She got up and paced the floor rapidly. No—it couldn’t go on. She must know the truth. As the key of the one unopened room fascinated Blue Beard’s wife, as the box fascinated Pandora, so this unopened yellow packet plagued and fascinated Doris Mather. She hesitated another long moment and then slipped off the rubber band and opened it, trembling so that the first leaf of paper came out in her fingers and fell to the floor. She picked the paper up and examined it minutely, holding it up to the light. There was nothing unusual about it, no mark, no sign of any kind that might indicate a secret mission. Leaf by leaf, slowly at first and then more rapidly she went through the leaves, examining each page back and front, without success. It was not until she was almost half through it that she came upon the writing—four pages written lengthways in ink with a line too fine almost for legibility.
She put the packet down for a moment, her heart throbbing with excitement and incredulity, too apprehensive to read, in mortal dread of a revelation which was to change the whole course of her life and Cyril’s. There was still time to close the book and go to bed. Why did she sit there holding the thing open, stupidly gazing at nothing? If Cyril–
Yes, if Cyril was the unspeakable thing of her doubts, it was time that she knew it and no compunctions of honor should hold her with such a man. Besides she had promised him nothing. Hesitating no longer, she held the leaves under the light of her lamp and slowly deciphered the thin script.
At first she could make little of it, as it seemed to consist of numerals which she couldn’t understand, but here and there she made out the names of towns, the names of regiments familiar to her and a series of dates, beginning in March and ending in May. As the meaning of the writing grew clearer to her, she read on, her eyes distended with horror. Even a child could have seen that this was a list of the British forces under arms, the proposed dates for the completion of their equipment, training and departure for France. When she had finished reading the written pages, her inert fingers slowly turned the blank papers over to the end. There was nothing more. God knows it was enough! Cyril—the Honorable Cyril—a spy of the Germans!
She sank low in her armchair, her senses numb from the horror of the revelation. Her thoughts became confused like those of a sick person awaking from a nightmare to a half consciousness, peopled with strange beautiful images doing the dark things of dreams. Cyril—her Cyril—a spy!
What would happen now. And which way did duty lie? Toward England or toward Cyril? She sat crouched on the floor in an agony of misery at the thought of Cyril’s baseness, the package of paper clenched in her hand, trying to think clearly for England, for Cyril, for herself, but the longer she battled the deeper became her desperation and despair.
The world seemed to be slipping away from her, the orderly arrangement of her thoughts was twisted and distorted so that wrong had become right and right wrong. She had lost her standard of judgment. She did not know which way to turn, so she bent her head forward into her hands and silently prayed. There seemed to be nothing else to do. For a long while she remained prostrate by the window, her brain tortured, her body stiff with weariness, until she could think no more. Then slowly and painfully she rose and, still clutching the yellow packet, groped her way to bed, into which she fell exhausted in mind and body.
CHAPTER V
THE PURSUIT CONTINUES
At eight o’clock Doris was awakened by a loud knocking on the door leading to her dressing-room. She had slept the sleep of utter exhaustion and aroused herself with difficulty, a little bewildered at the unusual sounds. Then she dimly remembered locking the door and got quickly out of bed, put the yellow packet in the drawer of her desk and pushed back the bolt of the door.
To her surprise her father confronted her and behind him were other members of the family in various stages of their morning toilets.
“Thank the Lord,” said David Mather with a sigh of relief.
“What on earth is the matter?” asked the girl, glancing from one to the other in alarm.
Her father laughed. “Oh, nothing, now that you’re all right. Burglars, that’s all.”
Doris’s heart stopped beating as in a flash of reviving memory the incidents of the night before came quickly back to her.
“Burglars!” she stammered.
“Yes, they got in here—came up the water spout,” pointing to the dressing-room window, “and a fine mess they made of things. You’ll have to take account of stock, child, and see how you stand.”
She glanced around the disordered room, very much alarmed. The drawers of her cupboards were all pulled out and their contents scattered about on the floor.
“When did—did it happen?” she asked timorously, more because she had to say something than because that was what she wanted to know.
“Some time before dawn,” said her father. “Wilson was here until three thinking that you might want her and then went out to her own room in the wing.”
“Yes, I remember,” said the girl, passing her hand across her eyes. “I wasn’t feeling very well—so I asked her to stay here for a while. But I can’t understand why I didn’t wake.”
“That’s what frightened us,” Cousin Tom broke in. “We were afraid the snoozers might have got in to you–”
“It’s lucky you had your door locked.”
“They were at my library desk, too,” she heard her father saying. “Must have gone down the hall from here. But so far as I can see, they didn’t get anything.”
Her Aunt Sophia gasped a sigh.
“Thank the Lord,” she put in reverently. “At least we’re all safe and sound.”
Stunned at the daring of Rizzio’s men and bewildered by the persistence with which they had followed their quest while she was sleeping, Doris managed to formulate a quick plan to hide the meaning of this intrusion from the members of her family.
She had been examining the disordered contents of the upper drawers of a bureau.
“My jewel case, fortunately, I keep in my bedroom,” she said, “but there was an emerald brooch to be repaired which I put in this drawer yesterday. It’s gone.”
She saw a puzzled look come into the eyes of Wilson, who stood near the window, and a glance passed between them.
“Oh, well,” her father said as he turned toward the door, “we’re lucky it wasn’t worse. I’m ’phoning to Watford for a constable.”
This was what Doris had feared and yet she could not protest. So she shut her lips firmly and let them go out of the room, leaving her alone with Wilson.
She knew that the woman was devoted to her and that she was not in the habit of talking belowstairs, but her mistress had seen the look of incredulity in the woman’s eyes last night and the puzzled expression a moment ago which indicated a suspicion connecting Doris’s arrival in the Hall with the mysterious entrance of the dressing-room. Doris knew that she must tell her something that would satisfy her curiosity.
“My bath please, Wilson,” she said coolly in order to gain time. “And say nothing, you understand.”
“Of course, Miss Mather,” said Wilson, with her broad Kentish smile. “I wouldn’t ha’ dreamed of it.”
The cool water refreshed and invigorated the girl, and she planned skillfully. By the time Wilson brought her breakfast tray she had already wrapped the yellow packet of cigarette papers and her Cousin Tom’s tobacco pouch in a pair of silk stockings surrounded by many thicknesses of paper and in a disguised handwriting had addressed it to Lady Heathcote at her place in Scotland. She had also written a note to Betty advising her of a change in plans and of her intention to come to her upon the following day, asking in a postscript twice underlined to keep a certain