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Standing there he pondered his case yet again, until at last there was a quickening of his glance. He stretched himself, with a suggestion of relief in the action. The thing is evil, indeed, out of which no good may come, which is utterly without compensation. And the compensation here was that, at least, there was an end to secrecy. The thing was out. Sir Andrew knew; and however hardly Sir Andrew might have taken it, at least the menace of discovery was at an end. This, Mr. Latimer reflected, was something gained. There was an end to his tormenting consciousness of practising by secrecy a passive deceit upon Sir Andrew.

And from the consideration of that secrecy his mind leapt suddenly to ask how came the thing discovered. That they should know vaguely and generally of his defection was not perhaps so startling. But how came they informed in such detail of the exact part he had played in that raid upon the arsenal last April? His very presence in Charles Town had been known to none except the members of the General Committee of the Provincial Congress. Then he reflected that those members were very numerous, and that a secret is rarely kept when shared by many. Some one here had been grievously indiscreet. So indiscreet, indeed, that if the Royal Governor knew that Harry Latimer was the author of the raid—a raid which fell nothing short of robbery and sedition, and amounted almost to an act of war—there was a rope round his neck and round the neck of every one of his twenty associates in that rebellious enterprise.