“Anna!” he cried in dismay.

“Alas, yes!” she repeated, “We may not even meet again, Francis, till the map of Europe has been rewritten with the blood of many of our friends and millions of our country-people.  But I shall think of you, and the kiss you will give me now shall be the last upon my lips.”

“You can go away?” he demanded.  “You can leave me like this?”

“I must,” she answered simply.  “I have work before me.  Good-by, Francis!  Somehow I knew what was coming.  I believe that I am glad, dear, but I must think about it, and so must you.”

Norgate left the hotel and walked out amid the first mutterings of the storm.  He found a taxi and drove to his rooms.  For an hour he sat before his window, watching the lightning play, fighting the thoughts which beat upon his brain, fighting all the time a losing battle.  At midnight the storm had ceased.  He walked back through the rain-streaming streets.  The air was filled with sweet and pungent perfumes.  The heaviness had passed from the atmosphere.  His own heart was lighter; he walked swiftly.  Outside her hotel he paused and looked up at the window.  There was a light still burning in her room.  He even fancied that he could see the outline of her figure leaning back in the easy-chair which he had wheeled up close to the casement.  He entered the hotel, stepped into the lift, ascended to her floor, and made his way with tingling pulses and beating heart along the corridor.  He knocked softly at her door.  There was a little hesitation, then he heard her voice on the other side.

“Who is that?”

“It is I—­Francis,” he answered softly.  “Let me in.”

There was a little exclamation.  She opened the door, holding up her finger.

“Quietly,” she whispered.  “What is it, Francis?  Why have you come back?  What has happened to you?”

He drew her into the room.  She herself looked weary, and there were lines under her eyes.  It seemed, even, as though she might have been weeping.  But it was a new Norgate who spoke.  His words rang out with a fierce vigour, his eyes seemed on fire.

“Anna,” he cried, “I can’t fence with you.  I can’t lie to you.  I can’t deceive you.  I’ve tried these things, and I went away choking, I had to come back.  You shall know the truth, even though you betray me.  I am no man of Selingman’s.  I have taken his paltry money—­it went last night to a hospital.  I am for England—­God knows it!—­the England of any government, England, however misguided or mistaken.  I want to do the work for her that’s easiest and that comes to me.  I am on Selingman’s roll.  What do you think he’ll get from me?  Nothing that isn’t false, no information that won’t mislead him, no facts save those I shall distort until they may seem so near the truth that he will build and count upon them.  Every minute of my time will be spent to foil his schemes.  They don’t believe me in Whitehall, or Selingman would be at Bow Street to-morrow morning.  That’s why I am going my own way.  Tell him, if you will.  There is only one thing strong enough to bring me here, to risk everything, and that’s my love for you.”