Father and Daughter.
“My dear child, you really must have been dreaming, walking in your sleep!” declared Camillo Morini, looking at his daughter and laughing forcedly.
“I was not, father!” she declared very seriously. “I saw the man take out those bundles of papers I helped you to tie up.”
“But the key! There was only one made, and you know where it is. You saw me do away with it.”
“He has a duplicate.”
The Minister of War shook his head dubiously. What his daughter had told him about Jules Dubard was utterly inconceivable. He could not believe her. Truth to tell, he half believed that she had invented the story as an excuse against her engagement to him. Though so clever and far-seeing as a politician he was often unsuspicious of his enemies. Good-nature was his fault. He believed ill of nobody, and more especially of a man like Dubard, who had already shown himself a friend in several ways, and had rendered him a number of important services.
“And you say that you put a piece of your hairpin in the lock, and that prevented him reopening it on the second night?”
“Yes. Had it not been for that he would have made a complete examination of everything,” she said. “If he had done so, would he have discovered much of importance?”
His Excellency hesitated, and his grey brows contracted.
“Yes, Mary,” he answered, after a brief pause. “He would. There are secrets there—secrets which if revealed might imperil the safety of Italy.”