solitude, with the soft night breeze fanning her cheeks, her thoughts
wandering, whither away? She knew from old experience that Sir Percy
would speak little, if at all: he had often driven her on his beautiful
coach for hours at night, from point to point, without making more than
one or two casual remarks upon the weather or the state of the roads.
He was very fond of driving by night, and she had very quickly adopted
his fancy: as she sat next to him hour after hour, admiring the
dexterous, certain way in which he handled the reins, she often
wondered what went on in that slow-going head of his. He never told
her, and she had never cared to ask.

At “The Fisherman’s Rest” Mr. Jellyband was going the round, putting
out the lights. His bar customers had all gone, but upstairs in the
snug little bedrooms, Mr. Jellyband had quite a few important guests:
the Comtesse de Tournay, with Suzanne, and the Vicomte, and there were
two more bedrooms ready for Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Antony
Dewhurst, if the two young men should elect to honour the ancient
hostelry and stay the night.

For the moment these two young gallants were comfortably installed in
the coffee-room, before the huge log-fire, which, in spite of the
mildness of the evening, had been allowed to burn merrily.

“I say, Jelly, has everyone gone?” asked Lord Tony, as the worthy
landlord still busied himself clearing away glasses and mugs.

“Everyone, as you see, my lord.”

“And all your servants gone to bed?”

“All except the boy on duty in the bar, and,” added Mr. Jellyband with
a laugh, “I expect he’ll be asleep afore long, the rascal.”

“Then we can talk here undisturbed for half an hour?”

“At your service, my lord. . . . I’ll leave your candles on the dresser
. . . and your rooms are quite ready . . . I sleep at the top of the
house myself, but if your lordship’ll only call loudly enough, I
daresay I shall hear.”

“All right, Jelly . . . and . . . I say, put the lamp out—the fire’ll
give us all the light we need—and we don’t want to attract the
passer-by.”

“All ri’, my lord.”

Mr. Jellyband did as he was bid—he turned out the quaint old lamp that
hung from the raftered ceiling and blew out all the candles.

“Let’s have a bottle of wine, Jelly,” suggested Sir Andrew.

“All ri’, sir!”

Jellyband went off to fetch the wine. The room now was quite dark, save
for the circle of ruddy and fitful light formed by the brightly blazing
logs in the hearth.

“Is that all, gentlemen?” asked Jellyband, as he returned with a bottle
of wine and a couple of glasses, which he placed on the table.

“That’ll do nicely, thanks, Jelly!” said Lord Tony.

“Good-night, my lord! Good-night, sir!”

“Good-night, Jelly!”

The two young men listened, whilst the heavy tread of Mr. Jellyband was
heard echoing along the passage and staircase. Presently even that
sound died out, and the whole of “The Fisherman’s Rest” seemed wrapt in
sleep, save the two young men drinking in silence beside the hearth.

For a while no sound was heard, even in the coffee-room, save the
ticking of the old grandfather’s clock and the crackling of the burning
wood.

“All right again this time, Ffoulkes?” asked Lord Antony at last.

Sir Andrew had been dreaming evidently, gazing into the fire, and
seeing therein, no doubt, a pretty, piquant face, with large brown eyes
and a wealth of dark curls round a childish forehead.

“Yes!” he said, still musing, “all right!”

“No hitch?”

“None.”

Lord Antony laughed pleasantly as he poured himself out another glass
of wine.

“I need not ask, I suppose, whether you found the journey pleasant this
time?”

“No, friend, you need not ask,” replied Sir Andrew, gaily. “It was all
right.”

“Then here’s to her very good health,” said jovial Lord Tony. “She’s a
bonnie lass, though she _is_ a French one. And here’s to your
courtship—may it flourish and prosper exceedingly.”

He drained his glass to the last drop, then joined his friend beside
the hearth.

“Well! you’ll be doing the journey next, Tony, I expect,” said Sir
Andrew, rousing himself from his meditations, “you and Hastings,
certainly; and I hope you may have as pleasant a task as I had, and as
charming a travelling companion. You have no idea, Tony. . . .”

“No! I haven’t,” interrupted his friend pleasantly, “but I’ll take your
word for it. And now,” he added, whilst a sudden earnestness crept over
his jovial young face, “how about business?”
 The two young men drew their chairs closer together, and
 instinctively, though they were alone, their voices sank to a whisper.

“I saw the Scarlet Pimpernel alone, for a few moments in Calais,” said
Sir Andrew, “a day or two ago. He crossed over to England two days
before we did. He had escorted the party all the way from Paris,
dressed—you’ll never credit it!—as an old market woman, and
driving—until they were safely out of the city—the covered cart, under
which the Comtesse de Tournay, Mlle. Suzanne, and the Vicomte lay
concealed among the turnips and cabbages. They, themselves, of course,
never suspected who their driver was. He drove them right through a
line of soldiery and a yelling mob, who were screaming, ‘À bas les
aristos!’ But the market cart got through along with some others, and
the Scarlet Pimpernel, in shawl, petticoat and hood, yelled ‘À bas les
aristos!’ louder than anybody. Faith!” added the young man, as his eyes
glowed with enthusiasm for the beloved leader, “that man’s a marvel!
His cheek is preposterous, I vow!—and that’s what carries him through.”

Lord Antony, whose vocabulary was more limited than that of his friend,
could only find an oath or two with which to show his admiration for
his leader.

“He wants you and Hastings to meet him at Calais,” said Sir Andrew,
more quietly, “on the 2nd of next month. Let me see! that will be next
Wednesday.”

“Yes.”

“It is, of course, the case of the Comte de Tournay, this time; a
dangerous task, for the Comte, whose escape from his château, after he
had been declared a ‘suspect’ by the Committee of Public Safety, was a
masterpiece of the Scarlet Pimpernel’s ingenuity, is now under sentence
of death. It will be rare sport to get _him_ out of France, and you
will have a narrow escape, if you get through at all. St. Just has
actually gone to meet him—of course, no one suspects St. Just as yet;
but after that . . . to get them both out of the country! I’faith,
’twill be a tough job, and tax even the ingenuity of our chief. I hope
I may yet have orders to be of the party.”

“Have you any special instructions for me?”

“Yes! rather more precise ones than usual. It appears that the
Republican Government have sent an accredited agent over to England, a
man named Chauvelin, who is said to be terribly bitter against our
league, and determined to discover the identity of our leader, so that
he may have him kidnapped, the next time he attempts to set foot in
France. This Chauvelin has brought a whole army of spies with him, and
until the chief has sampled the lot, he thinks we should meet as seldom
as possible on the business of the league, and on no account should
talk to each other in public places for a time. When he wants to speak
to us, he will contrive to let us know.”

