“Yes.” He dropped his haggard face on his arms a moment, then sat bolt upright. “Truth is better than life,” he said, slowly. “I lied to you and to myself when I came back. I did come to get Speed’s balloon, but I came ... for her sake,... to be near her,... to see her once more before I—”
“Yes, I understand, Kelly.”
He winced and leaned wearily back.
“You are right,” he said; “I wanted to end it,... I am tired.”
I sat thinking for a moment; the light in the room faded to a glimmer on the panes.
“Kelly,” I said, “there remains another way to risk your neck, and, I think, a nobler way. There is in this house a woman who is running a terrible risk—a German spy whose operations have been discovered. This woman believes that she has in her pay the communist leader of the revolt, a man called Buckhurst. She is in error. And she must leave this house to-night.”
Eyre’s face had paled. He bent forward, clasped hands between his knees, eyes fastened on me.
“There will be trouble here to-night—or, in all probability, within the next twenty-four hours. I expect to see Buckhurst a prisoner. And when that happens it will go hard with Mademoiselle Elven, for he will turn on her to save himself.... And you know what that means;... a blank wall, Kelly, and a firing-squad. There is but one sex for spies.”
A deadly fear was stamped on his bloodless face. I saw it, tense and quivering, in the gray light of the window. 352
“She must leave to-night, Kelly. She must try to cross into Spain. Will you help her?”