“Mary, I wish you to bear witness to my action, so that if you are ever questioned you may be able to tell the truth. Recollect that to-night is the ninth of April—is it not?”
“Yes; why?” she inquired, more puzzled than ever.
“Because I have decided that that safe in the library shall never again be reopened while I live. See! Here is the key!” and he gave it into her hand, urging her to examine it, which she did under the bright moonbeams.
Then he took it from her hand, and with a sudden movement tossed it as far as he could towards the centre of the deep stream, where it fell with a splash.
He sighed, as though a great weight had been lifted from his mind, and as they turned to re-ascend the hill he said with a grim laugh—
“If anyone wishes to open it now, he’ll have a good deal of difficulty, I think.”
That was all. She had never questioned him further. She had been witness of the wilful concealment of the key, but the reason she knew not. There were state secrets, she supposed, and she always regarded them as mysterious and inexplicable.
Yet the safe had been reopened—if not by the actual key flung into the river, then by a copy.
But what motive had Dubard in coming there on a visit during the Minister’s absence, and making careful examination of the documents which had been so zealously hidden?
Out on the terrace that evening Dubard had, by giving her that warning, shown himself to be her father’s friend. Yet surely this secret prying was no act of friendship?