Laurence--already ashamed of his tears--had struggled to his feet. He passed his hand across his moist forehead and through his unruly hair, and tried to look Leatherface valiantly between the eyes. "Partly that," he said resolutely. "But I’ll not speak of her. It was she then who betrayed us all?" he added with another heartbroken cry. To this Leatherface made no answer, and Laurence continued more calmly: "It was of the lists I wish to speak. The papers which His Highness entrusted to my care." "Yes?" "I went to look for them after ... after she left the house, and found that they had gone." "Then what did you do?" "I knew that we were betrayed ... then ... there ... at once ... and by her ... an exquisite woman, Messire, whom I ... Oh! it was horrible!" he exclaimed, and even now a look that was almost like death came over his wan cheeks and hollow eyes. Then once more he resumed quietly: "For a few moments the blow of this awful discovery completely stunned me. I could neither think nor act. My first coherent thought was to consult with my mother as to what had best be done. How to find His Highness until evening I knew not, or how to obtain duplicate lists, so that I could run round the town and warn all our followers of the terrible danger that threatened them." "You did not think of flight? ... for your mother, I mean?..." "I entreated my mother to leave the city at once, but she refused to go, and we were standing face to face with one another and the terrible calamity that had befallen us all when Pierre came in with a letter, which--he said--was given to him in the open street by a man whom he did not know. The letter, I take it, came from you." "Yes," replied the other, "I was afraid that you might do something rash, and raise the alarm before it was necessary. The lists," he added, "are quite safe. I was able after His Highness left the High-Bailiff’s house last night to extract them from the bureau, where I did not feel that they were over safe; in their place I put a packet containing fictitious lists of men who do not exist, and places of abode which are not to be found in this city. It is these which have been sent to señor de Vargas. I had just time to scribble these and to place them in a conspicuous place in the bureau." "You used a false key then?" queried Laurence in bewilderment. "Am I not a spy of the Prince of Orange?" retorted the other with a quaint little laugh, "and are not all spies provided with means of forcing secret locks? Here are the lists," he added, as from inside his doublet he half drew the packets of papers. "When you are called to account for them, you can return them without fear. No one will know that they ever left your care ... that is, if you have not spoken of it before now...."