why had she disappeared when he came up?  Impelled by something stronger than mere curiosity, he walked quickly down the garden, but she evidently had noticed him, for she as quickly disappeared.  Not caring to meet Miss Faulkner again, he retraced his steps, resolving that he would, on the first opportunity, personally examine and interrogate this new visitor.  For if she were to take Miss Faulkner’s place in a subordinate capacity, this precaution was clearly within his rights.

He re-entered his room and seated himself at his desk before the dispatches, orders, and reports awaiting him.  He found himself, however, working half mechanically, and recurring to his late interview with Miss Faulkner in the lane.  If she had any inclination to act the spy, or to use her position here as a means of communicating with the enemy’s lines, he thought he had thoroughly frightened her.  Nevertheless, now, for the first time, he was inclined to accept his chief’s opinion of her.  She was not only too clumsy and inexperienced, but she totally lacked the self-restraint of a spy.  Her nervous agitation in the lane was due to something more disturbing than his mere possible intrusion upon her confidences with the mulatto.  The significance of her question, “Then it is war?” was at best a threat, and that implied hesitation.  He recalled her strange allusion to his wife; was it merely the outcome of his own foolish confession on their first interview, or was it a concealed ironical taunt?  Being satisfied, however, that she was not likely to imperil his public duty in any way, he was angry with himself for speculating further.  But, although he still felt towards her the same antagonism she had at first provoked, he was conscious that she was beginning to exercise a strange fascination over him.

Dismissing her at last with an effort, he finished his work and then rose, and unlocking a closet, took out a small dispatch-box, to which he intended to intrust a few more important orders and memoranda.  As he opened it with a key on his watch-chain, he was struck with a faint perfume that seemed to come from it,—­a perfume that he remembered.  Was it the smell of the flower that Miss Faulkner carried, or the scent of the handkerchief with which she had wiped his cheek, or a mingling of both?  Or was he under some spell to think of that wretched girl, and her witch-like flower?  He leaned over the box and suddenly started.  Upon the outer covering of a dispatch was a singular blood-red streak!  He examined it closely,—­it was the powdery stain of the lily pollen,—­exactly as he had seen it on her handkerchief.

There could be no mistake.  He passed his finger over the stain; he could still feel the slippery, infinitesimal powder of the pollen.  It was not there when he had closed the box that morning; it was impossible that it should be there unless the box had been opened in his absence.  He re-examined the contents of the box; the papers were all there.  More than that, they were papers of no importance except to him personally; contained no plans nor key to any military secret; he had been far too wise to intrust any to the accidents of this alien house.  The prying intruder, whoever it was, had gained nothing!  But there was unmistakably the attempt!  And the existence of a would-be spy within the purlieus of the house was equally clear.