The earl folded the letter, and turned to go.

His companion paused to pick up the fragments of the button and slip them into his pocket.

He performed the office with a smile on his lips that was half pity, half contempt.

It did not seem to him that there would be the least need to betray Lord Ostermore once his lordship was wedded to the Stuart faction.

He would not fail to betray himself through some act of thoughtless stupidity such as this.
In the library--the door, and that of the ante-room beyond it, carefully closed--his lordship unlocked a secretaire of walnut, very handsomely inlaid, and, drawing up a chair, he sat down to the perusal of the king's letter.