Sir Terence nodded slowly.
"Very well," he said. "The measure is most wise, although I doubt if it will be popular. But, then, unpopularity is the fate of wise measures. I am glad the matter has not ended more seriously. The dispatches in question, so far as I can recollect, were not of great urgency."
"There is something more," said Captain Stanhope. "The dispatches bore signs of having been tampered with."
"Tampered with?" It was a question from Tremayne, charged with incredulity. "But who would have tampered with them?"
"There were signs, that is all. Garfield was taken to the house of the parish priest, where he lay lost until he recovered sufficiently to realise his position for himself. No doubt you will have a schedule of the contents of the dispatch, Sir Terence?"
"Certainly. It is in your possession, I think, Tremayne."
Tremayne turned to his desk, and a brief search in one of its well-ordered drawers brought to light an oblong strip of paper folded and endorsed. He unfolded and spread it on Sir Terence's table, whilst Captain Stanhope, producing a note with which he came equipped, stooped to check off the items. Suddenly he stopped, frowned, and finally placed his finger under one of the lines of Tremayne's schedule, carefully studying his own note for a moment.
"Ha!" he said quietly at last. "What's this?" And he read: "'Note from Lord Liverpool of reinforcements to be embarked for Lisbon in June or July.'" He looked at the adjutant and the adjutant's secretary. "That would appear to be the most important document of all—indeed the only document of any vital importance. And it was not included in the dispatch as it reached Lord Wellington."
The three looked gravely at one another in silence.
"Have you a copy of the note, sir?" inquired the aide-de-camp.
"Not a copy—but a summary of its contents, the figures it contained, are pencilled there on the margin," Tremayne answered.
"Allow me, sir," said Stanhope, and taking up a quill from the adjutant's table he rapidly copied the figures. "Lord Wellington must have this memorandum as soon as possible. The rest, Sir Terence, is of course a matter for yourself. You will know what to do. Meanwhile I shall report to his lordship what has occurred. I had best set out at once."
"If you will rest for an hour, and give my wife the pleasure of your company at luncheon, I shall have a letter ready for Lord Wellington," replied Sir Terence. "Perhaps you'll see to it, Tremayne," he added, without waiting for Captain Stanhope's answer to an invitation which amounted to a command.
Thus Stanhope was led away, and Sir Terence, all other matters forgotten for the moment, sat down to write his letter.
Later in the day, after Captain Stanhope had taken his departure, the duty fell to Tremayne of framing the general order and seeing to the dispatch of a copy to each division.
"I wonder," he said to Sir Terence, "who will be the first to break it?"
"Why, the fool who's most anxious to be broke himself," answered Sir Terence.
There appeared to be reservations about it in Tremayne's mind.
"It's a devilish stringent regulation," he criticised.
"But very salutary and very necessary."
"Oh, quite." Tremayne's agreement was unhesitating. "But I shouldn't care to feel the restraint of it, and I thank heaven I have no enemy thirsting for my blood."
Sir Terence's brow darkened. His face was turned away from his secretary. "How can a man be confident of that?" he wondered.
"Oh, a clean conscience, I suppose," laughed Tremayne, and he gave his attention to his papers.
Frankness, honesty and light-heartedness rang so clear in the words that they sowed in Sir Terence's mind fresh doubts of the galling suspicion he had been harbouring.
"Do you boast a clean conscience, eh, Ned?" he asked, not without a lurking shame at this deliberate sly searching of the other's mind. Yet he strained his ears for the answer.
"Almost clean," said Tremayne. "Temptation doesn't stain when it's resisted, does it?"
Sir Terence trembled. But he controlled himself.
"Nay, now, that's a question for the casuists. They right answer you that it depends upon the temptation." And he asked point-blank: "What's tempting you?"
Tremayne was in a mood for confidences, and Sir Terence was his friend. But he hesitated. His answer to the question was an irrelevance.
"It's just hell to be poor, O'Moy," he said.
The adjutant turned to stare at him. Tremayne was sitting with his head resting on one hand, the fingers thrusting through the crisp fair hair, and there was gloom in his clear-cut face, a dullness in the usually keen grey eyes.
"Is there anything on your mind?" quoth Sir Terence.
"Temptation," was the answer. "It's an unpleasant thing to struggle against."
"But you spoke of poverty?"
"To be sure. If I weren't poor I could put my fortunes to the test, and make an end of the matter one way or the other."
There was a pause. "Sure I hope I am the last man to force a confidence, Ned," said O'Moy. "But you certainly seem as if it would do you good to confide."
Tremayne shook himself mentally. "I think we had better deal with the matter of this dispatch that was tampered with at Penalva."
"So we will, to be sure. But it can wait a minute." Sir Terence pushed back his chair, and rose. He crossed slowly to his secretary's side. "What's on your mind, Ned?" he asked with abrupt solicitude, and Ned could not suspect that it was the matter on Sir Terence's own mind that was urging him—but urging him hopefully.
Captain Tremayne looked up with a rueful smile. "I thought you boasted that you never forced a confidence." And then he looked away. "Sylvia Armytage tells me that she is thinking of returning to England."
For a moment the words seemed to Sir Terence a fresh irrelevance; another attempt to change the subject. Then quite suddenly a light broke upon his mind, shedding a relief so great and joyous that he sought to check it almost in fear.
"It is more than she has told me," he answered steadily. "But then, no doubt, you enjoy her confidence."
Tremayne flashed him a wry glance and looked away again.
"Alas!" he said, and fetched a sigh.
"And is Sylvia the temptation, Ned?"
Tremayne was silent for a while, little dreaming how Sir Terence hung upon his answer, how impatiently he awaited it.
"Of course," he said at last. "Isn't it obvious to any one?" And he grew rhapsodicaclass="underline" "How can a man be daily in her company without succumbing to her loveliness, to her matchless grace of body and of mind, without perceiving that she is incomparable, peerless, as much above other women as an angel perhaps might be above herself?"
Before his glum solemnity, and before something else that Tremayne could not suspect, Sir Terence exploded into laughter. Of the immense and joyous relief in it his secretary caught no hint; all he heard was its sheer amusement, and this galled and shamed him. For no man cares to be laughed at for such feelings as Tremayne had been led into betraying.
"You think it something to laugh at?" he said tartly.
"Laugh, is it?" spluttered Sir Terence. "God grant I don't burst a blood-vessel."
Tremayne reddened. "When you've indulged your humour, sir," he said stiffly, "perhaps you'll consider the matter of this dispatch."
But Sir Terence laughed more uproariously than ever. He came to stand beside Tremayne, and slapped him heartily on the shoulder.