“You?” exclaimed Donnithorpe in incredulous amazement, while Lady Edna caught a sharp breath and clung more fiercely to Baltazar’s arm. “Where did you get your information from?”
“I am to be Minister of the new department in a day or two,” said Baltazar, “and I’m in the inner confidence of the War Cabinet.”
“But it’s in your son’s handwriting!”
“It’s my handwriting,” said Baltazar calmly.
He drew from his pocket a sheaf of notes for a speech and handed them to Donnithorpe. “Compare, if you like.”
Donnithorpe returned them with a curious thin snarl and held out the other paper.
“Then you wrote this too?”
Baltazar glanced at it. It was the first sheet of a letter from which the other sheet had been torn. Lady Edna saw it and again swayed, half fainting with sickening humiliation. The only one of Godfrey’s letters—and only part of one—which she had kept: two pages breathing such a passionate love as she had never dreamed that a man in real life could express to woman. She had forgotten that she had left that, too, in the secret drawer. She stared haggardly into Baltazar s face. His lips twisted into a smile.
“Yes. I wrote that too,” said he.
“Then you’re a damned villain!” cried Donnithorpe.