o. 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.

"I wanted to warn you, so's you could be ready when Fleming jumped in,"
Barry continued.

"No; I'm much obliged, Barry," was Byng's reply, in a voice where
trouble was well marked, however. "Wait a minute," he continued, as his
visitor prepared to leave. "Go into the other room"--he pointed. "Glue
your ear to the door first, then to the wall, and tell me if you can
hear anything--any word I say."

Barry did as he was bidden. Presently Byng spoke in a tone rather
louder than in ordinary conversation to an imaginary interlocutor for
some minutes. Then Barry Whalen came back into the room.

"Well?" Byng asked. "Heard anything?"

"Not a word--scarcely a murmur."

"Quite so. The walls are thick, and those big mahogany doors fit like a
glove. Nothing could leak through. Let's try the other door, leading
into the hall." They went over to it. "You see, here's an inside
baize-door as well. There's not room for a person to stand between the
two. I'll go out now, and you stay. Talk fairly loud."

The test produced the same result.

"Maybe I talk in my sleep," remarked Byng, with a troubled, ironical
laugh.

Suddenly there shot into Barry Whalen's mind a thought which startled
him, which brought the colour to his face with a rush. For years he had
suspected Krool, had considered him a danger. For years he had regarded
Byng as culpable, for keeping as his servant one whom the Partners all
believed to be a spy; but now another, a terrible thought came to him,
too terrible to put into words--even in his own mind.

There were two other people besides Krool who were very close to Byng.
There was Mrs. Byng for one; there was also Adrian Fellowes, who had
been for a long time a kind of handy-man of the great house, doing the
hundred things which only a private secretary, who was also a kin