lantern, one eye all the time watching the masked girl, who quietly kneeled down by the fire with her back to him and began to blow on the embers with a bellows.

“They are what you want, are they not?” she remarked over her shoulder.

“I believe so,” he answered as carelessly.

Yes, the vivandière was right. The paper was a complete plan of the French encampment, marking accurately the positions of each battalion and each battery, and in the corner was drawn in blood a curious sign--two crossed daggers with 101 inserted in the gaps:

It sent an icy shiver through him, this countermark of the traitor’s success and good faith. God! they were betrayed indeed to those damned Austrian hounds and English dogs. But he, André de Nérac, had saved the King and the army of France!

“I thank you,” he said, folding the paper up and putting it deliberately within his cloak.

“I do not desire your thanks,” she replied as she blew away some ashes. André stared in dumb bewilderment at her on her knees there in front of the fire. Should he run her through at once or strangle her for an execrable traitress? The woman betrayed neither fear nor interest. She seemed to have forgotten his presence.

“Are you ‘No. 101’?” he asked at last.

“Oh, no.” She was laughing softly. “I am only her--agent.”

“Then the trait--then she is a woman?”

“Yes.” She stood up and shook some cinders from her cloak. “Yes, she is a woman.” And André knew she was lying. The fingers on his sword relaxed. Kill her he could not--yet. Depart he could not--yet. For he was in the grip of a weird fascination--of a secret whose mystery numbed his senses.“It is marvellous,” he muttered, “but the English army thanks ‘No. 101’ and you.”
“Yes,” she answered indifferently, “it is marvellous, but the English army is nothing to her nor to me. For myself I detest the English officers, but like you, sir, I simply do as I am bid. Give me the gold and I will wish you good-night.”
The gold; English gold! Pest on it! The _vivandière_ and he had thought of everything but that. The perspiration swelled onto his forehead. He grasped his sword and took a step towards the doorway.
“I was given no gold,” he said brusquely and waited with drawn breath.
“No?” She shrugged her shoulders and astonished him by kneeling down and taking
up the bellows. “It is like English officers to buy 

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