is and that he has been persecuting me in this fashion?"

"but anyhow i didn't advise you to accept him."

"jack!" she cried indignantly.

"herr lassen's safer, and in german too."

"it's almost enough to make me say i'll never speak to you again."

"worse than he is, eh?" it was really a curious thing, but we never seemed able to resist a chance of misunderstanding one another; and when she took this line, it was impossible for me to resist chipping her.

"did you thrash him?" she asked after a pause.

"no; not an easy job in the circs."

"you've developed a wise discretion," she said with a smile which wasn't exactly soothing.

"he's a fellow with a lot of influence, you see."

there was one feature about our tiffs; they generally ended all right; and this time she seemed to realize that we were off the lines. she thought a while and her manner changed. "do you want me to believe that after what happened here and what i said, you just thanked him and shook hands? because i don't believe it. i heard you hit him. that's why i asked if you'd thrashed him."

"i smacked his face, as a sort of preface, but he lay down and wouldn't get up, so i had to cart him out to the front door. a poor show; but i fancy he'll give me a wide berth in the future. would you care to tell me what passed?"

"he sent up that woman, gretchen, to say that he was leaving berlin and that the countess had given him a message for me about something she had of his. i was only too thankful to hear he was going away, and when i got down, she locked the door. it was all planned, of course; and he asked me to marry him, and when i gave him his answer, he grabbed hold of me and kissed me. i broke from him and rushed into the conservatory, intending to get out that way into the garden; but he had fastened the window, and when i was trying to get it open, you came, thank heaven."

"i guessed that was about the size of it."

"i was never more relieved in my life."

"even though it was only me."

"yes, even though it was only you." this with a smile, however, which quite belied her indifferent tone.

"well, it's all right now. as a matter of fact he has found it wise to leave in consequence of a hint i gave him yesterday."

"tell me."

"better let it wait a while." there was nothing to be gained by telling her the truth. "i came to see if there is any news."

"there is, unfortunately. i've received an order from the police to report myself to-morrow."

"the deuce you have! i wonder what that means. who signed it?"

"baron von gratzen."

i stared at her in amazement. confound the man. here he was cropping up again in this mysteriously unexpected fashion. "when did you get it?"

"only a minute or two before that man called."

what on earth could it mean? it looked as if he had gone straight from his promise to help her to leave and then sent this. "where have you to report?"

"the amtstrasse," and she handed me the paper. it came from his offices and was signed in his own handwriting.

"i give it up. these beggars beat me every time. only an hour or two back he told me that you should be sent back home," and i told her about that part of the interview and that he had said i could tell rosa. "it's true he said something about making some inquiries about you, so as to be satisfied you're not a spy."

"then of course he's going to begin by questioning me himself."

"possibly, but—i get such different reports about him. you'll have to look out, too. he's sure to cross-examine you about me. i can't get it out of my head that he suspects i'm flying under the wrong flag. you'd better never have seen me before, mind; and whatever you do, look out for traps and things; and he's as artful as a cartload of monkeys at the game."

she was tremendously excited by the news about going home. i had to repeat every word he had said about it, and of course she got out of me that he had spoken about our going home together.

"oh, wouldn't that be lovely!" she exclaimed.

"to go with me?"

"to go with any one, of course," she said with sudden indifference. "if you'd been through half that i have and had a quarter of the suspense i've had to endure, you'd be glad too."

"i'm glad enough, as it is. i think this beastly climate is anything but healthy for either of us just now."

"oh, to be free once more!" she cried with a deep, deep sigh of longing. "do you know that more than once i've been on the point of risking everything and just bolting and chancing my luck."

"which reminds me that i'd better tell you the spare wheels i've been thinking about, if these other tyres burst. i haven't had much chance of talking to you yet, you know."

"we had one interview," she reminded me, her eye dancing.

"we'll try to do a bit better this time. the best thing will be old von gratzen's scheme, if it comes off."

"we should have to be together a long time, if it does."

"rather rotten, eh? but i could bear it, i think, if you could."

"i should have to, naturally."

"we could discuss our old grievances, at the worst."

"and at the best?" she said demurely, trying not to laugh.

"find fresh ones to jingle-jangle about. but you'll have to behave yourself; for i shall be a german for the first part of the trip, remember."

"and if you don't behave yourself, i can tell people you're not one. you'll have to remember that, mind."

"behave myself? meaning?"

"that you're not to talk nonsense then or now; so go on to the spare wheels, please."

"all right. the next best will be for you to use rosa's ticket and so on, and travel with her oscar."

"but rosa said you wouldn't hear of that, and you don't imagine i'm going to let the man run that risk for me. any more wheels?"

"one. that if the worst comes to the worst, we just disappear and chance the weather;" and i described my idea—to go in disguise as a couple of mechanics.

"they're using a lot of women, but not as mechanics yet," she said.

i laughed. "but you'd go as a boy, nessa."

"as a what?" she cried in amazement.

"i said boy. b-o-y. easy word."

she stared at me for a moment or two as if i was mad, and then her eyes lit up and she burst out laughing. "do you know why i'm laughing?"

"at me, probably."

"not a bit of it. because it's exactly the idea i had. i have the clothes ready for it and a set of overalls; and often and often i've locked myself in my room, dressed up, and rehearsed everything. you know how i've played a boy's part in the theatricals at home; i can shove my hands in my pockets and swagger along just like one. i make rather a good boy."

