Chapter 9 - Page 2

hold of the soldiers and people who stood about. Women, when they chose to be, were the most dangerous of all spies and the watchers regarded them with intense curiosity.

Neither was veiled. Julie was erect, and her chin high. John saw that the girl had become a woman, matured by hardship and danger, and she looked more beautiful than ever to him that morning. Her cheeks were pale and tiny curls of the deep golden hair escaped from her hood and clustered about her temples. John's heart swam with pity. Truly, she was a bird in the hands of the fowler.

She gave a glance half appealing and half defiant at the people, but the stalwart Suzanne who followed her was wholly grim and challenging. Then something strange occurred. John had the most intense anxiety for her to look at him. He had no belief whatever in anything supernatural, but sound, intelligible words were made to travel on waves of air, and it was barely possible in this unexplored world that thought too might be propelled in the same way.

Almost unconsciously he kept his eyes upon Julie's and he poured his very soul into the gaze. It was only a little distance from the door to the automobile which she was to take, and he had time. His gaze became concentrated, burning, a thing more of the spirit than of sight, and as her eyes glanced once more about the circle of idle spectators they met his own and rested there.

John looked straight into their dark blue depths and he saw a startled flash leap up. Chance or a power yet unknown had drawn her gaze and made her vision keen. He saw that she knew him, knew him even in that peasant's dress and under the new stubble of beard. The flash became for a moment a fire, and her figure quivered, but he was not afraid. He had an instinctive confidence that she would understand, and that she would not betray him by any impulsive act.

"I am here to save you," his eyes said.

"I know it," hers replied.

"I will follow you across the world to help you."

"I know that, too."

"Don't betray the fact that you've seen a friend."

"I will not."

Thus the eyes spoke to one another and understood what was said. Julie's glance passed on, and with unfaltering step she entered an automobile, the German chauffeur standing by the side of it and respectfully holding the door. Suzanne followed, the chauffeur closed the door, sprang into his seat and the little train moved majestically through the streets of Metz. Comment was plentiful and it was not unkind to Julie.

"Too handsome to be executed as a spy," said a burly German almost in John's ear. "A girl with a face like that should never feel the touch of a bullet or a rope. It's a face to be kissed and a neck to fit into a man's arm."

The man's phrasing was rough, but both his admiration and his pity were