There was a moment’s breathless silence.  Then with an incredibly swift movement my stepmother stepped in between and snatched up the little roll.  She glanced behind at the grate, but the fire was almost extinct.  With a little gesture of despair she held them out to me.  “Take them, Guy,” she cried.

Ray stood by my side, and I felt his hand descend like a vice upon my shoulder.

“Give me those papers,” he demanded.

I hesitated for a moment.  Then I obeyed him.  I heard a little sob from behind.  The pistol had fallen from my father’s shaking fingers, his head had fallen forwards upon his hands.  A tardy remorse seemed for a moment to have pierced the husk of his colossal selfishness.

“It is all my fault, my fault!” he muttered.

My stepmother turned upon him, pale to the lips, with blazing eyes.

“You are out of your senses,” she exclaimed.  “Guy, this man is a bully.  All his life it has been his pleasure to persecute the weak and defenceless.  The papers are yours.  I do not know what they are, nor does he,” she added, pointing to where my father still crouched before the table.  “Don’t let him frighten you into giving them up.  He is trying to drag you into the mesh with us.  Don’t let him!  You have nothing to do with us, thank Heaven!”

She stopped suddenly, and snatched the pistol from my father’s nerveless grasp.  Then her hand flashed out.  Ray was covered, and her white fingers never quivered.  Even Ray took a quick step backwards.

“Give him back those papers,” she commanded.

I intervened, stepping into the line of fire.

“I gave them to him willingly,” I told her.  “I do not wish to have them back.  He is one of my employers, and he has a right to claim them.”

I spoke firmly, and she saw that I was at any rate in earnest.  Yet the look which she threw upon me was a strange one.  I felt that she was disappointed, that a certain measure of contempt too was mingled with her disappointment.  She threw the pistol on to the sofa and shrugged her shoulders.

“After all,” she said, “I suppose you are right.  The whole affair is not worth these heroics.  I am ready to go with you to the Duke, Guy, unless Colonel Ray has any contrary orders for us.”

Ray turned to me.

“You must come with me at once to my rooms,” he said coldly.  “This person can find the Duke by herself, if indeed the Duke has sent for her.”

I understood then why people hated Ray.  There was a vein of positive brutality somewhere in the man’s nature.

“I am sorry,” I answered him, “but I cannot come to your rooms at present.  The Duke is my present employer, and I am here to take Mrs. Smith-Lessing to him.  As long as she is willing to accept my escort I shall certainly carry out my instructions.”

“Don’t be a fool, boy,” Ray exclaimed sharply.  “I want to give you a last chance before I go to Lord Chelsford.”