“The Dowager Countess of Ralston is, I believe, her mother,” said Baltazar. He threw himself into a chair and mopped his forehead. “Why the devil don’t you open a window?” “I didn’t notice,” said Godfrey, and went and threw up the sash. It was a cosy room at the back of the house, the smoking den of the late dead owner, furnished with green leather arm-chairs drawn up at each end of a green leather-covered fender-seat, with a great green leather-cushioned Chesterfield, with solid comfortable mahogany tables, writing-desk and bookcases. On the walls hung well-framed old engravings of solid worth, and Godfrey had added a little armoury of war trophies, Hun helmets, rifles, flare pistols, gas-masks, bayonets, gleaming shell cases of all sizes, a framed blood-stained letter or two in German script. . . . A cosy room more suitable for a winter’s evening than a close summer afternoon. Baltazar filled his lungs with the fresher air. “That’s better,” said he. Godfrey stood by the fireplace, his face set and unyielding. “Perhaps you might tell me, sir, what has happened. What brought Donnithorpe to the station?” “The hope of catching you, my son, _in flagrante delicto_ of elopement.” “Quong Ho was sure that he wanted you.” “Quong Ho made a mistake. Donnithorpe was exceedingly surprised to find me.” There was a long pause, during which Baltazar bent his disconcerting and luminous gaze on the young man. “Godfrey,” he said at last, “what made you such an infatuated fool as to give away War Office secrets in writing to that woman?” A look of horror dawned in the young man’s eyes and he took a step forward. He gasped: “What do you mean?” And then, when Baltazar described the disastrous paper, he cried passionately: “It can’t be! It can’t possibly be! Only this morning she told me she had destroyed it.” “She lied, my son,” said Baltazar. “But she knew it was my honour, my everything——” “Of course she did. Do you suppose that matters to her?” Godfrey repeated in a dazed way: “There must be some mistake. She told me she had destroyed it.” “Well, she didn’t,” said Baltazar. “She kept it—to gratify some vanity or ambition. I don’t know. Our talk was too concentrated to divagate into motives. Anyway, care for your honour didn’t affect her. She left it about, and Edgar Donnithorpe has got it and means to use it.” The distracted young man sat down, his head in his hands, and groaned. “My God! That’s the end of me.” Baltazar deliberately filled and lit a pipe, and said nothing. Better let the consequences of the lady’s betrayal soak in. . . . Presently Godfrey rose to his feet and his face was haggard. “I’ll go to Donnithorpe and get it back. He daren’t show it. It’ll be accusing himself of giving away the information to _The Morning Gazette_.” But Baltazar held him with his inscrutable eyes.