THE CAVE ON THE THORWALD
Europe.” He paused to fill his pipe but her curiosity could not be restrained.
“And what were they doing there, Cyril? I can’t understand.”
Hammersley got up and held his pipe to the candle, for matches were scarce, and then, with maddening calmness, sat beside her again.
“That secret meetin’ of these chaps had to do with nothin’ less than the ruin of France”
“France!” she cried. “England had nothing against France and now she is her ally.”
“Three years ago the political conditions were different,” he answered. “Those representatives of England came and sat with representatives of Germany and Austria while they plotted the destruction of France.”
“But how do you know this, Cyril? I can’t understand.”
“No more do I, but it’s a fact. Let me go on. At the table in the lodge where this conference was held, Viscount Melborne made notes of what was goin’ on, includin’ the combinations of land and naval forces that could be made against France and Russia, and the plans to break the Russian Federation in the Balkans. When the meetin’ was over all the scraps of paper these chaps had scribbled on were destroyed by fire before the eyes of the men who had made ’em, except those of Viscount Melborne, who put ’em in his pocket, and with them a pencil copy of this secret treaty in his own handwriting. The original copy of the treaty was entrusted to Harlow-Gorden, who put it in his dispatch-box. It was not until the next day when the Englishmen, in the train on the way to Paris, discovered that Viscount Melborne’s private papers
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