As the taxi sped away with me, the relief was so great that I lay back on the seat, limp and half fainting. I let myself rest there, revelling in safety after the strain of danger. Nothing could keep me now from Eagle, I told myself, and nothing could stand between him and his righteous revenge on Sidney Vandyke. If he were not at home when I got to Whitehall Court I would wait until he came, even if I had to sit in the taxi, within sight of his door, all night. But he would be at home! I felt that, when he left the Russian Embassy, he had been in no mood to go anywhere else, unless for a lonely walk; and, even so, he ought to have got back by this time. He had left before I had, and I must have arrived at Diana's an hour ago.

It was only when the taxi drew up in Whitehall Court that I remembered leaving my little gold bag—a present from Kitty—with my discarded cloak in Park Lane. All the money I had was in the bag. I could not pay the chauffeur; but, in any case, I meant to keep him till I learned whether or no Eagle were at home.

To my chagrin, the man looked dubious. "How long, Miss, will you want me to wait?" he inquired.

I explained that I could not tell yet. I must find out whether the friend I had come to see were in. If not I might need to keep the taxi a long time.

"Very sorry, Miss," the chauffeur replied, "but I have an appointment in a quarter of an hour from now in Downing Street with an official gentleman I serve pretty often. I was on the way there when you called me; but when you said 'Whitehall Court', I took you up because you seemed in a hurry and I thought there was plenty of time. I supposed you was going to stop here, it bein' rather late in the night for a young lady, but I can't possibly stay more'n five minutes longer. Tell you what I can do, I'll ask another feller to come along and wait for you."

There was no help for it. I had to confess that I was penniless, having forgotten my money. "But here's a bangle," I said, slipping my one bit of jewellery off my arm. "You can have this for security. If you'll give me your card I'll send the money to-morrow, and I'll trust you to send back the bangle."

I held it out to him: a thin band of gold with a four-leaved shamrock made of emeralds—a present from Tony, which he had implored me to keep in memory of our "friendship".

The chauffeur hesitated, evidently asking himself whether or no I might be trusted without the security. As he turned the bangle over in his hand, and the question in his mind, I heard quick steps coming along the dark street, and looking up, the taxi lights showed me Eagle March's face. He was far more surprised than I was, because it had already occurred to me that he might cool his brain with a solitary stroll in the night.

"Oh, Eagle!" I exclaimed, giving him hardly time to be sure of recognition. "How thankful I am that you appeared just at the right minute. I've come to see you about something very important, and I haven't a penny."

No doubt Eagle was astonished that I should be arriving alone, cloakless, at half-past eleven or later to call upon him; but after the first look of amazement at sight of me, he concealed his feelings. For a second—no longer—he hesitated. Then he said, smiling, "I have plenty of pennies! Don't you think I'd better get into your taxi with you, and drive round for a few minutes rather than you should—have the trouble of coming into my place?"

"The driver has an engagement," I said. "And, anyhow, I must come in. It's really serious, Eagle."

He argued no more, though he looked somewhat troubled for my sake. I understood very well his state of mind. He paid and tipped the chauffeur, who handed back my bangle and darted off.

"Were you going to give the fellow that?" Eagle asked, nodding at the gold band. "Then it must indeed be serious. I once heard you say at El Paso that it was your most valued possession!"

"Fancy your remembering!" I said.

"I remember lots of things concerning you," he answered, as he guided me into the big, dignified building whose lights were lowered like most of London's illuminations in these Zeppelin-haunted times.

"Wish the bangle on for me," I said hastily, at the foot of the stairs, which we were to ascend rather than expose my uncovered shoulders to the scandalized eyes of the man in the lift.

"Would Dalziel approve?" he asked, smiling, as I thrust the bangle into his hand. "You showed it to me in Texas as a 'filopena present' from Tony."

"You remember that, too? This is the one thing I've kept to remind me of poor Tony."

"Poor Tony, indeed, if you've sent him about his business."

