The Judge and Armitage laughed at these explanations, though there was a little constraint upon them all. The Baron’s question was still unanswered.
“You ceased to be of particular interest some time ago. While you were sick the fraudulent Von Kissel was arrested in Australia, and I believe some of the newspapers apologized to you handsomely.”
“That was very generous of them;” and Armitage shifted his position slightly. A white skirt had flashed again in the Claiborne garden and he was trying to follow it. At the same time there were questions he wished to ask and have answered. The Baroness von Marhof had already gone to Newport; the Baron lingered merely out of good feeling toward Armitage—for it was as Armitage that he was still known to the people of Storm Springs, to the doctor and nurses who tended him.
“The news from Vienna seems tranquil enough,” remarked Armitage. He had not yet answered the Baron’s question, and the old gentleman grew restless at the delay. “I read in the Neue Freie Presse a while ago that Charles Louis is showing an unexpected capacity for affairs. It is reported, too, that an heir is in prospect. The Winkelried conspiracy is only a bad dream and we may safely turn to other affairs.”
“Yes; but the margin by which we escaped is too narrow to contemplate.”
“We have a saying that a miss is as good as a mile,” remarked Judge Claiborne. “We have never told Mr. Armitage that we found the papers in the safety box at New York to be as he described them.”
“They are dangerous. We have hesitated as to whether there was more risk in destroying them than in preserving them,” said the Baron.
Armitage shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“They are out of my hands. I positively decline to accept their further custody.”
A messenger appeared with a telegram which the Baron opened and read.