The baron never confessed to any living soul until he did so to me, to-day--and then only because he had to tell somebody, in order that the appointment with you might be kept.

How, then, could you guess ?" "By putting two and two together, Miss Lorne, and discovering that they do not make five.

The inference is very clear: Baron de Carjorac is President of the Board of National Defences; Germany, in spite of its public assurances to the contrary, is known by those who are 'on the inside' to harbour a very determined intention of making a secret attack, an unwarned invasion, upon England.

France is the key to the situation.

If, without the warning that must come through the delay of picking a quarrel and entering into an open war with the Republic, the German army can swoop down in the night, cross the frontier, and gain immediate possession of the ports of France, in five hours' time it can be across the English Channel, and its hordes pouring down upon a sleeping people.