As a plummet plunges into the sea, so the girl's look plunged into Warburton's soul; and had he been an officer of the law, he knew that he would have utterly disregarded his duty.
"I am not a secret service man, sir," he replied unevenly. "If I were,"—pointing to the grate, "your plans would not have fed the fire."
"Who are you, then, and what do you in my house in this guise?"—proudly.
"I am your head stable-man—for the present. It was all by chance. I came into this room yesterday to get a book on veterinary surgery. I accidentally saw a plan. I have been a soldier. I knew that such a thing had no rightful place in this house…. I was coming across the lawn, when I looked into the window. … It is not for me to judge you, sir. My duty lay in destroying those plans before they harmed any one."
"No, it is not for you to judge me," said the colonel. "I have gambled away my daughter's fortune. To keep her in ignorance of the fact and to return to her the amount I had wrongfully used, I consented to sell to Russia the coast fortification plans of my country, such as I could draw from memory. No, it is not for you to judge me; only God has the right to do that."
"I am only a groom," said Warburton, simply. "What I have heard I shall forget."
Ah, had he but looked at the girl's face then!
A change came over Karloff's countenance; his shoulders drooped; the melancholy fire died out of his face and eyes. With an air of resignation and a clear sense of the proportion of things, he reached out and took up the note upon which Annesley had scrawled his signature.
Warburton, always alert, seized the count's wrist. He saw the name of a bank and the sum of five figures.
"What is this?" he demanded.