There was a long pause, during which Baltazar bent his disconcerting and luminous gaze on the young man.
“Godfrey,” he said at last, “what made you such an infatuated fool as to give away War Office secrets in writing to that woman?”
A look of horror dawned in the young man’s eyes and he took a step forward. He gasped:
“What do you mean?”
And then, when Baltazar described the disastrous paper, he cried passionately:
“It can’t be! It can’t possibly be! Only this morning she told me she had destroyed it.”
“She lied, my son,” said Baltazar.
“But she knew it was my honour, my everything——”
“Of course she did. Do you suppose that matters to her?”
Godfrey repeated in a dazed way: “There must be some mistake. She told me she had destroyed it.”