"They are trying to force it!" he cried, springing up and looking through the window. And she, following his lead, saw that Darcy was working with might and main with some burglar's tool after the nature of a lever. But though the old oaken door groaned in protest at such treatment, it never gave an inch, and the Colonel, removing his instrument, made a gesture of despair, and stood wiping the sweat from his brow.
"What does this all mean?" said Madame Darcy, as they slipped down again into their place of concealment.
"It means," said the Secretary shortly, "that your husband's secret instructions are behind that door, and from his eagerness to get them I should say that they contain a cipher of something that cannot be duplicated in the time at his command."
"I do not understand," she said.
"Well, if you must know the truth," he replied, "he's to take over the specie needed to defeat the treaty, and to get there in time he must sail from England in a few days."
She nodded mournfully.
"I supposed it was something like that," she said. "I knew Mr. Riddle had brought the gold. It is here."
"No," he said, "it's in the Victoria Street Branch of the Bank of England, in London."
"How was it sent up?"
"Lieutenant Kingsland took it."