Why should he enjoin such secrecy?
Why should he cause her to write and despatch with her own hand such curiously worded telegrams, addressed always to the registered address: "METEFOROS, PARIS"?
Those neatly typed pages which she read could be always construed in two or three senses.

But only her father knew the actual meaning which the writer intended to convey.

For hours she would often be engaged in reading them.

Sometimes, too, telegrams in cipher arrived, and she would then obtain the little, dark-blue covered book from the safe, and by its aid decipher the messages from the French capital.
Questions, curious questions, were frequently asked by the anonymous sender of the reports; and to these her father replied by means of his private code.

She had become during the past year quite an expert typist, and therefore to her the Baronet entrusted the replies, always impressing upon her the need of absolute secrecy, even from her mother.
"My affairs," he often declared, "concern nobody but myself.