The afternoon wore painfully away, and for the first time Westerham learned how time can drag. Up to the point at which he found himself completely foiled in his search for Lady Kathleen he had scarcely counted the hours or even the days. Incident had been crowded on incident, and action upon action.
But now that he found himself faced with the necessity of waiting for the slightest sign that could send him on the trail again, he had to meet and endure the greatest trial that he had ever known.
It was such a helpless and almost hopeless position. Still it was not without some hope, and hope helped considerably to mitigate his sufferings between the hours of noon and three o'clock.
And then, just as he had predicted—just as he had calculated it must come to pass—the expected message came. It came in the shape of a telegram addressed to the Premier, which read as follows:
“If you accept my terms, wire, not later than four o'clock, to Smith-Brown-Smith, care of Poste Restante, St Martin's-le-Grand. This is final.—M.”
The receipt of this wire threw the Premier into a state of great agitation, and he was for answering it at once.
“The offer must be refused finally,” he cried. “Don't you see, Sir Paul, that, after all that's been said and done, I cannot possibly accept it? It is not in my power to do so, and there appears to be no way out of the difficulty.
“Surely,” he went on in a wailing voice, “no man was ever in worse straits. It is a question of my daughter or Armageddon!”
Westerham restrained him, pointing out that in such a matter as this an answer could not be made on the spur of the moment. It was a matter, he urged, that required considerable thought.
Quietly and concisely he constructed in his own mind a theory which accounted for the despatch of the telegram, and, as he thought it over, he became convinced that, in spite of its bold statement, the telegram was unreliable. He became certain that the offer which was made them was by no means final.