Colonel Montague had turned the strong-box upside down and emptied the papers on the scrutoire, so that they lay face downwards. By a scruple of delicacy, having read the topmost letter to make sure it was Lady Oxford's hand, he looked at them no more. He took them up one by one, face downwards, and so burned them separately, knowing no doubt that, lighted in a single heap, only those on the outside and the edges of the letters in the middle, would catch fire. One by one he burnt them face downwards at the candle, the secret letters of the Cause. He had burned three, and he now held the fourth in his hand. He approached it to the candle; he did not so much as look at it. But had he merely glanced once at Mr. Kelly leaning there against the panels of the door, that glance would have surely told him what papers he was burning. Kelly did not speak a word, or stir a muscle. He had wiped the sweat from his face a second ago, but his forehead was wet now: his eyes stared greedily at the papers: a slow smile, of a knavish kind, that went very ill with his face, curved his lips. An extreme temptation chained him; the Devil whispered in his ear, 'Be silent,' and the Parson held his peace. The blue-edged letter bidding him to the rout he had slipped on the top of the Chevalier's papers, as he had told Mr. Wogan. Colonel Montague was merrily burning the papers of the Plot. Kelly had but to hold his tongue, and in a few minutes he was safe. The Cause was saved so far as the papers went, and Lady Oxford, her letters unburned, was lost. No wonder the key did not fit; it was the wrong key! Kelly could see the corner of Wogan's strong-box peeping out from beneath a thatch of papers in the corner of the scrutoire. All this the Parson saw and understood in the one short moment during which Montague approached the paper to the candle. His mind was tossed up and down in a tempest; the winds of temptation blew hard against the tides of his nature. On one side was safety and the King's interest, and Rose, who to be sure need never know of the treachery by which the Parson had won her; on the other, a broken pledge that he had given to the Colonel, and the ruin of Smilinda, who had betrayed him. Montague lit the sheet of paper and held it up. Kelly saw the blue flame creep down from the edge, the writing turn brown, the paper curl over black and tattered, with a multitude of red sparks; and still he kept his peace. Montague dropped the ashes on the scrutoire, and took a fifth paper from the pile. The Parson turned away, and laid his ear to the panel, making a pretence that he heard Hutchins stirring in the passage. 'Be quick!' he said first, and then, moistening his dry lips with his tongue: 'Make quite sure you have Smilinda's letters.' 'Smilinda?' asked Montague. Kelly forced a laugh. 'No doubt she called herself something equally pretty to you.' 'Phylissa,' growled Montague.