Then she seemed to meditate, while her husband gazed at her, a prey to conflicting emotions, and Sir Horace made himself as small as possible. "I see," she continued in a different tone. "Only--only if you thought that, why did you never say anything? Why did you not scold me, beat me, Stafford? I do not--I do not understand." "I thought," he explained in despair--he had so mismanaged matters--"that perhaps I had left you--out of the swim, as you call it, Betty. That I had not treated you very well, and after all it might be my own fault." "And you said nothing! You intended to say nothing?" He nodded. "Gad!" cried Sir Horace very softly. But Lady Betty said nothing. She turned after a long look at her husband, and went out of the room, her eyes wet with tears. The two men heard her pause a moment on the landing, and then go upstairs and shut her door. But her foot, even to their gross ears, seemed to touch the stairs as if it loved them, and there was a happy lingering in the slamming of the door. They looked, when she had left them, anywhere but at one another. Sir Horace sought inspiration in his boots, and presently found it. "Wonder who did it, then?" he burst out at last. "Ah! I wonder," replied the ex-minister, descending at a bound from the cloudland to which his thoughts had borne him. "I never pushed the inquiry; you know why now. But they should be able to enlighten us at the _Times_ office. We could learn in whose handwriting the copy was, at any rate. It is not well to have spies about us." "I can tell you in whose handwriting they say it was," Sir Horace said bluntly. "In whose?" "In Atlay's." Mr. Stafford did not look surprised. Instead of answering he thought. As a result of which he presently left the room in silence. When he came back he had a copy of the _Times_ in his hand, and his face wore a look of perplexity. "I have read the riddle," he said, "and yet it is a riddle to me still. I never found time to read the report of my speech at the Club. It occurred to me to look at it now. It is full of errors; so full that it is clear the printer had not the corrected proof Atlay prepared. Therefore I conclude that Atlay's copy of the terms went to the _Times_ instead of the speech. But how was the mistake made?" "That is the question." It happened that the private secretary came into the room at this juncture. "Atlay," Mr. Stafford said at once, "I want you. Carry your mind back a week--to this day week. Are you sure that you sent the report of my speech at the Club to the _Times?_" "Am I sure?" the other replied confidently, nothing daunted by being so abruptly challenged. "I am quite sure I did, sir. I remember the circumstances. I found the report--it was type-written you remember--lying on the blotting-pad when I came down before dinner. I slipped it into an envelope, and put it in the box. I can see myself doing it now." "But how do you know that it was the report you put in the envelope?"