“Thank you,” would be the reply I received from the Gouverneur Faulkner of the State of Harpeth, with never one small look into my eyes that so besought his.

And for all of the hours of that very long afternoon I sat on a low stool beside the feet of those two great gentlemen and served them in their communications while the heart in my breast was going into death by a slow, cruel torture.

The exact meaning of those papers and words of business I did not know, but once I observed my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, throw down his pencil and look into the face of the Gouverneur Faulkner with a great and stern astonishment.

“The work of grafters, Captain Lasselles, with a woman as a tool.  But I yet don’t see just how it was that she worked it.  My Secretary of State, General Carruthers, and I have been at work for weeks and we could not catch the exact fraud,” made answer my Gouverneur Faulkner with a cold sternness.

“I was warned in Paris that beautiful American women were very much interested in the placing of war contracts, Monsieur le Gouverneur.  I fled upon a tug boat from the ship that I escape some for whom I had letters of introduction which I could not ignore.”

“It was your Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, whom that Madam Whitworth sought upon the ship, Roberta,” I said to myself.

“I think women are alike the world over, Captain, and the discussion of them and their mental and moral processes is—­fruitless,” answered my Gouverneur Faulkner as he again took up his pencil.

“When it happened to me to find the fragment of the letter to the lady of America from my false lieutenant, I had a deep distress that tenderness for the sufferings of poor France should fail to be in even one American woman’s heart.  And now I am in deep concern.  Where am I to obtain the good strong mules by which to transport through fields heavy with mud the food to my poor boys in their trenches?”

“Right here, Captain, I feel reasonably sure.  I think I see a way to give you what you want at a better figure; and from it no man shall reap more than a just wage for honest work.  As the Governor of the State of Harpeth, I can give you at least that assurance.”  And as he spoke my Gouverneur Faulkner looked the Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles, in the eyes with a fine honesty that carried with it the utmost of conviction.

“I give thanks to le bon Dieu,” I said with words that were very soft in my throat, but at which I observed the mouth of that Gouverneur Faulkner to again become as one straight line of coldness.

“Indeed, thanks to le bon Dieu, Mademoiselle,” made courteous answer to me my Capitaine, the Count de Lasselles.  “But how will you accomplish that purpose.  Monsieur le Gouverneur?”