"What is THE GREAT SECRET?" she asked calmly.
After a long while he said, lying there very still: "So you have even heard about that."
"I have heard about it; that is all."
"Do you know what it is?"
"All I know about it is that there is such a thing—something known to certain Germans, and by them spoken of as THE GREAT SECRET. I imagine, of course, that it is some vital military secret which they desire to guard."
"Is that all you know about it?"
"No, not all." She looked at him gravely out of very clear, honest eyes:
"I know, also, that the Berlin Government has ordered its agents to discover your whereabouts, and to'silence' you."
He gazed at her quite blandly for a moment, then, to her amazement, he laughed—such a clear, untroubled, boyish laugh that her constrained expression softened in sympathy.
"Do you think that Berlin doesn't mean it?" she asked, brightening a little.