“Spies and traitors are taken alive or dead,” the official had remarked who had handed them the weapons.

“How much further have we to go?” Jack inquired, as the cab turned down a country lane.

“Only a very short distance, now,” replied Daisy Huston.

“Jove, but she’s a stunning girl for nerve and principle,” thought Lieutenant Jack, admiringly.  “She’s going, now, to what must be the tragedy of her plans and hopes, yet she has her color back again, and looks as composed as though out only for an airing!”

“There is the house,” almost whispered the girl, at last, resting a steady, cool hand on his arm.

Jack looked and saw the place—­a little, oldfashioned house, standing in among trees, some hundred feet from the road.  In that swift glance he also noted that there were no ether buildings near.

Daisy Huston did not ask whether the young man at her side proposed to try to arrest the man he sought.  She was too discreet to pry into his plans.

Up into the little yard before the house the horses trotted.  Then, just as the cab was coming to a stop, the driver cracked his whip-lash twice.

Immediately the door flew open.  Millard, as Jack Benson knew him, stepped out jauntily, a smile of delight on his face.

“Good enough, Daisy,” he cried, as he strode toward the cab.  “I see that you have won Benson over to our side.  He shall be my friend, after this.  But, Daisy, what—­”

For the girl had sprung lightly out ere Jack Benson could assist her.  The girl now stood, drawn to her full height, yet without affecting any theatrical pose.  But over her lips hovered a smile of cool disdain that the look in her eyes heightened.

“Don’t lie to me any more, Donald Graves,” commanded the girl, steadily, “and don’t deceive yourself.  Both tasks, I know, will be hard for a man so vile that he’d sell his country’s Flag!”

Millard stared at her in growing horror.  Then anger rushed to his face.

“Daisy!” he gasped.  “Have you betrayed me?  Have you brought Benson here as an enemy?”

Daisy did not answer her former lover.  She continued to gaze at him with an irony of expression that sent the hot blood mounting to his head.

“Can’t you speak?” he demanded.  “Then, Benson, why don’t you talk?”

“Because,” replied Jack, “I am waiting for Miss Huston to say to you all, or as little, as she cares to say.”

“Speak, then!” commanded Millard, turning imperiously to the girl.

“And my command to you,” retorted the girl, “is different.  Silence!  Never again address me, you traitor to your Flag!”

Millard was swift to realize the fullness of the girl’s contempt.  He knew that everything between them was over.

“Come, come, then, girl!” he uttered, harshly.  “It is time for you to be gone!  Step to the cab and get away from here, for I would spare you what is to follow—­my reckoning with Benson!”