The two young men were both bending over the fire, for the blaze had
died down, and only a red glow from the dying embers cast a lurid light
on a narrow semicircle in front of the hearth. The rest of the room lay
buried in complete gloom; Sir Andrew had taken a pocket-book from his
pocket, and drawn therefrom a paper, which he unfolded, and together
they tried to read it by the dim red firelight. So intent were they
upon this, so wrapt up in the cause, the business they had so much at
heart, so precious was this document which came from the very hand of
their adored leader, that they had eyes and ears only for that. They
lost count of the sounds around them, of the dropping of crisp ash from
the grate, of the monotonous ticking of the clock, of the soft, almost
imperceptible rustle of something on the floor close beside them. A
figure had emerged from under one of the benches; with snake-like,
noiseless movements it crept closer and closer to the two young men,
not breathing, only gliding along the floor, in the inky blackness of
the room.

“You are to read these instructions and commit them to memory,” said
Sir Andrew, “then destroy them.”

He was about to replace the letter-case into his pocket, when a tiny
slip of paper fluttered from it and fell on to the floor. Lord Antony
stooped and picked it up.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Sir Andrew.

“It dropped out of your pocket just now. It certainly did not seem to
be with the other paper.”

“Strange!—I wonder when it got there? It is from the chief,” he added,
glancing at the paper.

Both stooped to try and decipher this last tiny scrap of paper on which
a few words had been hastily scrawled, when suddenly a slight noise
attracted their attention, which seemed to come from the passage
beyond.

“What’s that?” said both instinctively. Lord Antony crossed the room
towards the door, which he threw open quickly and suddenly; at that
very moment he received a stunning blow between the eyes, which threw
him back violently into the room. Simultaneously the crouching,
snake-like figure in the gloom had jumped up and hurled itself from
behind upon the unsuspecting Sir Andrew, felling him to the ground.

All this occurred within the short space of two or three seconds, and
before either Lord Antony or Sir Andrew had time or chance to utter a
cry or to make the faintest struggle. They were each seized by two men,
a muffler was quickly tied round the mouth of each, and they were
pinioned to one another back to back, their arms, hands, and legs
securely fastened.

One man had in the meanwhile quietly shut the door; he wore a mask and
now stood motionless while the others completed their work.

“All safe, citoyen!” said one of the men, as he took a final survey of
the bonds which secured the two young men.

“Good!” replied the man at the door; “now search their pockets and give
me all the papers you find.”

This was promptly and quietly done. The masked man having taken
possession of all the papers, listened for a moment or two if there
were any sound within “The Fisherman’s Rest.” Evidently satisfied that
this dastardly outrage had remained unheard, he once more opened the
door and pointed peremptorily down the passage. The four men lifted Sir
Andrew and Lord Antony from the ground, and as quietly, as noiselessly
as they had come, they bore the two pinioned young gallants out of the
inn and along the Dover Road into the gloom beyond.

In the coffee-room the masked leader of this daring attempt was quickly
glancing through the stolen papers.

“Not a bad day’s work on the whole,” he muttered, as he quietly took
off his mask, and his pale, fox-like eyes glittered in the red glow of
the fire. “Not a bad day’s work.”

He opened one or two more letters from Sir Andrew Ffoulkes’
pocket-book, noted the tiny scrap of paper which the two young men had
only just had time to read; but one letter specially, signed Armand St.
Just, seemed to give him strange satisfaction.

“Armand St. Just a traitor after all,” he murmured. “Now, fair
Marguerite Blakeney,” he added viciously between his clenched teeth, “I
think that you will help me to find the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

CHAPTER X.
IN THE OPERA BOX

It was one of the gala nights at Covent Garden Theatre, the first of
the autumn season in this memorable year of grace 1792.

The house was packed, both in the smart orchestra boxes and the pit, as
well as in the more plebeian balconies and galleries above. Glück’s
_Orpheus_ made a strong appeal to the more intellectual portions of the
house, whilst the fashionable women, the gaily-dressed and brilliant
throng, spoke to the eye of those who cared but little for this “latest
importation from Germany.”

Selina Storace had been duly applauded after her grand _aria_ by her
numerous admirers; Benjamin Incledon, the acknowledged favourite of the
ladies, had received special gracious recognition from the royal box;
and now the curtain came down after the glorious finale to the second
act, and the audience, which had hung spell-bound on the magic strains
of the great maestro, seemed collectively to breathe a long sigh of
satisfaction, previous to letting loose its hundreds of waggish and
frivolous tongues.

 In the smart orchestra boxes many well-known faces were to be seen.
 Mr. Pitt, overweighted with cares of state, was finding brief
 relaxation in to-night’s musical treat; the Prince of Wales, jovial,
 rotund, somewhat coarse and commonplace in appearance, moved about
 from box to box, spending brief quarters of an hour with those of his
 more intimate friends.

In Lord Grenville’s box, too, a curious, interesting personality
attracted everyone’s attention; a thin, small figure with shrewd,
sarcastic face and deep-set eyes, attentive to the music, keenly
critical of the audience, dressed in immaculate black, with dark hair
free from any powder. Lord Grenville—Foreign Secretary of State—paid
him marked, though frigid deference.

Here and there, dotted about among distinctly English types of beauty,
one or two foreign faces stood out in marked contrast: the haughty
aristocratic cast of countenance of the many French royalist _émigrés_
who, persecuted by the relentless, revolutionary faction of their
country, had found a peaceful refuge in England. On these faces sorrow
and care were deeply writ; the women especially paid but little heed,
either to the music or to the brilliant audience; no doubt their
thoughts were far away with husband, brother, son maybe, still in
peril, or lately succumbed to a cruel fate.

Among these the Comtesse de Tournay de Basserive, but lately arrived
from France, was a most conspicuous figure: dressed in deep, heavy
black silk, with only a white lace kerchief to relieve the aspect of
mourning about her person, she sat beside Lady Portarles, who was
vainly trying by witty sallies and somewhat broad jokes, to bring a
smile to the Comtesse’s sad mouth. Behind her sat little Suzanne and
the Vicomte, both silent and somewhat shy among so many strangers.
Suzanne’s eyes seemed wistful; when she first entered the crowded
house, she had looked eagerly all around, scanned every face,
scrutinised every box. Evidently the one face she wished to see was not
there, for she settled herself down quietly behind her mother, listened
apathetically to the music, and took no further interest in the
audience itself.

“Ah, Lord Grenville,” said Lady Portarles, as following a discreet
knock, the clever, interesting head of the Secretary of State appeared
in the doorway of the box, “you could not arrive more _à propos_. Here
is Madame la Comtesse de Tournay positively dying to hear the latest
news from France.”

The distinguished diplomatist had come forward and was shaking hands
with the ladies.

“Alas!” he said sadly, “it is of the very worst. The massacres
continue; Paris literally reeks with blood; and the guillotine claims a
hundred victims a day.”

Pale and tearful, the Comtesse was leaning back in her chair, listening
horror-struck to this brief and graphic account of what went on in her
own misguided country.

“Ah, Monsieur!” she said in broken English, “it is dreadful to hear all
that—and my poor husband still in that awful country. It is terrible
for me to be sitting here, in a theatre, all safe and in peace, whilst
he is in such peril.”

