"You seem to take it for granted that his enemy is a woman!"
"Well, then, I will answer you. She _has_ found out something--or, rather, she is in the way toward finding out something--which may yet enable her to gratify her desires."
"Have you any objections to tell what that may be?" asked Gualtier.
Miss Krieff said nothing for some time, during which each looked earnestly at the other.
"It is something that I have found among the General's papers," said she, in a low voice.
"You have examined the General's papers, then?"
"What I said implied that much, I believe," said Miss Krieff, coolly.
"Mysterious document?" repeated Gualtier.
"I think it may be of some importance, or it would not have been kept where it was, and it would not have been written in cipher."
"What can you do with it?" asked Gualtier, after some silence.
"I do not yet see what I can do with it, but others may."
"I hope to find some friend who may have more skill in cryptography than I have, and may be able to decipher it."
"And what is it that you have found out?"
"I will tell you some other time, perhaps."
"Not so well as I hope we shall be hereafter."
"I shall wait most patiently, then," said Gualtier, earnestly, "till our increased intimacy shall give me some more of your confidence. But might you not give me some general idea of that which you think you have discovered?"
"Do not let me force myself into your confidence," said Gualtier.
"No," said Miss Krieff, in that cold, repellent manner which she could so easily assume. "There is no danger of that. But I have no objection to tell you what seems to me to be the general meaning of that which I have deciphered."
"As far as I can see," said Miss Krieff, "it charges General Pomeroy with atrocious crimes, and implicates him in one in particular, the knowledge of which, if it be really so, can be used against him with terrible--yes, fatal effect. I now can understand very easily why he was so strangely and frantically eager to betroth his child to the son of Lord Chetwynde--why he trampled on all decency, and bound his own daughter, little more than a baby, to a stranger--why he purchased Guy Molyneux, body and soul, for money. All is plain from this. But, after all, it is a puzzle. He makes so high a profession of honor that if his profession were real he would have thought of a betrothal any where except _there_. Oh, if Lord Chetwynde only had the faintest conception of this!"