"Then stay without them." He closed his eyes and lay down again. 

"My thanks," she nodded, gaily throwing back her short cloak so as to reveal that her blue coat was open at the throat and suggested a chemisette strangely fine for a _vivandière_. Then she bent over him. 

"Would you do a service for Mademoiselle the Marquise de Beau Séjour?" 

André sat up, sharply. "Would you do the King a service?" she whispered. "_Mon Dieu!_ how those women bleat! Come this way, Vicomte, I have something to say to you--a secret." She blew him a kiss from saucy finger-tips. 

André, now wide-awake, his blood tingling, followed her till she stopped in the shadow of an outhouse. "You will do the King a service?" she asked gravely enough. 

"Tell me," he said, quickly, "what the service is?" 

"The Vicomte can talk English?" 

"How the dev----?" 

"It matters not how I know it. Do not contradict. Time is precious. To-night"--she was speaking earnestly into his ear--"the friends of the King have learned that the secrets of the Maréchal will be betrayed to the English." 

"Good God!" He gripped her arm. 

"Hush!" She raised a warning finger. "It is so. To the charcoal-burner's hut two miles from here will come at midnight two English officers. The plans of the camp--this camp, Vicomte--will be given them; to-night the English will know where to attack tomorrow and then--" she made a significant gesture. 

"But----" 

"No one can say how those plans have been stolen. But stolen they have been, and it is too late to alter the entrenchments now. They are made--you understand--and tomorrow is here in ten hours. Worse, worse, the traitor is already at the cottage with the paper." André sweated hot and cold, for terror rang in her pleading voice. "It is infamous, terrible. But one hope remains. We must find an officer who can speak English, who will pretend to be those English officers and get the plans before they are handed to the enemy. The Vicomte understands?" 

"Yes, yes, I see. I will go." He 

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