“This should be a sign that we are in earnest. You will be given one more chance. Send to the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral at nine o'clock to-night. Man will meet you there, and things can be discussed. Understand clearly that this man must not be tampered with. His arrest will lead not only to worse befalling Lady Kathleen, but to your secret passing immediately to Germany. The same results will follow if any attempt is made to buy the man's assistance.”
Westerham read this message through three times, until at last he could repeat every word of it by heart. He folded it up, and placing it in his waistcoat-pocket, shut the lid of the box and placed it in a drawer of the Premier's writing-table.
Next he went back to Lord Penshurst's room, which he entered without knocking. The broken old man lay on the bed, his face buried in the pillows, so entirely wrapped up in his grief that he scarcely heeded the hand which Westerham placed on his shoulder.
But presently Westerham persuaded him to look up, and then drawing a chair to the bedside, he sat down.
“I want you to forget, Lord Penshurst,” he said, “what you saw just now. It is unnecessary to remember it. It is a horrible thing, but the man who did such an awful deed shall suffer for it.”
He looked away with a set face, which boded no good for Melun when he found him.
“There is, however, one comfort to be extracted from our distress,” he continued. “At last we have a clue. The opportunity which I was certain must come is in our hands now.
“Before nine o'clock, however, there is much to be done. You are scarcely able to take charge of matters yourself, and you had better leave them to me. I have already taken measures which ought to prove effective, though we shall have to act very carefully and cautiously.”
Lord Penshurst dragged himself up into a sitting posture and turned his blurred and scared old eyes to Westerham's resolute face.
He clenched his fists and beat excitedly on the coverlet.