“Lud, Madame!” said honest, bluff Lady Portarles, “your sitting in a
convent won’t make your husband safe, and you have your children to
consider: they are too young to be dosed with anxiety and premature
mourning.”

The Comtesse smiled through her tears at the vehemence of her friend.
Lady Portarles, whose voice and manner would not have misfitted a
jockey, had a heart of gold, and hid the most genuine sympathy and most
gentle kindliness, beneath the somewhat coarse manners affected by some
ladies at that time.

“Besides which, Madame,” added Lord Grenville, “did you not tell me
yesterday that the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had pledged their
honour to bring M. le Comte safely across the Channel?”

“Ah, yes!” replied the Comtesse, “and that is my only hope. I saw Lord
Hastings yesterday . . . he reassured me again.”

“Then I am sure you need have no fear. What the league have sworn, that
they surely will accomplish. Ah!” added the old diplomatist with a
sigh, “if I were but a few years younger . . .”

“La, man!” interrupted honest Lady Portarles, “you are still young
enough to turn your back on that French scarecrow that sits enthroned
in your box to-night.”

“I wish I could . . . but your ladyship must remember that in serving
our country we must put prejudices aside. M. Chauvelin is the
accredited agent of his Government . . .”

“Odd’s fish, man!” she retorted, “you don’t call those bloodthirsty
ruffians over there a government, do you?”

“It has not been thought advisable as yet,” said the Minister,
guardedly, “for England to break off diplomatic relations with France,
and we cannot therefore refuse to receive with courtesy the agent she
wishes to send to us.”

“Diplomatic relations be demmed, my lord! That sly little fox over
there is nothing but a spy, I’ll warrant, and you’ll find—an I’m much
mistaken, that he’ll concern himself little with diplomacy, beyond
trying to do mischief to royalist refugees—to our heroic Scarlet
Pimpernel and to the members of that brave little league.”

“I am sure,” said the Comtesse, pursing up her thin lips, “that if this
Chauvelin wishes to do us mischief, he will find a faithful ally in
Lady Blakeney.”

“Bless the woman!” ejaculated Lady Portarles, “did ever anyone see such
perversity? My Lord Grenville, you have the gift of the gab, will you
please explain to Madame la Comtesse that she is acting like a fool. In
your position here in England, Madame,” she added, turning a wrathful
and resolute face towards the Comtesse, “you cannot afford to put on
the hoity-toity airs you French aristocrats are so fond of. Lady
Blakeney may or may not be in sympathy with those ruffians in France;
she may or may not have had anything to do with the arrest and
condemnation of St. Cyr, or whatever the man’s name is, but she is the
leader of fashion in this country; Sir Percy Blakeney has more money
than any half-dozen other men put together, he is hand and glove with
royalty, and your trying to snub Lady Blakeney will not harm her, but
will make you look a fool. Isn’t that so, my lord?”

But what Lord Grenville thought of this matter, or to what reflections
this homely tirade of Lady Portarles led the Comtesse de Tournay,
remained unspoken, for the curtain had just risen on the third act of
_Orpheus_, and admonishments to silence came from every part of the
house.

Lord Grenville took a hasty farewell of the ladies and slipped back
into his box, where M. Chauvelin had sat all through this _entr’acte_,
with his eternal snuff-box in his hand, and with his keen pale eyes
intently fixed upon a box opposite to him, where, with much frou-frou
of silken skirts, much laughter and general stir of curiosity amongst
the audience, Marguerite Blakeney had just entered, accompanied by her
husband, and looking divinely pretty beneath the wealth of her golden,
reddish curls, slightly besprinkled with powder, and tied back at the
nape of her graceful neck with a gigantic black bow. Always dressed in
the very latest vagary of fashion, Marguerite alone among the ladies
that night had discarded the cross-over fichu and broad-lapelled
over-dress, which had been in fashion for the last two or three years.
She wore the short-waisted classical-shaped gown, which so soon was to
become the approved mode in every country in Europe. It suited her
graceful, regal figure to perfection, composed as it was of shimmering
stuff which seemed a mass of rich gold embroidery.

As she entered, she leant for a moment out of the box, taking stock of
all those present whom she knew. Many bowed to her as she did so, and
from the royal box there came also a quick and gracious salute.

Chauvelin watched her intently all through the commencement of the
third act, as she sat enthralled with the music, her exquisite little
hand toying with a small jewelled fan, her regal head, her throat, arms
and neck covered with magnificent diamonds and rare gems, the gift of
the adoring husband who sprawled leisurely by her side.

Marguerite was passionately fond of music. _Orpheus_ charmed her
to-night. The very joy of living was writ plainly upon the sweet young
face, it sparkled out of the merry blue eyes and lit up the smile that
lurked around the lips. She was after all but five-and-twenty, in the
heyday of youth, the darling of a brilliant throng, adored, _fêted_,
petted, cherished. Two days ago the _Day Dream_ had returned from
Calais, bringing her news that her idolised brother had safely landed,
that he thought of her, and would be prudent for her sake.

What wonder for the moment, and listening to Glück’s impassioned
strains, that she forgot her disillusionments, forgot her vanished
love-dreams, forgot even the lazy, good-humoured nonentity who had made
up for his lack of spiritual attainments by lavishing worldly
advantages upon her.

He had stayed beside her in the box just as long as convention
demanded, making way for His Royal Highness, and for the host of
admirers who in a continued procession came to pay homage to the queen
of fashion. Sir Percy had strolled away, to talk to more congenial
friends probably. Marguerite did not even wonder whither he had
gone—she cared so little; she had had a little court round her,
composed of the _jeunesse dorée_ of London, and had just dismissed them
all, wishing to be alone with Glück for a brief while.

A discreet knock at the door roused her from her enjoyment.

“Come in,” she said with some impatience, without turning to look at
the intruder.

Chauvelin, waiting for his opportunity, noted that she was alone, and
now, without pausing for that impatient “Come in,” he quietly slipped
into the box, and the next moment was standing behind Marguerite’s
chair.

“A word with you, citoyenne,” he said quietly.

Marguerite turned quickly, in alarm, which was not altogether feigned.

“Lud, man! you frightened me,” she said with a forced little laugh,
“your presence is entirely inopportune. I want to listen to Glück, and
have no mind for talking.”

“But this is my only opportunity,” he said, as quietly, and without
waiting for permission, he drew a chair close behind her—so close that
he could whisper in her ear, without disturbing the audience, and
without being seen, in the dark background of the box. “This is my only
opportunity,” he repeated, as she vouchsafed him no reply, “Lady
Blakeney is always so surrounded, so _fêted_ by her court, that a mere
old friend has but very little chance.”

“Faith, man!” she said impatiently, “you must seek for another
opportunity then. I am going to Lord Grenville’s ball to-night after
the opera. So are you, probably. I’ll give you five minutes then. . .
.”

“Three minutes in the privacy of this box are quite sufficient for me,”
he rejoined placidly, “and I think that you would be wise to listen to
me, Citoyenne St. Just.”

