Weeks afterwards the doctor again became as smiling and as amiable as in other times.  “My dear girl, it is agreed that you should take a trip to France.  We need there an agent who will keep us informed of the traffic of the ports, of the goings and comings of the vessels in order that our submersibles may know where to await them.  The naval officials are very gallant, and a beautiful woman will be able to gain their affection.”

She had tried to disobey.  To go to France!... where her pre-war work was already known!...  To go back to danger when she had already become accustomed to the safe life of a neutral country!...  But her attempts at resistance were ineffectual.  She lacked sufficient will-power; the “service” had converted her into an automaton.

“And here I am, suspecting that probably I am going to my death, but fulfilling the commissions given to me, struggling to be accommodating and retard in this way the fulfillment of their vengeance....  I am like a condemned criminal who knows that he is going to die, and tries to make himself so necessary that his sentence will be delayed for a few months.”

“How did you get into France?” he demanded, paying no attention to her doleful tones.

“Freya shrugged her shoulders.  In her business a change of nationality was easily accomplished.  At present she was passing for a citizen of a South American republic.  The doctor had arranged all the papers necessary to enable her to cross the frontier.

“But here,” she continued, “my accomplices have me more securely than as though I were in prison.  They have given me the means of coming here and they only can arrange my departure.  I am absolutely in their power.  I wonder what they are going to do with me!...”

At certain times terror had suggested most desperate expedients to her.  She had thought of denouncing herself, of appearing before the French authorities, telling them her story and acquainting them with the secrets which she possessed.  But her past filled her with terror, so many were the evils which she had brought against this country.  Perhaps they might pardon her life, taking into account her voluntary action in giving herself up.  But the prison, the seclusion with shaved head, dressed in some coarse serge frock, condemned to silence, perhaps suffering hunger and cold, filled her with invincible repulsion....  No, death before that!

And so she was continuing her life as a spy, shutting her eyes to the future, living only in the present, trying to keep from thinking, considering herself happy if she could see before her even a few days of security.

The meeting with Ferragut in the street of Marseilles had revived her drooping spirits, arousing new hope.

“Get me out of here; keep me with you.  On your ship I could live as forgotten by the world as though I were dead....  And if my presence annoys you, take me far away from France, leave me in some distant country!”