"I think not. There were some chests containing stereopticon slides, and Belle asked me to put them in a bank for her." "The Victoria Street Branch of the Bank of England." "Exactly." "A good many slides, I imagine; rather heavy, weren't they?" "Gad, I should think they were. It took two porters to lift each chest." "I suppose you told the bank authorities what was in the chests?" "No, I was told there was nothing to say. I was only to surrender them, and a sealed note, which would explain all." "Did they give you a receipt for it?" "Yes." "Can anybody get the chests out?" "No, only the person mentioned in the receipt." "Have you still got the receipt?" "Yes." "Very good," said the Secretary. "I see your luck has not deserted you." "And now," said Kingsland, "that I've answered all your questions, perhaps you'll tell me what you mean." "This is what I mean," replied Stanley, handing him that first part of his Minister's letter which he had shown to Darcy. The Lieutenant read it once, not understanding its purport; then again, his brow becoming wrinkled with anxiety; and yet again, with a very white face. "What is it?" he gasped. "It looks dangerously like treason, doesn't it?" returned the Secretary. "But what is this bribe?" "You ought to know that, as you carried it up to London, in sovereigns." "What--how much was it?" "Forty thousand pounds in gold." "Good heavens!" said the Lieutenant, and mopped his brow. "But I didn't know anything about it!" "That doesn't prevent you from having participated in one of the most rascally plots of your day and generation; from being a party in an attempt to overthrow, by the most open and shameless bribery, a treaty pending between the government you serve and mine." "But, if this gets out, I'll be cashiered from the navy." "Oh, I don't think they'd stop there," said the Secretary reassuringly. "Not with the proof of that receipt." "Good Lord, I forgot that! Here, take it, will you?" "Certainly. Suppose we open it and see if it proves my assertion," and, suiting the action to the word, he placed in the Lieutenant's shaking hands a receipt of deposit in the Victoria Street Branch of the Bank of England, by Miss Isabelle Fitzgerald, kindness of Lieutenant J. Kingsland, of forty thousand pounds. "Can't you help me?" he asked. "It rests entirely with me." "Then you will?" "Tell me all you know. "But I don't know anything, except what I've told you. I give you my word as an officer and a gentleman, that I've been let into this affair in a most shameful manner, and that I'm entirely innocent, and ignorant of everything connected with it." "I believe you, Lieutenant Kingsland." "And you won't prosecute?" "Not if you'll promise to drop this gang; they're a bad lot. Promise me you'll cut loose from them as soon as possible, for your wife's sake." "I will," he said. "I will, old man. I can't thank you enough for what you've done."