Marguerite instinctively shivered. Chauvelin had not raised his voice
above a whisper; he was now quietly taking a pinch of snuff, yet there
was something in his attitude, something in those pale, foxy eyes,
which seemed to freeze the blood in her veins, as would the sight of
some deadly hitherto unguessed peril.
 “Is that a threat, citoyen?” she asked at last.

“Nay, fair lady,” he said gallantly, “only an arrow shot into the air.”

He paused a moment, like a cat which sees a mouse running heedlessly
by, ready to spring, yet waiting with that feline sense of enjoyment of
mischief about to be done. Then he said quietly—

“Your brother, St. Just, is in peril.”

Not a muscle moved in the beautiful face before him. He could only see
it in profile, for Marguerite seemed to be watching the stage intently,
but Chauvelin was a keen observer; he noticed the sudden rigidity of
the eyes, the hardening of the mouth, the sharp, almost paralysed
tension of the beautiful, graceful figure.

“Lud, then,” she said, with affected merriment, “since ’tis one of your
imaginary plots, you’d best go back to your own seat and leave me to
enjoy the music.”

And with her hand she began to beat time nervously against the cushion
of the box. Selina Storace was singing the “Che farò” to an audience
that hung spellbound upon the prima donna’s lips. Chauvelin did not
move from his seat; he quietly watched that tiny nervous hand, the only
indication that his shaft had indeed struck home.

“Well?” she said suddenly and irrelevantly, and with the same feigned
unconcern.

“Well, citoyenne?” he rejoined placidly.

“About my brother?”

“I have news of him for you which, I think, will interest you, but
first let me explain. . . . May I?”

The question was unnecessary. He felt, though Marguerite still held her
head steadily averted from him, that her every nerve was strained to
hear what he had to say.

“The other day, citoyenne,” he said, “I asked for your help. . . .
France needed it, and I thought I could rely on you, but you gave me
your answer. . . . Since then the exigencies of my own affairs and your
own social duties have kept us apart . . . although many things have
happened. . . .”

“To the point, I pray you, citoyen,” she said lightly; “the music is
entrancing, and the audience will get impatient of your talk.”

“One moment, citoyenne. The day on which I had the honour of meeting
you at Dover, and less than an hour after I had your final answer, I
obtained possession of some papers, which revealed another of those
subtle schemes for the escape of a batch of French aristocrats—that
traitor de Tournay amongst others—all organised by that arch-meddler,
the Scarlet Pimpernel. Some of the threads, too, of this mysterious
organisation have fallen into my hands, but not all, and I want
you—nay! you _must_ help me to gather them together.”

Marguerite seemed to have listened to him with marked impatience; she
now shrugged her shoulders and said gaily—

“Bah! man. Have I not already told you that I care nought about your
schemes or about the Scarlet Pimpernel. And had you not spoken about my
brother . . .”

“A little patience, I entreat, citoyenne,” he continued imperturbably.
“Two gentlemen, Lord Antony Dewhurst and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes were at
‘The Fisherman’s Rest’ at Dover that same night.”

“I know. I saw them there.”

“They were already known to my spies as members of that accursed
league. It was Sir Andrew Ffoulkes who escorted the Comtesse de Tournay
and her children across the Channel. When the two young men were alone,
my spies forced their way into the coffee-room of the inn, gagged and
pinioned the two gallants, seized their papers, and brought them to
me.”

In a moment she had guessed the danger. Papers? . . . Had Armand been
imprudent? . . . The very thought struck her with nameless terror.
Still she would not let this man see that she feared; she laughed gaily
and lightly.

“Faith! and your impudence passes belief,” she said merrily. “Robbery
and violence!—in England!—in a crowded inn! Your men might have been
caught in the act!”

“What if they had? They are children of France, and have been trained
by your humble servant. Had they been caught they would have gone to
jail, or even to the gallows, without a word of protest or
indiscretion; at any rate it was well worth the risk. A crowded inn is
safer for these little operations than you think, and my men have
experience.”

“Well? And those papers?” she asked carelessly.

“Unfortunately, though they have given me cognisance of certain names .
. . certain movements . . . enough, I think, to thwart their projected
_coup_ for the moment, it would only be for the moment, and still
leaves me in ignorance of the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

“La! my friend,” she said, with the same assumed flippancy of manner,
“then you are where you were before, aren’t you? and you can let me
enjoy the last strophe of the _aria_. Faith!” she added, ostentatiously
smothering an imaginary yawn, “had you not spoken about my brother . .
.”

“I am coming to him now, citoyenne. Among the papers there was a letter
to Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, written by your brother, St. Just.”

“Well? And?”

“That letter shows him to be not only in sympathy with the enemies of
France, but actually a helper, if not a member, of the League of the
Scarlet Pimpernel.”

The blow had been struck at last. All along, Marguerite had been
expecting it; she would not show fear, she was determined to seem
unconcerned, flippant even. She wished, when the shock came, to be
prepared for it, to have all her wits about her—those wits which had
been nicknamed the keenest in Europe. Even now she did not flinch. She
knew that Chauvelin had spoken the truth; the man was too earnest, too
blindly devoted to the misguided cause he had at heart, too proud of
his countrymen, of those makers of revolutions, to stoop to low,
purposeless falsehoods.

That letter of Armand’s—foolish, imprudent Armand—was in Chauvelin’s
hands. Marguerite knew that as if she had seen the letter with her own
eyes; and Chauvelin would hold that letter for purposes of his own,
until it suited him to destroy it or to make use of it against Armand.
All that she knew, and yet she continued to laugh more gaily, more
loudly than she had done before.

“La, man!” she said, speaking over her shoulder and looking him full
and squarely in the face, “did I not say it was some imaginary plot. .
. . Armand in league with that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel! . . .
Armand busy helping those French aristocrats whom he despises! . . .
Faith, the tale does infinite credit to your imagination!”

“Let me make my point clear, citoyenne,” said Chauvelin, with the same
unruffled calm, “I must assure you that St. Just is compromised beyond
the slightest hope of pardon.”

Inside the orchestra box all was silent for a moment or two. Marguerite
sat, straight upright, rigid and inert, trying to think, trying to face
the situation, to realise what had best be done.

In the house Storace had finished the _aria_, and was even now bowing
in her classic garb, but in approved eighteenth-century fashion, to the
enthusiastic audience, who cheered her to the echo.

“Chauvelin,” said Marguerite Blakeney at last, quietly, and without
that touch of bravado which had characterised her attitude all along,
“Chauvelin, my friend, shall we try to understand one another. It seems
that my wits have become rusty by contact with this damp climate. Now,
tell me, you are very anxious to discover the identity of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, isn’t that so?”

“France’s most bitter enemy, citoyenne . . . all the more dangerous, as
he works in the dark.”

“All the more noble, you mean. . . . Well!—and you would now force me
to do some spying work for you in exchange for my brother Armand’s
safety?—Is that it?”

“Fie! two very ugly words, fair lady,” protested Chauvelin, urbanely.
“There can be no question of force, and the service which I would ask
of you, in the name of France, could never be called by the shocking
name of spying.”

