"What is to be done?" he asked.

Bellamy, with an effort, pulled himself together. He caught up the
envelope, looked once more inside, held up the blank sheets of paper
to the lamp and laid them down. Then with clenched fists he walked
to the other side of the room and returned. He was himself again.

"Sir James, I will not waste your time by saying that I am sorry.
Only an hour ago I met Von Behrling in a little restaurant in the
city, and gave him twenty thousand pounds for that envelope."

"You paid him the money," the Minister remarked slowly, "without
opening the envelope."

Bellamy admitted it.

"In such transactions as these," he declared, "great risks are
almost inevitable. I took what must seem to you now to be an absurd
risk. To tell you the honest truth, sir, and I have had experience
in these things, I thought it no risk at all when I handed over the
money. Von Behrling was there in disguise. The men with whom he
came to this country are furious with him. To all appearance, he
seemed to have broken with them absolutely. Even now -

"Well?"

"Even now," Bellamy said slowly, with his eyes fixed upon the wall
of the room, and a dawning light growing stronger every moment in
his face, "even now I believe that Von Behrling made a mistake. An