"Disastrous! Yes," he answered. "Letters that are of a nature to lend themselves to blackmailing purposes are not worth the risk of a man's life--and character. I suppose you might argue that I've boasted I hold life cheaply, and you doubtless consider I have no character to lose. Confess now," he added, in response to the other's hastily uttered protest, "that until those letters were safe in your hands you entertained a suspicion that I might misuse them?" The Colonel sought for words and sought vainly. He was far too ruggedly honest to deny the charge. After a moment or two of silence he tacitly admitted it. "Most men are liable to mistakes," he said. "And... I suppose I was prejudiced." The man lying back in the easy-chair smiled drily. "I am so unfortunate as to prejudice most people unfavourably. A profligate adventurer can scarcely expect to do otherwise." An almost inaudible sound broke from Zoe Lawless' lips. He did not look at her but continued in the same bitter strain to the pain and embarrassment of both his hearers. "For every offence of which I've been guilty I've had to pay to the uttermost farthing. On appearance I've been convicted of sins I haven't committed. It's the luck, I suppose, of the man who is marked for failure from the beginning of things." "I can understand," Colonel Grey said, making ready allowance for his mood, "your resentment of certain injuries. I offer you my frank apologies for the very unworthy suspicions I have entertained. But if I have harboured doubts of you, I have also had moments when I have felt that those doubts were unjustified. I assert, in spite of your morbid imagining, that you more readily inspire confidence than distrust." "Then how comes it that I failed in inspiring you with confidence?" "It was probably," Colonel Grey began, and stopped, looking with some pity at the haggard face. "Really, my dear fellow," he said, "is it wise to continue this painful subject?" "Why not?" The man in the chair sat straighter and pulled himself together with an effort. "I've a fancy somehow," he said, "for having the matter out... You've had a down on me ever since you knew I fought against my own side in the Boer war. It's natural, of course--most people would feel as you do about it. And yet I don't regret it--even now." "That's an old story," the Colonel said. "Why revive it?"