“At any rate, that is what it is called over here,” she said drily.
“That is your intention, is it not?”

“My intention is, that you yourself win a free pardon for Armand St.
Just by doing me a small service.”

“What is it?”

“Only watch for me to-night, Citoyenne St. Just,” he said eagerly.
“Listen: among the papers which were found about the person of Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes there was a tiny note. See!” he added, taking a tiny
scrap of paper from his pocket-book and handing it to her.

It was the same scrap of paper which, four days ago, the two young men
had been in the act of reading, at the very moment when they were
attacked by Chauvelin’s minions. Marguerite took it mechanically and
stooped to read it. There were only two lines, written in a distorted,
evidently disguised, handwriting; she read them half aloud—

“‘Remember we must not meet more often than is strictly necessary. You
have all instructions for the 2nd. If you wish to speak to me again, I
shall be at G.’s ball.’”

“What does it mean?” she asked.

“Look again, citoyenne, and you will understand.”

“There is a device here in the corner, a small red flower . . .”

“Yes.”

“The Scarlet Pimpernel,” she said eagerly, “and G.’s ball means
Grenville’s ball. . . . He will be at my Lord Grenville’s ball
to-night.”

“That is how I interpret the note, citoyenne,” concluded Chauvelin,
blandly. “Lord Antony Dewhurst and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, after they were
pinioned and searched by my spies, were carried by my orders to a
lonely house on the Dover Road, which I had rented for the purpose:
there they remained close prisoners until this morning. But having
found this tiny scrap of paper, my intention was that they should be in
London, in time to attend my Lord Grenville’s ball. You see, do you
not? that they must have a great deal to say to their chief . . . and
thus they will have an opportunity of speaking to him to-night, just as
he directed them to do. Therefore, this morning, those two young
gallants found every bar and bolt open in that lonely house on the
Dover Road, their jailers disappeared, and two good horses standing
ready saddled and tethered in the yard. I have not seen them yet, but I
think we may safely conclude that they did not draw rein until they
reached London. Now you see how simple it all is, citoyenne!”

“It does seem simple, doesn’t it?” she said, with a final bitter
attempt at flippancy, “when you want to kill a chicken . . . you take
hold of it . . . then you wring its neck . . . it’s only the chicken
who does not find it quite so simple. Now you hold a knife at my
throat, and a hostage for my obedience. . . . You find it simple. . . .
I don’t.”

“Nay, citoyenne, I offer you a chance of saving the brother you love
from the consequences of his own folly.”

Marguerite’s face softened, her eyes at last grew moist, as she
murmured, half to herself:

“The only being in the world who has loved me truly and constantly. . .
. But what do you want me to do, Chauvelin?” she said, with a world of
despair in her tear-choked voice. “In my present position, it is
well-nigh impossible!”

“Nay, citoyenne,” he said drily and relentlessly, not heeding that
despairing, childlike appeal, which might have melted a heart of stone,
“as Lady Blakeney, no one suspects you, and with your help to-night I
may—who knows?—succeed in finally establishing the identity of the
Scarlet Pimpernel. . . . You are going to the ball anon. . . . Watch
for me there, citoyenne, watch and listen. . . . You can tell me if you
hear a chance word or whisper. . . . You can note everyone to whom Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes or Lord Antony Dewhurst will speak. You are absolutely
beyond suspicion now. The Scarlet Pimpernel will be at Lord Grenville’s
ball to-night. Find out who he is, and I will pledge the word of France
that your brother shall be safe.”

Chauvelin was putting the knife to her throat. Marguerite felt herself
entangled in one of those webs, from which she could hope for no
escape. A precious hostage was being held for her obedience: for she
knew that this man would never make an empty threat. No doubt Armand
was already signalled to the Committee of Public Safety as one of the
“suspect”; he would not be allowed to leave France again, and would be
ruthlessly struck, if she refused to obey Chauvelin. For a
moment—woman-like—she still hoped to temporise. She held out her hand
to this man, whom she now feared and hated.

“If I promise to help you in this matter, Chauvelin,” she said
pleasantly, “will you give me that letter of St. Just’s?”

“If you render me useful assistance to-night, citoyenne,” he replied
with a sarcastic smile, “I will give you that letter . . . to-morrow.”

“You do not trust me?”

“I trust you absolutely, dear lady, but St. Just’s life is forfeit to
his country . . . it rests with you to redeem it.”

“I may be powerless to help you,” she pleaded, “were I ever so
willing.”

“That would be terrible indeed,” he said quietly, “for you . . . and
for St. Just.”

Marguerite shuddered. She felt that from this man she could expect no
mercy. All-powerful, he held the beloved life in the hollow of his
hand. She knew him too well not to know that, if he failed in gaining
his own ends, he would be pitiless.

She felt cold in spite of the oppressive air of the opera-house. The
heart-appealing strains of the music seemed to reach her, as from a
distant land. She drew her costly lace scarf up around her shoulders,
and sat silently watching the brilliant scene, as if in a dream.

For a moment her thoughts wandered away from the loved one who was in
danger, to that other man who also had a claim on her confidence and
her affection. She felt lonely, frightened for Armand’s sake; she
longed to seek comfort and advice from someone who would know how to
help and console. Sir Percy Blakeney had loved her once; he was her
husband; why should she stand alone through this terrible ordeal? He
had very little brains, it is true, but he had plenty of muscle:
surely, if she provided the thought, and he the manly energy and pluck,
together they could outwit the astute diplomatist, and save the hostage
from his vengeful hands, without imperilling the life of the noble
leader of that gallant little band of heroes. Sir Percy knew St. Just
well—he seemed attached to him—she was sure that he could help.

Chauvelin was taking no further heed of her. He had said his cruel
“Either—or—” and left her to decide. He, in his turn now, appeared to
be absorbed in the soul-stirring melodies of _Orpheus_, and was beating
time to the music with his sharp, ferret-like head.

A discreet rap at the door roused Marguerite from her thoughts. It was
Sir Percy Blakeney, tall, sleepy, good-humoured, and wearing that
half-shy, half-inane smile, which just now seemed to irritate her every
nerve.

“Er . . . your chair is outside . . . m’dear,” he said, with his most
exasperating drawl, “I suppose you will want to go to that demmed ball.
. . . Excuse me—er—Monsieur Chauvelin—I had not observed you. . . .”

He extended two slender, white fingers towards Chauvelin, who had risen
when Sir Percy entered the box.

“Are you coming, m’dear?”

“Hush! Sh! Sh!” came in angry remonstrance from different parts of the
house.
 “Demmed impudence,” commented Sir Percy with a good-natured smile.

Marguerite sighed impatiently. Her last hope seemed suddenly to have
vanished away. She wrapped her cloak round her and without looking at
her husband:

“I am ready to go,” she said, taking his arm. At the door of the box
she turned and looked straight at Chauvelin, who, with his
_chapeau-bras_ under his arm, and a curious smile round his thin lips,
was preparing to follow the strangely ill-assorted couple.

