“Oh! on these points we are, naturally, not wholly dark,” said the Minister. “We have known for a year of this somewhat theatrical display on the part of the French, but the lines of the threatened invasion are not such as your remarkable narrative suggests. You have been good enough to honour me with your confidence, Mr. Greig; let me reciprocate by telling you that we have our--our good friends in France, and that for six months back I have been in possession of the Chevalier D'Arcy's instructions to Dumont to reconnoitre the English coast, and of Dumont's report, with the chart of the harbours and towns where he proposed that the descent should be made.” He smiled somewhat grimly. “The gentleman who gave us the information,” he went on, “stipulated for twenty thousand pounds and a pension of two thousand a year as the just reward for his loving service to his country in her hour of peril. He was not to get his twenty thousand, I need scarcely say, but he was to get something in the event of his intelligence proving to be accurate, and if it were for no more than to get the better of such a dubious patriot I should wish his tale wholly disproved, though we have hitherto acted on the assumption that it might be trustworthy. There cannot be alternative plans of invasion; our informant--another Scotsman, I may say--is either lying or has merely the plan of a feint.” “You are most kind, sir,” said I. “Oh,” he said, “I take your story first, and as probably the most correct, simply because it comes from one that loves his country and makes no bagman's bargains for the sale of secrets vital to her existence.” “I am much honoured, sir,” said I, with a bow. And then he stopped his walk abruptly and faced me again. “You have told me, Mr. Greig,” he went on, “that Conflans is to descend in a week or two on the coast of Scotland, and that Thurot is to create a diversion elsewhere with the aid of the Swedes, I have, from the most delicate considerations, refrained from asking you how you know all this?” “I heard it from the lips of Thurot himself.” “Thurot! impossible!” he murmured. “Of Thurot himself, sir.” “You must be much in that pirate's confidence,” said Mr. Pitt, for the first time with suspicion. “Not to that extent that he would tell me of his plans for invading my country,” I answered, “and I learned these things by the merest accident. I overheard him speak last Sunday in Dunkerque with the Young Pretender--” “The Pretender!” cried the Minister, shrugging his shoulders, and looking at me with more suspicion than ever. “You apparently move in the most select and interesting society, Mr. Greig?” “In this case, sir, it was none of my choosing,” I replied, and went on briefly to explain how I had got into Thurot's chamber unknown to him, and unwittingly overhead the Prince and him discuss the plan.