weary heart seemed to echo through the misty silence of the wood. Then he stepped inside, and she quietly closed the door.

CHAPTER IX AT THE CHARCOAL-BURNER’S CABIN IN THE WOODS

THE woman led the way into the kitchen which opened off the tiny passage and André followed her. The two faced each other in silence. Presently she placed the lantern on the rough table in the centre of the room and once again looked at him thoughtfully through her mask. The only other light there was came from the dying embers of a fire, whose murky shadows flickered on the walls and on the low roof.

André with his fingers on his sword-hilt returned her studied gaze. He could make out that her hair under her hood was fair; her voice, her step, were those of a girl, and what he could see of her figure shrouded in its long cloak bid well to be shapely. Yes, she was young, this woman, but a pest on that mask!

“You are not the officer I expected,” she remarked at last.

“He was wounded; he could not come, so they sent me in his place,” André answered at once.

“I understand,” she replied with a quiet nod, “but they said two would be sent.”

“My companion is outside guarding the horses.” Whereupon she lifted the lantern and inspected him closely. André, ready for anything, stood quite still. “If you doubt my word,” he added carelessly, “I will take you to him now.”

“No,” she answered, replacing the lantern on the table, “your word is enough; the word of an English officer,” and she turned to cross the kitchen.

André’s face was calmness itself, but his blood was tingling with fear, curiosity, revenge. Never in his adventurous life had he been so thrilled as at this moment in this dim, silent kitchen, alone with this cold-blooded traitress in a mask. But, mastered as he was by an overpowering desire to probe her secret to the bottom, he was also carefully studying every nook and cranny. There was only one way out of the room--by the door, which was half-open. He carefully moved so that he might face it, and if a swift rush were necessary not have the table between him and the road to escape.

“There are the papers,” she said in her passionless tones. She had taken them from a cupboard in the wall.

He betrayed no eagerness, but his fingers trembled and his heart thumped wildly as he looked them through by the dim light of the 

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