“It is only _au revoir_, Chauvelin,” she said pleasantly, “we shall
meet at my Lord Grenville’s ball, anon.”

And in her eyes the astute Frenchman read, no doubt, something which
caused him profound satisfaction, for, with a sarcastic smile, he took
a delicate pinch of snuff, then, having dusted his dainty lace jabot,
he rubbed his thin, bony hands contentedly together.

CHAPTER XI.
LORD GRENVILLE’S BALL

The historic ball given by the then Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs—Lord Grenville—was the most brilliant function of the year.
Though the autumn season had only just begun, everybody who was anybody
had contrived to be in London in time to be present there, and to shine
at this ball, to the best of his or her respective ability.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales had promised to be present. He
was coming on presently from the opera. Lord Grenville himself had
listened to the two first acts of _Orpheus_, before preparing to
receive his guests. At ten o’clock—an unusually late hour in those
days—the grand rooms of the Foreign Office, exquisitely decorated with
exotic palms and flowers, were filled to overflowing. One room had been
set apart for dancing, and the dainty strains of the minuet made a soft
accompaniment to the gay chatter, the merry laughter of the numerous
and brilliant company.

In a smaller chamber, facing the top of the fine stairway, the
distinguished host stood ready to receive his guests. Distinguished
men, beautiful women, notabilities from every European country had
already filed past him, had exchanged the elaborate bows and curtsies
with him, which the extravagant fashion of the time demanded, and then,
laughing and talking, had dispersed in the ball, reception, and card
rooms beyond.

Not far from Lord Grenville’s elbow, leaning against one of the console
tables, Chauvelin, in his irreproachable black costume, was taking a
quiet survey of the brilliant throng. He noted that Sir Percy and Lady
Blakeney had not yet arrived, and his keen, pale eyes glanced quickly
towards the door every time a newcomer appeared.

He stood somewhat isolated: the envoy of the Revolutionary Government
of France was not likely to be very popular in England, at a time when
the news of the awful September massacres, and of the Reign of Terror
and Anarchy, had just begun to filtrate across the Channel.

In his official capacity he had been received courteously by his
English colleagues: Mr. Pitt had shaken him by the hand; Lord Grenville
had entertained him more than once; but the more intimate circles of
London society ignored him altogether; the women openly turned their
backs upon him; the men who held no official position refused to shake
his hand.

But Chauvelin was not the man to trouble himself about these social
amenities, which he called mere incidents in his diplomatic career. He
was blindly enthusiastic for the revolutionary cause, he despised all
social inequalities, and he had a burning love for his own country:
these three sentiments made him supremely indifferent to the snubs he
received in this fog-ridden, loyalist, old-fashioned England.

But, above all, Chauvelin had a purpose at heart. He firmly believed
that the French aristocrat was the most bitter enemy of France; he
would have wished to see every one of them annihilated: he was one of
those who, during this awful Reign of Terror, had been the first to
utter the historic and ferocious desire “that aristocrats might have
but one head between them, so that it might be cut off with a single
stroke of the guillotine.” And thus he looked upon every French
aristocrat, who had succeeded in escaping from France, as so much prey
of which the guillotine had been unwarrantably cheated. There is no
doubt that those royalist _émigrés_, once they had managed to cross the
frontier, did their very best to stir up foreign indignation against
France. Plots without end were hatched in England, in Belgium, in
Holland, to try and induce some great power to send troops into
revolutionary Paris, to free King Louis, and to summarily hang the
bloodthirsty leaders of that monster republic.

Small wonder, therefore, that the romantic and mysterious personality
of the Scarlet Pimpernel was a source of bitter hatred to Chauvelin. He
and the few young jackanapes under his command, well furnished with
money, armed with boundless daring, and acute cunning, had succeeded in
rescuing hundreds of aristocrats from France. Nine-tenths of the
_émigrés_, who were _fêted_ at the English court, owed their safety to
that man and to his league.

Chauvelin had sworn to his colleagues in Paris that he would discover
the identity of that meddlesome Englishman, entice him over to France,
and then . . . Chauvelin drew a deep breath of satisfaction at the very
thought of seeing that enigmatic head falling under the knife of the
guillotine, as easily as that of any other man.

Suddenly there was a great stir on the handsome staircase, all
conversation stopped for a moment as the major-domo’s voice outside
announced,—

“His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and suite, Sir Percy Blakeney,
Lady Blakeney.”

Lord Grenville went quickly to the door to receive his exalted guest.

The Prince of Wales, dressed in a magnificent court suit of
salmon-coloured velvet richly embroidered with gold, entered with
Marguerite Blakeney on his arm; and on his left Sir Percy, in gorgeous
shimmering cream satin, cut in the extravagant “Incroyable” style, his
fair hair free from powder, priceless lace at his neck and wrists, and
the flat _chapeau-bras_ under his arm.

After the few conventional words of deferential greeting, Lord
Grenville said to his royal guest,—

“Will your Highness permit me to introduce M. Chauvelin, the accredited
agent of the French Government?”

Chauvelin, immediately the Prince entered, had stepped forward,
expecting this introduction. He bowed very low, whilst the Prince
returned his salute with a curt nod of the head.

“Monsieur,” said His Royal Highness coldly, “we will try to forget the
government that sent you, and look upon you merely as our guest—a
private gentleman from France. As such you are welcome, Monsieur.”

“Monseigneur,” rejoined Chauvelin, bowing once again. “Madame,” he
added, bowing ceremoniously before Marguerite.

“Ah! my little Chauvelin!” she said with unconcerned gaiety, and
extending her tiny hand to him. “Monsieur and I are old friends, your
Royal Highness.”

“Ah, then,” said the Prince, this time very graciously, “you are doubly
welcome, Monsieur.”

“There is someone else I would crave permission to present to your
Royal Highness,” here interposed Lord Grenville.

“Ah! who is it?” asked the Prince.

“Madame la Comtesse de Tournay de Basserive and her family, who have
but recently come from France.”

“By all means!—They are among the lucky ones then!”

Lord Grenville turned in search of the Comtesse, who sat at the further
end of the room.

“Lud love me!” whispered His Royal Highness to Marguerite, as soon as
he had caught sight of the rigid figure of the old lady; “Lud love me!
she looks very virtuous and very melancholy.”

“Faith, your Royal Highness,” she rejoined with a smile, “virtue is
like precious odours, most fragrant when it is crushed.”

“Virtue, alas!” sighed the Prince, “is mostly unbecoming to your
charming sex, Madame.”

“Madame la Comtesse de Tournay de Basserive,” said Lord Grenville,
introducing the lady.

“This is a pleasure, Madame; my royal father, as you know, is ever glad
to welcome those of your compatriots whom France has driven from her
shores.”

“Your Royal Highness is ever gracious,” replied the Comtesse with
becoming dignity. Then, indicating her daughter, who stood timidly by
her side: “My daughter Suzanne, Monseigneur,” she said.

