"There was queer goings-on here last night, miss," she said cautiously.
"Spies!"

"Oh, no!" cried Sara Lee.

"Spies," she repeated. "A man and a woman, pretending to be Belgian
refugees. They took them away at daylight. I expect by now they've
been shot."

Sara Lee ate very little breakfast that morning. All through England
it was confidently believed that spies were shot on discovery, a theory
that has been persistent--and false, save at the battle line--since
the beginning of the war. And Henri's plan assumed new proportions.
Suppose she made her attempt and failed? Suppose they took her for a
spy, and that tomorrow's sun found her facing a firing squad? Not,
indeed, that she had ever heard of a firing squad, as such. But she
had seen spies shot in the movies. They invariably stood in front of
a brick wall, with the hero in the center.

So she absent-mindedly ate her kippered herring, which had been strongly
recommended by the waiter, and tried to think of what a spy would do, so
she might avoid any suspicious movements. It struck her, too, that war
seemed to have made the people on that side of the ocean extremely ready
with weapons. They would be quite likely to shoot first and ask
questions afterwards--which would be too late to be helpful.

She remembered Henri, for instance, and the way, without a word, he had
shot the donkey.