He left the personal question altogether, and spoke of the affairs of the brotherhood. "There must be traitors amongst us," he said presently, "although I do not think they are to be found in Spain--so many things have leaked out." "Yes." She spoke very quickly. "There was the failure of poor Valerie Delmonte. Do you think there was treachery there?" "I rather doubt it," answered Moreno easily. "My theory has always been that she drew suspicion on herself by her inexperience, her amateurish methods, her suspicious movements when she got inside the Palace. If the job had been entrusted to me, with my steady nerves, I think I should have been successful. I boasted as much to Contraras, and I suppose that is the reason he has given me this job." Violet was silent. Moreno went on smoothly. "But with regard to that affair of Guy Rossett, the information he got which, for the moment, frustrated our plans--that was clearly the work of a traitor. That happened just before I came on the scene, but Lucue has told me all about it." He was looking at her very steadfastly. She was trying to avoid his gaze, but those dark, brilliant eyes of his drew her lighter ones with a certain mesmeric power. She was not acting well to-night, he thought. There crept into her troubled glance a shadow of fear. She tried to speak lightly, indifferently, but her voice broke and faltered, in spite of her efforts at self-control. "It seems like it. Have you any idea of who the traitor was?" Moreno rose and walked over to the little shabby sofa, typical furniture of the mean lodgings, where she sat. He flung at her the direct challenge. "It is not a question of having an idea. _I know_." She laughed hysterically; she hardly knew what she was saying. "You think you know, perhaps. Probably you have been led to suspect the wrong person." "Not when I have seen the actual memoranda, not when I have a photograph of that memoranda in my possession, to show, if necessary, to Contraras." For a moment she seemed paralysed. All the colour left her cheeks. She could only clasp her hands together and moan piteously. Moreno spoke quite gently. "Violet Hargrave, you haven't an ounce of fight left in you. Give in and own you sold those secrets to Guy Rossett. I expect he paid a handsome sum for them--and probably because you sold them, you lost your lover." She burst into a fit of wild sobbing, and threw herself at his feet. She had not the heroic spirit of Valerie Delmonte. She was only a very commonplace adventuress, with a well-defined streak of cowardice in her. Like Madame Du Barri, she would have gone shrieking to her death. "Are you going to denounce me?" she cried wildly. Moreno was a kind-hearted man. To an extent he despised her, although he was half in love with her. But he could not but feel pitiful at the spectacle of her abject terror. "That depends," he said quietly. "It is quite possible we may drive a bargain."