“Ah! charming!—charming!” said the Prince, “and now allow me, Comtesse,
to introduce to you, Lady Blakeney, who honours us with her friendship.
You and she will have much to say to one another, I vow. Every
compatriot of Lady Blakeney’s is doubly welcome for her sake . . . her
friends are our friends . . . her enemies, the enemies of England.”

Marguerite’s blue eyes had twinkled with merriment at this gracious
speech from her exalted friend. The Comtesse de Tournay, who lately had
so flagrantly insulted her, was here receiving a public lesson, at
which Marguerite could not help but rejoice. But the Comtesse, for whom
respect of royalty amounted almost to a religion, was too well-schooled
in courtly etiquette to show the slightest sign of embarrassment, as
the two ladies curtsied ceremoniously to one another.

“His Royal Highness is ever gracious, Madame,” said Marguerite,
demurely, and with a wealth of mischief in her twinkling blue eyes,
“but here there is no need for his kind mediation. . . . Your amiable
reception of me at our last meeting still dwells pleasantly in my
memory.”

“We poor exiles, Madame,” rejoined the Comtesse, frigidly, “show our
gratitude to England by devotion to the wishes of Monseigneur.”

“Madame!” said Marguerite, with another ceremonious curtsey.

“Madame,” responded the Comtesse with equal dignity.

The Prince in the meanwhile was saying a few gracious words to the
young Vicomte.

“I am happy to know you, Monsieur le Vicomte,” he said. “I knew your
father well when he was ambassador in London.”

“Ah, Monseigneur!” replied the Vicomte, “I was a leetle boy then . . .
and now I owe the honour of this meeting to our protector, the Scarlet
Pimpernel.”

“Hush!” said the Prince, earnestly and quickly, as he indicated
Chauvelin, who had stood a little on one side throughout the whole of
this little scene, watching Marguerite and the Comtesse with an amused,
sarcastic little smile around his thin lips.

“Nay, Monseigneur,” he said now, as if in direct response to the
Prince’s challenge, “pray do not check this gentleman’s display of
gratitude; the name of that interesting red flower is well known to
me—and to France.”

The Prince looked at him keenly for a moment or two.

“Faith, then, Monsieur,” he said, “perhaps you know more about our
national hero than we do ourselves . . . perchance you know who he is.
. . . See!” he added, turning to the groups round the room, “the ladies
hang upon your lips . . . you would render yourself popular among the
fair sex if you were to gratify their curiosity.”

“Ah, Monseigneur,” said Chauvelin, significantly, “rumour has it in
France that your Highness could—an you would—give the truest account of
that enigmatical wayside flower.”

He looked quickly and keenly at Marguerite as he spoke; but she
betrayed no emotion, and her eyes met his quite fearlessly.

“Nay, man,” replied the Prince, “my lips are sealed! and the members of
the league jealously guard the secret of their chief . . . so his fair
adorers have to be content with worshipping a shadow. Here in England,
Monsieur,” he added, with wonderful charm and dignity, “we but name the
Scarlet Pimpernel, and every fair cheek is suffused with a blush of
enthusiasm. None have seen him save his faithful lieutenants. We know
not if he be tall or short, fair or dark, handsome or ill-formed; but
we know that he is the bravest gentleman in all the world, and we all
feel a little proud, Monsieur, when we remember that he is an
Englishman.”

“Ah, Monsieur Chauvelin,” added Marguerite, looking almost with
defiance across at the placid, sphinx-like face of the Frenchman, “His
Royal Highness should add that we ladies think of him as of a hero of
old . . . we worship him . . . we wear his badge . . . we tremble for
him when he is in danger, and exult with him in the hour of his
victory.”

Chauvelin did no more than bow placidly both to the Prince and to
Marguerite; he felt that both speeches were intended—each in their
way—to convey contempt or defiance. The pleasure-loving, idle Prince he
despised; the beautiful woman, who in her golden hair wore a spray of
small red flowers composed of rubies and diamonds—her he held in the
hollow of his hand: he could afford to remain silent and to await
events.

A long, jovial, inane laugh broke the sudden silence which had fallen
over everyone.
 “And we poor husbands,” came in slow, affected accents from gorgeous
 Sir Percy, “we have to stand by . . . while they worship a demmed
 shadow.”

Everyone laughed—the Prince more loudly than anyone. The tension of
subdued excitement was relieved, and the next moment everyone was
laughing and chatting merrily as the gay crowd broke up and dispersed
in the adjoining rooms.

CHAPTER XII.
THE SCRAP OF PAPER

Marguerite suffered intensely. Though she laughed and chatted, though
she was more admired, more surrounded, more _fêted_ than any woman
there, she felt like one condemned to death, living her last day upon
this earth.

Her nerves were in a state of painful tension, which had increased a
hundredfold during that brief hour which she had spent in her husband’s
company, between the opera and the ball. The short ray of hope—that she
might find in this good-natured, lazy individual a valuable friend and
adviser—had vanished as quickly as it had come, the moment she found
herself alone with him. The same feeling of good-humoured contempt
which one feels for an animal or a faithful servant, made her turn away
with a smile from the man who should have been her moral support in
this heart-rending crisis through which she was passing: who should
have been her cool-headed adviser, when feminine sympathy and sentiment
tossed her hither and thither, between her love for her brother, who
was far away and in mortal peril, and horror of the awful service which
Chauvelin had exacted from her, in exchange for Armand’s safety.

There he stood, the moral support, the cool-headed adviser, surrounded
by a crowd of brainless, empty-headed young fops, who were even now
repeating from mouth to mouth, and with every sign of the keenest
enjoyment, a doggerel quatrain which he had just given forth.

Everywhere the absurd, silly words met her: people seemed to have
little else to speak about, even the Prince had asked her, with a
laugh, whether she appreciated her husband’s latest poetic efforts.

“All done in the tying of a cravat,” Sir Percy had declared to his
clique of admirers.

“We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel?”

Sir Percy’s _bon mot_ had gone the round of the brilliant
reception-rooms. The Prince was enchanted. He vowed that life without
Blakeney would be but a dreary desert. Then, taking him by the arm, had
led him to the card-room, and engaged him in a long game of hazard.

Sir Percy, whose chief interest in most social gatherings seemed to
centre round the card-table, usually allowed his wife to flirt, dance,
to amuse or bore herself as much as she liked. And to-night, having
delivered himself of his _bon mot_, he had left Marguerite surrounded
by a crowd of admirers of all ages, all anxious and willing to help her
to forget that somewhere in the spacious reception-rooms, there was a
long, lazy being who had been fool enough to suppose that the cleverest
woman in Europe would settle down to the prosaic bonds of English
matrimony.

Her still overwrought nerves, her excitement and agitation, lent
beautiful Marguerite Blakeney much additional charm: escorted by a
veritable bevy of men of all ages and of most nationalities, she called
forth many exclamations of admiration from everyone as she passed.