"good?"

"good enough for a boy, anyhow," she replied, laughing again.

"show me."

she rose, pushed hands down as if into her trouser pockets, and walked up and down the room with a free stride. "give us a fag, mate," she said when she reached me. "that all right?" she asked, relapsing into herself and sitting down again.

"rather! ripping! why, you managed somehow to alter the very expression." she had. the change was wonderful. "with a touch or two of make-up not a soul would spot you. but you were always a bit of a boy, you know. perhaps that accounts for it."

"that meant for a compliment?"

"just as you take it. you were a self-willed little beggar, anyhow. do you remember how shocked your mother was that night at the grahams, when you came on their little stage as a boy?"

"i do, indeed. poor mother! she must have been awfully worried by all this; and is still, of course. but rosa has written to a friend in switzerland and asked her to wire that i'm all right; and perhaps by this time she's had the message. it's horribly wicked, i suppose, but i declare i feel so vindictive that i could almost kill that woman gretchen and von erstein too, when i think of what they've made poor mother suffer by stopping my letters."

"he's a low-down swine; and if i get half a chance, i'll even things up with him before we leave. but we don't want to talk about him now. if your mother's got that wire, she'll feel heaps better. now, tell me what you think of my third wheel?"

"shall i tell you the truth?"

"of course."

she paused and the colour crept slowly into her face, robbing it of the worried anxiety which had so distressed me and making her as bewitchingly pretty as ever in my eyes. "if you will have the truth i'd—i'd like the third wheel better than either of the others."

"same here; but it wouldn't be so safe. we'll have the props with us, however, in case of mishaps. what say you?"

"carried unanimously," she cried enthusiastically. "it would be lovely!"

"you haven't changed much, then, even with all this."

"do you mean in looks?"

"not much there, even; but i meant in the tomboy business."

"ah, you don't know. i have changed. i've grown up, suddenly. it couldn't be otherwise," she answered very seriously. "at one time it looked a certainty that i should be sent to gaol, and the suspense was—well, almost unbearable. no one can tell what it meant to have to appear indifferent and confident, when i knew that any moment might be my last in freedom. that danger seemed to pass away, but only to give way to worse."

"you mean this——"

"yes," she broke in with a quick nod. "i can't bear even to hear his name mentioned. i soon knew what his real object was; he has a friend, a man like himself, who is in command of one of the concentration camps: the one at krustadt: and—but you can guess. there was only one thing for me to do, and i prepared for it. i have the poison upstairs."

"nessa!"

"no woman can go through such an ordeal and come out unchanged. i should have made a fight for it, of course. i told rosa, and, although she was horrified at first, she saw it afterwards, and then she got herr feldmann to get me an identification card as hans bulich, and helped me get the disguise. i should have gone by now, if you hadn't come. oh yes, i'm changed; no one knows how much except myself."

the drawn intentness of her expression at the moment showed this so plainly that i was too much moved to find any words to reply. but she rallied quickly and laughed.

"and then when you came i was mad enough to believe you were a spy! i can't think why i was such a fool. there was no excuse; not the slightest; and i don't expect you ever to forgive me really."

"i don't blame you. i don't, on my honour."

"well, i shall never forgive myself then. but—even now i can't help staring at you."

"stare away. i like it. but why?"

"you're so—so utterly different."

"how?"

"in every way possible."

"think so. every way?" our eyes met and she looked down.

"i wonder," she murmured under her breath; and then quickly in a louder tone: "of course it's your new life. tell me about it."

we both understood; but that wasn't the time to tell her she need not "wonder"; so i spoke about things at the front.

"but i want your own experiences, jack," she protested.

"i'm herr lassen, the man without a memory."

"you're just as provoking as ever. you know that i'm dying to hear everything, and you won't utter a word."

"well, i'll tell you one thing. it was all your doing."

she crinkled her forehead in a way i knew so well. "how?"

"do you remember one day at hendon—we were engaged then, by the by—how you ragged me about not having the pluck to go up and about cricket being so much safer a sport, and how i flung away in a huff and marched off and got a ticket at once and went up. that was the start."

"and i remember, too, what a fright it gave me when i saw you go. i watched the aeroplane with my heart in my mouth all the time in a sort of fascinated panic lest something should go wrong."

"and when i came to look for you i found you'd gone up too."

"you don't suppose i meant you to crow over me, do you? and was that really the beginning?"

"of course. i went up lots of times afterwards and got to like it; and when the trouble came, naturally i saw it was my job."

"be a pal, and tell me all about what you did," she coaxed.

"all in good time, but not now. we've been alone together quite long enough to set tongues wagging as it is. i'd better be off;" and i rose.

"i suppose you're right; but it's been lovely. like old times."

"which old times?"

"never mind. don't be inquisitive."

"all right. well, look here. go on with that boy part of yours. get into the skin of it, and have the names of things pat on your tongue. one never knows what may happen. and if you could persuade rosa to persuade feldmann to do for me what he did for you, do so."

"sounds a bit mixed, doesn't it?" and she laughed with such genuine merriment that it did one good to hear her.

"you must sort it out. so long. we'll pull it off somehow or other."

"i think that's the oddest thing about you. you manage somehow to make me feel absolutely confident that you'll manage it. it's like a miracle. only a day or two ago i was right down in the depths, and here i am laughing as if it were just one of our old kiddish pranks."