To his consternation, he had scarcely reached there when the door below was opened. How this had been effected, he did not know. He had been so interested in the documents, that he had had no time to examine the mechanism of the portal. At first he heard only the voices of Riddle and Kingsland. Fearing that the conspirators only were present, and that, being three to one, he might be overpowered, and his precious evidence wrested from him, he endeavoured, by the agitation of the steel curtain and the red light of his lamp, to contrive such ghostly illusions, as should serve to deter them from investigating the upper portions of the tower. It can be imagined therefore what a welcome relief Kent-Lauriston's tones were to him, and the instant he knew that his friend was below, he felt perfectly safe from an attack by force. He therefore lost no time in descending, his footsteps producing, as we have seen, a most startling effect on those below. Kent-Lauriston was the first to recognise him, and seeing at a glance that his clothes were torn and spotted with blood, he sprang forward to assist his friend and helped him into the hall. "Where's my letter, you thief?" cried Darcy. "You've come too late," replied the Secretary, recovering himself. "You've come too late. The treaty will go through." Darcy growled an oath as the measure of the Secretary's knowledge became known to him. "I know who's put you on to it," he cried. "It's that cursed Irish----!" "Go!" cried Stanley, in a burst of wrath at this insult to a woman. "Go, before I knock you down, and as you value your safety, meet me here at eleven to-morrow morning. You've held the whip hand long enough. It's my turn now." CHAPTER XXXV THE SHORT WAY OUT "I suppose it's hardly necessary to ask if you found Darcy's letter?" said Kent-Lauriston to the Secretary, as they were returning to the house about an hour later from a trip to the telegraph office, whither Stanley had gone to send a long message in cipher to his Chief. "Oh, yes," he said. "I have it in my possession." "Does it give you all the information you required?" "As a bit of evidence it's overwhelmingly complete--but it gives me some additional information which is not so pleasant," replied the Secretary, who had needed no second glance at the document to assure himself that it was Mr. Riddle's letter and had been once before in his possession. "I've no desire to pry into your affairs, either private or diplomatic, my dear fellow; but of course I'm able to infer a good deal, and if you felt inclined to assure me, that this made you master of the situation, and placed Darcy completely in your power, it would make me feel very much easier." "Then you may be quite easy," returned the Secretary. "I hold all the trumps. I could have the Colonel arrested to-night, if I chose, and my evidence is of such a nature that it will practically banish him from his country and from mine."