ht. Hamel wandered around, a a loss what to do.
He opened the door of the drawing-room and looked in. It was empty.
He turned away, meaning to ring a bell. On his way across the hall he
paused. A curiously suggestive sound reached him faintly from the end of
one of the passages. It was the click of a typewriter.

Hamel stood for a moment perfectly still. He had hurried up to the Hall,
filled with the one selfish joy common to all mankind. He had had no
thought save the thought of seeing Esther. The click of that machine
brought him hack to the stern realities of life. He remembered his talk
to Kinsley, his promise. On the hall table he could see from where he
was standing the great headlines which announced the nation's anxiety.
He was in the house of a suspected spy. The click of the typewriter
was an accompaniment to his thought. He looked around once more and
listened. Then he made his way quietly across the hail and down the
long passage, at the end of which the room which Mr. Fentolin called
his workroom was situated. He turned the handle of the door and entered,
closing it immediately behind him. The woman who was typing paused with
her fingers upon the keys. Her eyes met his coldly, without curiosity.
She had paused in her work, but she took no other notice of his coming.

"Has Mr. Fentolin sent you here?" she asked at last.

He came over to the typewriter.

"Mr. Fentolin has not sent me," he said slowly. "I am here on my own
account. I dare say you will think that I am a lunatic to come to you
like this. Nevertheless, please listen to me."

Her fingers left the keys. She laid her hands upon the table in front of
her. He drew a little nearer. She covered over the sheets of paper
with which she was surrounded with a pad of blotting-paper. He pointed
suddenly to them.

"Why do you do that?" he demanded. "What is there in your work that you
are afraid I might see?"

She answered him without hesitation.

"These are private papers of Mr. Fentolin's. No one has any business to
see them. No one has any business to enter this room. Why are you here?"

"I came to the Hall to find Miss Fentolin," he replied. "I heard the
click of your typewriter. I came to you, I suppose I should say, on
impulse."

Her eyes rested upon his, filled with a cold and questioning light.

"There's an impression up in London," Hamel went on, "that Mr. Fentolin
has been interfering by means of his wireless in affairs which don't
conce