Rachel went quickly out of the room. At that moment the hall door bell rang violently. Rendel started and went to the window. In the phase of acute tension in which he found himself, every unexpected sound carried an untold significance, but he was not prepared for what this one betokened: Lord Stamfordham in the street, dismounting from his horse. Stamfordham was accustomed to ride every morning from eight till nine, alone and unattended. Thacker hurried out to hold the horse. Rendel followed him and met Stamfordham on the doorstep. He led the way quickly across the hall into his study and shut the door. They both felt instinctively that greetings were superfluous. "Have you seen the _Arbiter_?" Stamfordham said. "Yes," said Rendel, looking him straight in the face with eager expectation. "So have I," said Stamfordham, "at the German Embassy. I had not seen it before leaving home, but I saw a poster at the corner, and I went straight to Bergowitz to ask him what it meant; he is as much in the dark as I am." "In the dark!" said Rendel, looking at him amazed. "What! but--was it not you who published it?" "_I_ publish it?" said Stamfordham. "Do you mean to say you thought I had?" "Of course I did! who else?" said Rendel. "Who else?" Stamfordham repeated. "I have come here to ask you that." "To ask _me_?" said Rendel, bewildered. "How should I know? I have not seen those papers since I gave the packet sealed to Thacker to take it to you." "And I received it," said Stamfordham, "sealed and untampered with, and opened it myself, and it has not been out of my keeping since." "But at the German Embassy," said Rendel, "since it was telegraphed...?" "The substance of the interview was telegraphed," said Stamfordham, "but not the map--_not the map_," he said emphatically. "That map no one has seen besides Bergowitz, you, and myself. Bergowitz it would be quite absurd to suspect, he is as genuinely taken back as I am--I know that it didn't get out through me, and therefore----" he paused and looked Rendel in the face. "What!" said Rendel, with a sort of cry. A horrible light, an incredible interpretation was beginning to dawn upon him. "You can't think it was through _me_?" "What else can I think?" said Stamfordham--Rendel still looked at him aghast--"since the papers after I gave them into your keeping were apparently not out of it until they passed into mine again? I brought them to you here myself. Of course I see now I ought not to have done so, but how could I have imagined----" Rendel hurriedly interrupted him.