Eagle slipped the bangle over my hand, looking straight at me, as though wondering not only why I had come, but why I was so pale and strange.

"Wish that my errand here to-night may end in the greatest and most glorious success," I prompted him.

He held my wrist for a second or two, wishing silently. Then he dropped it rather abruptly, and we went upstairs to the first floor, where were the chambers lent to Eagle by his friend. I felt somehow that, by asking him for such a wish, I had impressed him with the real importance of my night visit.

He unlocked the door of the flat with a latch-key and almost pushed me in, as if fearing that I might be seen and perhaps recognized by some passing occupant of the house. Switching on the electricity, the vestibule was lit by a red-shaded light, cheerfully welcoming. Off it opened two or three rooms, and Eagle ushered me into a large oak-panelled study, lined with bookshelves and having long windows, which, when uncurtained, would look out on the Embankment. Now they were draped with crimson velvet, the sort of hangings that normal men with no female belongings invariably choose. By the door stood a tall folding screen, covered with red satin and oriental embroidery. There were bronzes and a few marble busts on top of the low bookshelves; on the oak panelling, here and there, hung a huge Chinese plate, here and there a sporting picture. With one glance I took in the whole interior, and saw that it was thoroughly masculine. In a large fireplace some logs of wood, evidently not long ago ignited, were crackling. Suddenly aware that I was very cold, I walked across the room and—shivering—held out my hands to the blaze. But I still kept the khaki coat hanging over my arm.

"Poor child, you look frozen!" said Eagle. "Why didn't you put on your coat?"

I laughed—a nervous, excited laugh. "My coat!" I echoed. "Look at it!"

So saying, I stretched out my arm to display the garment, and Eagle saw what it was.

"Khaki uniform!" he exclaimed. "From the U. S. A. By Jove! Is it Tony Dalziel's?"

"Indeed it is not," I returned. "I'm here to tell you about it. Oh, Eagle, what should I have done if you hadn't come home?"

"You oughtn't to be here, dear Peggy," he said. "And I'm not sure that I ought to have brought you in, but I've got into the habit of trusting you when you tell me that a thing's important."

"It is important," I cut him short. "So important I hardly know where to begin."

"Your wits are too quick for you to be in doubt long," Eagle flattered me, smiling; "and you must begin at once, dear child, because for the sake of all the conventionalities I can't let you make me a long call, good as it is to see you here. We are alone in the place now, so it's all right for the moment. The servant my friend Jim White lends me with the rooms doesn't stay at night. He lights the fire and puts everything shipshape, and then leaves me in peace till morning. But Jim himself, who is doing interpreter's work in France, has run back for the day on business. He is with some War Office chaps for the evening, but any time after twelve o'clock I expect him back to stay the night. You must be gone before then, so you see we have twenty minutes at most."

"Rome was saved in one minute, I've always heard," I said. "Eagle, this coat was Sidney Vandyke's. It's mine now, because Diana gave it to me, with a lot of other things they cared nothing about, for our Belgian men. They didn't know God was delivering them into my hands—and your hands. For I give this to you to do with as you will. It is the coat Major Vandyke wore the night at El Paso when he was in temporary command. He wore it when his orderly, Johnson, brought him the message you wrote on a leaf out of your notebook—the message he swore never reached him."

As I spoke I held out the coat in both hands, with the inside toward Eagle, so that he could see for himself the hole I had made in the lining, and perhaps draw his own conclusions. I saw his eyes fix themselves on the long, tell-tale slit and the colour rush up to his forehead.

"Who tore that slit in the lining?" he asked sharply.

"I tore it to-night!"

"Peggy!... You found something?"

"Yes! It had slipped through a ripped place down between the cloth and the lining."

"Good God! The message?"

"The message! Here it is." And from the bosom of my low dress I pulled the folded bit of khaki-yellow paper, warm from my heart. He took it from me. Our fingers touched, and his were cold as ice.

