“Go on with your story,” he interposed.  “What is Fleming going to say—­or bring up, you call it?”

“He’s going to say that some one is betraying us—­all we do that’s of any importance and most we say that counts—­to Kruger and Leyds.  He’s going to say that the traitor is some one inside our circle.”

Byng started, and his hands clutched at the chairback, then he became quiet and watchful.  “And whom does Fleming—­or you—­suspect?” he asked, with lowering eyelids and a slumbering malice in his eyes.

Barry straightened himself and looked Byng rather hesitatingly in the face; then he said, slowly: 

“I don’t know much about Fleming’s suspicions.  Mine, though, are at least three years old, and you know them.

“Krool?”

“Krool—­for sure.”

“What would be Krool’s object in betraying us, even if he knew all we say and do?”

“Blood is thicker than water, Byng, and double pay to a poor man is a consideration.”

“Krool would do nothing that injured me, Barry.  I know men.  What sort of thing has been given away to Brother Boer?”

Barry took from his pocket a paper and passed it over.  Byng scanned it very carefully and slowly, and his face darkened as he read; for there were certain things set down of which only he and Wallstein and one or two others knew; which only he and one high in authority in England knew, besides Wallstein.  His face slowly reddened with anger.  London life, and its excitements multiplied by his wife and not avoided by himself, had worn on him, had affected his once sunny and even temper, had given him greater bulk, with a touch of flabbiness under the chin and at the neck, and had slackened the firmness of the muscles.  Presently he got up, went over to a table, and helped himself to brandy and soda, motioning to Barry to do the same.  There were two or three minutes’ silence, and then he said: 

“There’s something wrong, certainly, but it isn’t Krool.  No, it isn’t Krool.”

“Nevertheless, if you’re wise you’ll ship him back beyond the Vaal, my friend.”

“It isn’t Krool.  I’ll stake my life on that.  He’s as true to me as I am to myself; and, anyhow, there are things in this Krool couldn’t know.”  He tossed the paper into the fire and watched it burn.

He had talked over many, if not all, of these things with Jasmine, and with no one else; but Jasmine would not gossip.  He had never known her to do so.  Indeed, she had counselled extreme caution so often to himself that she would, in any case, be innocent of having babbled.  But certainly there had been leakage—­there had been leakage regarding most critical affairs.  They were momentous enough to cause him to say reflectively now, as he watched the paper burn: 

“You might as well carry dynamite in your pocket as that.”

“You don’t mind my coming to see you?” Barry asked, in an anxious tone.

He could not afford to antagonize Byng; in any case, his heart was against doing so; though, like an Irishman, he had risked everything by his maladroit and ill-mannered attack a little while ago.