"Yes. He was constantly doing so. He wanted me to go to New York. Enid helped me and gave me courage to defy him—which I did. Then he conceived a dastardly revenge by anonymously denouncing Le Pontois as a forger, and implicating both Enid and myself. He contrived that some money I brought from England should be exchanged for spurious notes, and these Paul unsuspiciously gave into the Crédit Lyonnais. Had it not been for your timely warning, Fetherston, we should both have also been arrested in France without a doubt."
"Yes," replied the other. "I was watching, and realised your peril, though I confess that my position was one of extreme difficulty. I, of course, did not know the actual truth, and, to be frank, I suspected both Enid and yourself of being implicated in some very serious crime."
"So we were," he said in a low, hard voice.
"True. But you have both been the means of revealing to the Treasury a state of things of which they never dreamed, and by turning King's evidence and giving the names and addresses of members of the gang in Brussels and Paris, all of whom are now under arrest, you have saved the country from considerable peril. Had the plot succeeded, a very serious state of things must have resulted, for the whole of our paper currency would have been suspected. For that reason the authorities have, I understand, now that they have arrested the gang and seized their presses, decided to hush up the whole matter."
"You know this?" asked Sir Hugh, suddenly brightening.
"Yes, Trendall told me so this morning."
"Ah! Thank Heaven!" he gasped, much relieved. "Then I can again face the world a free man. God knows how terribly I suffered through all those years of the war. I paid for my fault very dearly—I assure you, Fetherston."
