The house was of brick and a large one. Every outside shutter was closed in front and the vines had so grown over them that they were half covered. There was a porch also in front, but the boards of the steps had long since rotted away.

At first only a large toad appeared to greet Eugenia. He eyed her distrustfully[Pg 39] for a second, his round eyes bulging and his body rigid with suspicion. Then he hopped behind his stone fortress, which chanced to be a large stone at the end of the path before the house.

[Pg 39]

However, Eugenia did not see him. Neither did she attempt to go up the rickety steps. How absurd it would have been anyhow to have battered at the door of a mansion that had been uninhabited for years!

Instead she marched deliberately around the house and knocked at a door at the side.

A few seconds after, this door was opened by a woman of middle age.

She looked very worn and unhappy, but her face brightened at the sight of her guest.

"I was so afraid you wouldn't, couldn't get here," she said. "I suppose you know you are taking a risk."

Eugenia nodded in her usual matter of fact fashion.

"I promised your friend I would do my best," she returned. "Will you please[Pg 40] take me up to the room. You must make up your mind to get more air into this house. I don't think you need fear you will be suspected, if you managed to arrive here without being detected."

[Pg 40]

"I am afraid," the older woman answered. She was leading the way up a pair of back stairs that were in almost total darkness.

"You see, I know I have been accused of sending information to my husband who is supposed to be at the front with the Belgian army. I was about to be arrested and tried by a military court. I should have been sent to prison and I could not be separated from my family at such a time!"

The last few words were whispered. Because at this moment the woman's hand had touched a door knob which she was gently turning. The next she and Eugenia were entering a large room at the back of the apparently deserted house.

A window had been opened and an attempt made to clean this room. On the bed, with a single 

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