"Then put on your cloak and a shawl around your head, my dear. I want to take you out."

Her curiosity was increased, for although it was moonlight it was late to walk in the country. Nevertheless she obeyed, and together they pa.s.sed down the steep, narrow bypath through the dark pine woods, deeper and deeper, until before them in the silence the Arno spread shimmering in the moonbeams.

At the river's edge His Excellency suddenly halted, saying--

"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 doc.u.ments 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?

And this was the man who had courted and flattered her--the man whom more than once she had believed that she could love!

Her heart beat quickly, for she scarce dared to breathe, lest she should betray her presence. The silence was unbroken save that within the room was the rustle of papers as the man carefully glanced over folio after folio.

The writing-table stood a little to the left, beyond the range of her sight, therefore he was for a long time invisible to her. Yet in the dead silence she could distinctly hear the scratching of a pen, as though he were making some extracts or memoranda. He had evidently lit the lamp upon the table, for his candle still stood on the floor before the open safe.

As she listened she heard him laugh lightly to himself, a harsh, low, mocking laugh, which echoed through the big old room, and then he rose and carried back the bundle of doc.u.ments carefully retied, and placed them in their drawer, afterwards taking out another, and looking at the docket upon it.

From the latter he saw it was of no interest to him, therefore he tossed it back, as he did a second and a third. He seemed to be searching for something he could not find, and his failure caused him considerable chagrin.

His actions held her utterly dumbfounded. Although she had been attracted by his personality and his courtesy, she had, with that curious intuition which women possess, regarded him with some vague distrust. What she now discovered made it plain that she had not been mistaken. Her father had welcomed him to his house, had entertained him, and had regarded him as a man of sterling worth, notwithstanding his Parisian elegance of manner and foppishness of attire.

In their family circle her father had, indeed, more than once expressed admiration of the count's high qualities, which showed how completely the man had insinuated himself into the Minister's confidence. But the truth was now revealed, and he was unmasked.

Her natural indignation that he, a comparative stranger, should seek to inquire into her father's most carefully guarded private affairs, prompted her to burst in upon him and demand the reason of his duplicity; but as she watched, she recognised that the most judicious course would be to remain silent, and to describe to her father all that she had witnessed.

Therefore she remained motionless with strained eyes, set teeth, and quickly beating heart, gazing upon the man who had accepted her mother's hospitality only to make an examination of her father's secrets.

An hour pa.s.sed. The deep-toned clock struck the hour of four, followed by the far-distant bell of Florence. She was cramped, chilled, and in darkness, for she had extinguished her light in order that he should not be attracted by it shining beneath the door.

Presently, however, she saw from his dark, heavy countenance, lit by the uncertain light of the candle, that he was deeply disappointed. He had searched, but had evidently failed to find what he expected. Therefore he commenced busily to rearrange the packets in the steel drawers, just as he had found them, preparatory to relocking the safe and retiring to his room.

She recognised that he had concluded his search--for that night, at any rate--for there still remained four or five drawers full of papers unexamined. Servants rise early in Italy, and he feared, perhaps, that he might be discovered. The remaining papers he reserved for the following night.

She watched him close the safe door and place the key in his pocket, then she rose, caught up her candle, and sped along the corridors back to her own room.

She relit her candle, and as she did so caught the reflection of her own face in the long mirror, and was startled to see how ghastly pale it was.

The discovery amazed her. She realised that the man who courted her so a.s.siduously and who flattered her so constantly was in search of something which he believed to be in her father's possession. How he had recovered that key which had been thrown deep into the Arno at that lonely reach of the river beneath the tall cypresses, was an utter mystery.

Should she go to her mother and tell her of all she had seen? Her first impulse was to reveal everything, and seek her mother's counsel; yet on reflection she deemed it wiser to tell her father all she knew. The natural impulse of a daughter was, of course, to take her mother into her confidence, but one fact alone prevented this--only a few days previously her mother had been so loud in praise of the count, in order, it seemed, to recommend him to her daughter. Madame Morini was, with her husband, equally eager to see a formal engagement between the pair, and was surprised and disappointed to notice the cold, imperturbable manner in which Mary always treated him. Mary had realised this long ago, and for that reason now hesitated to tell her mother the truth.

Next morning, while she was puzzling over what excuse she could make to go to Rome, her mother came to her with an open letter in her hand, saying that her father had been called to Naples to be present at an official reception of King Humbert by that city, and would not return to the Ministry for three days. This news caused Mary's heart to sink within her, for she saw the uselessness of going to Rome until he returned.

That day she avoided Dubard, making an excuse that she had a headache, and spending most of the time alone in her little boudoir. The Frenchman took the other girls for an excursion through the woods, and during his absence she entered the great old library and carefully examined the lock of the safe.

It showed no sign of having been tampered with, having evidently been opened with its proper key--or an exact copy of it. The waste-paper basket was empty, the maid having taken it away that morning; but the blotting-pad caught her eye, and she held it before the long old empire mirror and tried to read the impressions of the words he had copied.

But in vain. One or two disjointed words in French she made out, but they told her absolutely nothing. He had evidently made memoranda of the doc.u.ments in French, or else the doc.u.ments themselves had been written in French.

She knew, by his actions on the previous night, that he intended to return and conclude his investigations, and a sudden idea occurred to her to thwart his plans. The real object of his search he had apparently not discovered, therefore it was her duty to prevent him from obtaining it, and yet at the same time remain secret and appear to possess no knowledge of his attempt. She reflected for some time how best to accomplish this, when at last a mode essentially feminine suggested itself--one which she hoped would be effective.

Again she crossed to that huge green-painted safe let into the wall, which contained her father's secrets--and many of the military secrets of the kingdom of Italy--and taking a hairpin from her tightly bound tresses--always the most handy feminine object--she broke off a piece of the wire about an inch long, which she carefully inserted in the keyhole, poking it well in by means of the other portion of the pin until she heard it fall with a click into the delicate mechanism of the lock.

Then, smiling to herself, she withdrew, knowing that whatever attempt Dubard now made to reopen that door would be without avail. There was nothing to show that anyone had interfered with the mechanism, therefore he would be entirely unsuspecting, and would attribute the non-working to some defect in the lock itself, or in the key.

That night she sat next him at dinner, bearing herself as bravely bright and vivacious as ever, and determined that his suspicions should not be aroused; while he, on his part, thought her more charming than ever.

The evening pa.s.sed as usual in the small drawing-room with music and gossip, and later, after all had retired and one o'clock had struck, Mary crept out in the darkness to the library, where, sure enough, she saw, on peering through the keyhole, the man who was so cleverly courting her actively trying to open the safe door.

The key would only half turn, and in French he muttered some low words of chagrin and despair. He tried and tried, and tried again, but all to no purpose. He withdrew the key, blew into the barrel, examined it in the light, and then tried once more.

But the lock had become jammed, and neither by force nor by light manoeuvring could he turn the key sufficiently to shoot back the huge shining bolts that held the door on every side.

Mary's effort had been successful. By that tiny piece of wire her father's secrets were held in safety.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

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 n.o.body, 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?"