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wasn’t a mouse stirring.”
    “You have no idea who it was?”
    “Just an idea one of them wore a uniform. There was something glittering in the moonlight, and I think it was brass buttons. Not big brass buttons like some of the chaps wear at school, you know, but two rows of smaller brass buttons, like a soldier or sailor—an officer, I mean.”
    “You didn’t recognize the voices?”
    “No, they were whispering the whole time. It changes the timbre of the voice. I couldn’t tell a thing but that they were men. Oh Englishmen , not foreigners as I thought it would be when I first tumbled to it they were spies.”
    “Are you sure it was Bonaparte they were talking about? Did they use his name?”
    “No, they never used a single name except Cicero, but they talked of ‘rescuing him’ and a hundred thousand pounds reward—they might have mentioned the Bellerophon . Who else could it possibly be, in Plymouth at such a time? There are no famous criminals on the loose. What should I do?”
    She sat thinking what course to take, but before she came up with an idea, David had reached his own conclusion. “I must tell Papa,” he decided.
    Marie was aware of a dull return to earth. It was of course the proper thing to do. Their father was in charge of all operations at Bolt Hall, but it was somehow an anti-climax to this incipient adventure to go dragging Papa into it, to write a letter off to London, and set up a petition, when what she really desired was to be listening at keyholes, lurking about the shadows late at night, following dangerous suspects, and capturing the spies.
    “I’ll let you know what he says,” David said, already walking to the door.
    “You won’t rouse him out of bed!” she asked, horrified.
    “Deuce take it, this is an emergency !” he told her, and went to do just that.
    He was back within ten minutes, crestfallen. “He already knew,” he said.
    “He knew that and didn’t tell us!”
    “Had orders to keep mum. Heard all about it from the Admiralty yesterday. That is to say, he don’t know a thing more than we do, but he knew there were people planning something of the sort right enough, and they’ve sent down an agent to Bolt Hall to look into it.”
    “They would never have told Papa. Why should they? He was only in charge of ordering the uniforms.”
    “He was the supplies officer for the whole Peninsular Campaign. Wellington depended on him completely. Then they saddled him with the American war, too, and it was too much for him—for any one man to handle. Why, they said when he had to leave that it was of the utmost importance for him to be here at Bolt Hall, just in case of such an emergency as this. That’s why they’ve sent the agent down here to us.”
    “I wonder who the agent is.”
    “He is under orders not to say, but it stands to reason it must be Benson”
    “Of course!” she agreed at once. “He didn’t come to look me over at all. I didn't believe it when Biddy said so.”
    “She don’t know a thing about it. Likely that’s what Father told her to keep her quiet. He says we’re to keep out of the agent’s way, and not to go interfering with him.”
    “We must help him!” she objected at once. She had not yet managed to quite fall in love with Benson, and was ready to accept his alternative reason for being here. Of course his being a spy need not invalidate him as a suitor. Quite the contrary, who more romantic and lover-like than a spy, engaged in daring deeds of national importance?
    “There’s one thing father didn’t know, anyway. I asked him about the ten thousand pounds, and he hadn’t a notion what I was talking about. Said I was foxed—imagine, and I only had half a dozen ales, small ales. What we must do is get searching tomorrow and find it. The money is to be used to get Boney away safely, you see. Must be it, and if we could find it and take it away, they’d be dished. Jove, but it’s going to be an exciting day.”
    “I'll