“Like a detective play!” were the first words that sprang to her lips.  “Well?” As she faced around her eyes glittered in the lantern’s rays.  “Well, have you any other little tricks to show me?  Are you a sleight-of-hand artist, too, Lanny?  Are you going to take a machine gun out of your hat?”

“That is the whole bag,” he answered.  “I thought you’d rather see it than have it described to you.”

“Having seen it, let us go!” she said, in a manner that implied further reckoning to come.

“If out of a thousand possible sources one source succeeds, then the cost and pains of the other nine hundred and ninety-nine are more than repaid,” he was saying urgently, the soldier uppermost in him.  “Some of the best service we have had has been absurd in its simplicity and its audacity.  In time of war more than one battle has been decided by a thing that was a trifle in itself.  No matter what your preparation, you can never remove the element of chance.  An hour gained in information about your enemy’s plans may turn the tide in your favor.  A Chinese peasant spy, because he happened to be intoxicated, was able to give the Japanese warning in time for Kuroki to make full dispositions for receiving the Russian attack in force at the Sha-ho.  There are many other incidents of like nature in history.  So it is my duty to neglect no possible method, however absurd.”

By this time he was at the head of the steps.  Standing to one side, he offered his hand to assist Marta.  But she seemed not to see it.  Her aspect was that of downright antagonism.

“However absurd! yes, it is absurd to think that you can make me a party to any of your plans, for—­” She broke off abruptly with starting eyes, as if she had seen an apparition.

Lanstron turned and through the door of the tool-room saw Feller entering the sitting-room.  He was not the bent, deferential old gardener, nor was he the Feller changed to youth as he thought of himself at the head of a battery.  His features were hard-set, a fighting rage burning in his eyes, his sinews taut as if about to spring upon an adversary.  When he recognized the intruders he turned limp, his head dropped, hiding his face with his hat brim, and he steadied himself by resting a hand on the table edge.

“Oh, it’s you, Lanny—­Colonel Lanstron!” he exclaimed thickly.  “I saw that some one had come in here and naturally I was alarmed, as nobody but myself ever enters.  And Miss Galland!” He removed his hat deferentially and bowed; his stoop returned and the lines of his face drooped.  “I was so stupid; it did not occur to me that you might be showing the tower to Colonel Lanstron.”

“We are sorry to have given you a fright!” said Marta very gently.

“Eh? eh?” queried Feller, again deaf.  “Fright?  Oh, no, no fright.  It might have been some boys from the town marauding.”

He was about to withdraw, in keeping with his circumspect adherence to his part, which he played with a sincerity that half-convinced even himself at times that he was really deaf, when the fire flickered back suddenly to his eyes and he glanced from Lanstron to the stairway in desperate inquiry.