“Is this a fresh scheme for conquest, Philippa?” she asked, as they stood together by the log fire.

Philippa unexpectedly flushed.

“I don't know what I was thinking about, really,” she confessed. “Is that the exact time, I wonder?”

“Two minutes to eight,” Helen replied.

“Mr. Lessingham is always so punctual,” Philippa murmured. “I wonder if Captain Griffiths would dare!”

“We've done our best to warn him,” Helen reminded her friend. “The man is simply pig-headed.”

“I can't help feeling that he's right,” Philippa declared, “when he argues that they couldn't really prove anything against him.”

“Does that matter,” Helen asked anxiously, “so long as he is an enemy, living under a false name here?”

“You don't think they'd—they'd—”

“Shoot him?” Helen whispered, lowering her voice. “They couldn't do that! They couldn't do that!”