I stood still while he opened the paper and read the words which were of as great importance in his life now as when he wrote them. They had power to make all the difference to him and to another man between honour and dishonour.

For a long minute he was silent and motionless, reading or thinking. Then he looked up abruptly, and his eyes blazed into mine.

"Peggy!" he said in a level, monotonous tone which I knew hid deep feeling. "Do you realize what this means to me?"

"Yes," I answered. "I realize fully. I've dreamed of a moment like this for you. I've lived for it, for weeks and months that seem like years."

"And that it should come to me from you!"

"I hoped—I prayed."

"Tell me what happened."

I told him, only leaving out the part about Diana, how she had come home and guessed the secret I had found and tried to rob me. To mention that, I thought, might seem as if I were trying to boast of what I had done. Then, when I had explained how I dashed out of the house, leaving everything but the coat, which would be invaluable as proof, I hurried on, lest he should ask questions I didn't wish to answer.

"What has become of the notebook?" I wanted to know. "I hope you've got it?"

"Better than that," Eagle said. "If I'd had it in my possession all this time I might have written this message whenever I chose, torn out the leaf, and pretended that it had been done on the night of the gunfiring. Luckily Dell, the friend who defended me in my trial, kept the book. It was produced at the court-martial in my defence, and the torn edge shown, with the marks on the next page made by pressing down heavily with a blunt pencil. Vague traces of words could be seen, but even with a magnifying glass they couldn't be read. There was no evidence that amounted to anything, but my friend kept the book. He said it might be of use some day. I had no such hope, but now—my God, Peggy, with that coat and your story, the case against Vandyke seems to me complete!"

"How thankful I am to hear you say that!" I almost sobbed, moved by his excitement to greater excitement of my own. "I felt it must be so; but I'm only a girl. I didn't know. I couldn't be sure. Oh, Eagle! You'll never understand what it is to me to think I've been able to help you, even a little. If it hadn't been for me the dreadful thing would never have happened. You'd still be just what you were before we met."

"You've not helped me a 'little'; you've given me new life," he said. "Some time I'll tell you, maybe, why I'd rather have the gift from you than any one else. But I can't understand what you mean by saying 'the thing would never have happened' if it hadn't been for you."

"If I hadn't wanted a new dress, and if I hadn't gone to Wardour Street to sell my lace and make money to buy the frock, we should never have known each other. You wouldn't have seen Diana; we shouldn't have gone to America, and if we hadn't gone to America, and met Major Vandyke, those guns would never have been fired, and heaps of official bother would have been saved. But far the best of all, you would have been as happy as ever!'"

"You might as well blame yourself for being born," said Eagle; "and on my soul, I tell you, Peggy, that even without the new hope you've given me to-night, I wouldn't go back if I could choose, and be without my experience in Belgium, or—or without you in my life."

He held out his hands for mine, and I gave them to a grasp that hurt. Something he was about to say; but before he had time to speak there came a long shrill peal of the electric bell.

Eagle dropped my hands instantly. "By Jove! It must be Jim. He's forgotten his key! I don't want him to see you, Peggy. He's a very good fellow, but a rattle-brain—tells everything he knows. Run behind that red screen, and when I've got him into his own room, which I'll do somehow in a few minutes, I'll take you to a taxi, and drive home with you if it can be managed."

I whisked behind the screen, peeping out to whisper: "Better hide the khaki coat if you don't want questions!"

Eagle took my advice, handing me the coat to keep for him as he passed on his way to the door. There was plenty of room to stand behind the screen without flattening myself against the wall. And without danger of being seen I could look through the interstices between the leaves of the screen into the brightly lighted room.

I heard Eagle's footsteps on the parquet floor of the vestibule. I heard the click of the latch as he opened the door. After that, instead of a loud, jolly greeting from his friend, there was dead silence for an instant. Then a woman's voice spoke in a low tone of intense and passionate eagerness. I had never heard it speak in that tone before. But with a shock of surprise and fear, I recognized the voice: it was Diana's.