I'll hide it
there, and you must shut up the safe without looking for it, till I've
gone. Then, you must count ten, and after that--you may search.
Remember, you said you'd submit to any penalty, so no excuses, no
complaints."
Raoul laughed. "You shall have your way, fantastic though it be, for you
are a sorceress, and have bewitched me."
He unlocked the door of the safe and stood waiting for me to gratify my
whim. But I gaily motioned him behind me. "If you stand there you can
see where I put it, and that won't! be fair play. Turn your back."
He obeyed. "You see how I trust you!" he said. "There lie my country's
secrets."
"They're safe from me," I said pertly. (And so indeed they were--now.)
"They're too uninteresting to amuse me in the least."
As I spoke I found and abstracted the dummy treaty and slipped the real
one into its place. Then I laid the envelope with the note I had written
where he could not help finding it at first or second glance.
"Now you can close the safe," I said.
He shut the door, and I almost breathed aloud the words that burst from
my heart, "Thank Heaven!"
"I must leave you," I told him.
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