TRAITOR OR TRUE LOVER?

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 154, 16 June 1911, Page 11

TRAITOR OR TRUE LOVER?

CURIOUS SPYING STORY.

FRENCH LADY’S ARREST.

Berlin, May 10. Mademoiselle Thirion. who has been taken into custody by the ! Cologne police, appears to be »either a very accomplished spy or a victim of an immoderate appetite ! for romance. This young lady, who is a Parisian by birth, and is said ;to be remotely related to the French Premier. M. Mon is. was nominally earning a livelihood by initiating ladies and gentlemen moving in military circles into the mysteries of her native tongue, and as her clientele was a large one. no doubt found this occupation [ quite profitable. Among her pupils. ! however, was an officer who, at. f her. bidding, laid before her a much ! more interesting document than the . exercises and translations proper to J their tutorial relationship, namely a copy of one of the German mobilisation schemes, which he had abi stracted from the fortress of ! Wesel.

The fact that she had gained possession of this jealously-guarded secret came to the knowledge of the authorities, and she was promptly arrested. But, while evidently unable to deny the fact, she had a much more innocent inter-

pretation of it than that which had; naturally suggested itself to the I minds of her accusers. Her at count of the matter is that the pen I lous task which she set her accom |pl ice was merely intended to be i I touchstone of his love. He had } she declares, sought her bar d in I marriage, and to test the strength of his affection and the-measurt < I [his devotion, she called upon him | to prove false to his military rtli I ami court a risk more terrible rhn that of deatli, assured, as she put it, that if he did this for her akc ,he would show himself to be a l true character.'’ : How far this ingenious explan t ! tion will help to get her out of ht-.ri I scrape remains to be seen. The . ; military authorities are, as usu.il, j very reticent about the affair, anti i it is always possible that the! ’ imaginative powers which the story: * reveals may have brim exercised in i the telling as well as .in the making of it.