Gerald made a hurried move, the piece rattling upon the board as if he had been playing the castanets. His father made him take it back. I sat watching the two in wonder and silence. What did it all mean? Why should Barnes--now behind the screen listening--have read the outer letter? Why must Laura be employed to read the inner? Why could not this cultivated and refined gentleman before me read his--Ah! That much was disclosed. A mere turn of the hand did it. He had made another of those passes over the board, and I learned from it what an ordinary examination would not have detected. He, the old soldier with the placid face and light blue eyes, was blind! Quite blind! I began to see more clearly now. And from this moment I took up, in my own mind, a different position. Possibly the servant who had impelled me into the middle of the scene had had good reasons for doing so, as I began to discern. But with a clue to the labyrinth in my hand I could no longer move passively. I must act for myself. For a while I sat still and made no sign. But my suspicions were presently confirmed. The elder man more than once scolded his opponent for playing slowly; in one of the intervals caused by his opponent's indecision he took from an inside pocket of his waistcoat a small packet. "You had better take your letter, George," he said. "If there are originals in it, they will be more safe with you than with me. You can tell me all about it, now you are here. Gerald will leave us presently." He held the papers towards me. To take them was to take an active part in the imposture, and I hesitated, my hand half outstretched. But my eyes fell at the critical instant upon Master Gerald's face, and my scruples took themselves off. He was eyeing the packet with an intense greed, with a trembling longing--a very itching of the fingers, to fall upon the prey--that put an end to my doubts. I took the papers. With a quiet, but I think a significant, look in his direction, I placed them in the breast-pocket of my coat. I had no safer receptacle about me, or into that they would have gone. "Very well, sir," I said. "There is no particular hurry. I think the matter will keep, as things now are, until to-morrow." "So much the better. You ought not to be out with such a cold, my boy," he continued. "You will find a decanter of the Scotch whisky you gave me last Christmas on the tray. Will you have some with hot water and a lemon? The servants are all at the theatre--Gerald begged a holiday for them--but Barnes will get you the things in a minute." "Thank you; I won't trouble him. I will take some with cold water," I replied, thinking I should gain in this way what I wanted--time to think; five minutes to myself, while they played. But I was out in my reckoning. "I will have mine also now," he said. "Will you mix it, Gerald?"