“I am to be Minister of the new department in a day or two,” said Baltazar, “and I’m in the inner confidence of the War Cabinet.” “But it’s in your son’s handwriting!” “It’s my handwriting,” said Baltazar calmly. He drew from his pocket a sheaf of notes for a speech and handed them to Donnithorpe. “Compare, if you like.” Donnithorpe returned them with a curious thin snarl and held out the other paper. “Then you wrote this too?” Baltazar glanced at it. It was the first sheet of a letter from which the other sheet had been torn. Lady Edna saw it and again swayed, half fainting with sickening humiliation. The only one of Godfrey’s letters—and only part of one—which she had kept: two pages breathing such a passionate love as she had never dreamed that a man in real life could express to woman. She had forgotten that she had left that, too, in the secret drawer. She stared haggardly into Baltazar s face. His lips twisted into a smile. “Yes. I wrote that too,” said he. “Then you’re a damned villain!” cried Donnithorpe. “Very possibly,” said Baltazar. Donnithorpe turned in his rat-like way to his wife. “What have you to say about it?” Suddenly recovered from her fit of terror and shame, she withdrew her grip from Baltazar’s arm and held herself up with the scornful poise of her head. “Nothing,” she said. “You can flatter yourself now you know everything.” He did not heed her words, but once more looked from one to the other with a thin, chuckling laugh. “You’re a pretty pair. You, my lady. And you, Mr. Minister of Publicity. It strikes me you’ll have to postpone your elopement.” “You’ve got elopement on the brain, my good fellow,” said Baltazar. “A Minister of Publicity doesn’t elope with a lady with nothing but what he stands up in. Where’s my luggage?” “There,” replied Donnithorpe, pointing to the barriers to the platform. “Didn’t the porter say she had ordered two seats—one for a gentleman?” “This is getting wearisome,” said Lady Edna. “I’ve already told you how the mistake arose.” The solicitous porter, already rewarded with five shillings, and belonging to a race as richly endowed with human failings as any other in the world, hurried up. “I’ve found a corner seat, ma’am. Put everything into the carriage. You’ve not much time left.” Suddenly she became aware of the awful desolation that awaited her in the remote cottage in the New Forest with one horrible old servant woman for company. Within her feminine unreason clamoured. No, no! She revolted against the grotesque absurdity of such comfortless living burial. She would go mad, cut off from every opportunity of hearing instant developments of this nerve-racking situation. She couldn’t stick it. “I’ve changed my mind, porter. I’m not going. Get my things out and bring them back.” “Certainly, ma’am.” The porter ran off. Baltazar thrust his hands again into his trousers’ pockets. His face was a grim mask. “Why don’t you get your luggage out too?” sneered Donnithorpe.