She would not allow herself any more time to think. Her early, somewhat
Bohemian training had made her something of a fatalist. She felt that
events would shape themselves, that the directing of them was not in
her hands. From Chauvelin she knew that she could expect no mercy. He
had set a price upon Armand’s head, and left it to her to pay or not,
as she chose.

Later on in the evening she caught sight of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and
Lord Antony Dewhurst, who seemingly had just arrived. She noticed at
once that Sir Andrew immediately made for little Suzanne de Tournay,
and that the two young people soon managed to isolate themselves in one
of the deep embrasures of the mullioned windows, there to carry on a
long conversation, which seemed very earnest and very pleasant on both
sides.

Both the young men looked a little haggard and anxious, but otherwise
they were irreproachably dressed, and there was not the slightest sign,
about their courtly demeanour, of the terrible catastrophe, which they
must have felt hovering round them and round their chief.

That the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had no intention of abandoning
its cause, she had gathered through little Suzanne herself, who spoke
openly of the assurance she and her mother had had that the Comte de
Tournay would be rescued from France by the league, within the next few
days. Vaguely she began to wonder, as she looked at the brilliant and
fashionable crowd in the gaily-lighted ball-room, which of these
worldly men round her was the mysterious “Scarlet Pimpernel,” who held
the threads of such daring plots, and the fate of valuable lives in his
hands.

A burning curiosity seized her to know him: although for months she had
heard of him and had accepted his anonymity, as everyone else in
society had done; but now she longed to know—quite impersonally, quite
apart from Armand, and oh! quite apart from Chauvelin—only for her own
sake, for the sake of the enthusiastic admiration she had always
bestowed on his bravery and cunning.

He was at the ball, of course, somewhere, since Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and
Lord Antony Dewhurst were here, evidently expecting to meet their
chief—and perhaps to get a fresh _mot d’ordre_ from him.

Marguerite looked round at everyone, at the aristocratic high-typed
Norman faces, the squarely-built, fair-haired Saxon, the more gentle,
humorous caste of the Celt, wondering which of these betrayed the
power, the energy, the cunning which had imposed its will and its
leadership upon a number of high-born English gentlemen, among whom
rumour asserted was His Royal Highness himself.

Sir Andrew Ffoulkes? Surely not, with his gentle blue eyes, which were
looking so tenderly and longingly after little Suzanne, who was being
led away from the pleasant _tête-à-tête_ by her stern mother.
Marguerite watched him across the room, as he finally turned away with
a sigh, and seemed to stand, aimless and lonely, now that Suzanne’s
dainty little figure had disappeared in the crowd.

She watched him as he strolled towards the doorway, which led to a
small boudoir beyond, then paused and leaned against the framework of
it, looking still anxiously all round him.

Marguerite contrived for the moment to evade her present attentive
cavalier, and she skirted the fashionable crowd, drawing nearer to the
doorway, against which Sir Andrew was leaning. Why she wished to get
closer to him, she could not have said: perhaps she was impelled by an
all-powerful fatality, which so often seems to rule the destinies of
men.

Suddenly she stopped: her very heart seemed to stand still, her eyes,
large and excited, flashed for a moment towards that doorway, then as
quickly were turned away again. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was still in the
same listless position by the door, but Marguerite had distinctly seen
that Lord Hastings—a young buck, a friend of her husband’s and one of
the Prince’s set—had, as he quickly brushed past him, slipped something
into his hand.

For one moment longer—oh! it was the merest flash—Marguerite paused:
the next she had, with admirably played unconcern, resumed her walk
across the room—but this time more quickly towards that doorway whence
Sir Andrew had now disappeared.

All this, from the moment that Marguerite had caught sight of Sir
Andrew leaning against the doorway, until she followed him into the
little boudoir beyond, had occurred in less than a minute. Fate is
usually swift when she deals a blow.

Now Lady Blakeney had suddenly ceased to exist. It was Marguerite St.
Just who was there only: Marguerite St. Just who had passed her
childhood, her early youth, in the protecting arms of her brother
Armand. She had forgotten everything else—her rank, her dignity, her
secret enthusiasms—everything save that Armand stood in peril of his
life, and that there, not twenty feet away from her, in the small
boudoir which was quite deserted, in the very hands of Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, might be the talisman which would save her brother’s life.

Barely another thirty seconds had elapsed between the moment when Lord
Hastings slipped the mysterious “something” into Sir Andrew’s hand, and
the one when she, in her turn, reached the deserted boudoir. Sir Andrew
was standing with his back to her and close to a table upon which stood
a massive silver candelabra. A slip of paper was in his hand, and he
was in the very act of perusing its contents.

Unperceived, her soft clinging robe making not the slightest sound upon
the heavy carpet, not daring to breathe until she had accomplished her
purpose, Marguerite slipped close behind him. . . . At that moment he
looked round and saw her; she uttered a groan, passed her hand across
her forehead, and murmured faintly,—

“The heat in the room was terrible . . . I felt so faint. . . . Ah! . .
.”

She tottered almost as if she would fall, and Sir Andrew, quickly
recovering himself, and crumpling in his hand the tiny note he had been
reading, was only, apparently, just in time to support her.

“You are ill, Lady Blakeney?” he asked with much concern. “Let me . .
.”

“No, no, nothing—” she interrupted quickly. “A chair—quick.”

She sank into a chair close to the table, and throwing back her head,
closed her eyes.

“There!” she murmured, still faintly; “the giddiness is passing off. .
. . Do not heed me, Sir Andrew; I assure you I already feel better.”

At moments like these there is no doubt—and psychologists actually
assert it—that there is in us a sense which has absolutely nothing to
do with the other five: it is not that we see, it is not that we hear
or touch, yet we seem to do all three at once. Marguerite sat there
with her eyes apparently closed. Sir Andrew was immediately behind her,
and on her right was the table with the five-armed candelabra upon it.
Before her mental vision there was absolutely nothing but Armand’s
face. Armand, whose life was in the most imminent danger, and who
seemed to be looking at her from a background upon which were dimly
painted the seething crowd of Paris, the bare walls of the Tribunal of
Public Safety, with Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor,
demanding Armand’s life in the name of the people of France, and the
lurid guillotine with its stained knife waiting for another victim . .
. Armand! . . .

For one moment there was dead silence in the little boudoir. Beyond,
from the brilliant ball-room, the sweet notes of the gavotte, the
frou-frou of rich dresses, the talk and laughter of a large and merry
crowd, came as a strange, weird accompaniment to the drama which was
being enacted here.

 Sir Andrew had not uttered another word. Then it was that that extra
 sense became potent in Marguerite Blakeney. She could not see, for her
 eyes were closed; she could not hear, for the noise from the ball-room
 drowned the soft rustle of that momentous scrap of paper; nevertheless
 she knew—as if she had both seen and heard—that Sir Andrew was even
 now holding the paper to the flame of one of the candles.

At the exact moment that it began to catch fire, she opened her eyes,
raised her hand and, with two dainty fingers, had taken the burning
scrap of paper from the young man’s hand. Then she blew out the flame,
and held the paper to her nostril with perfect unconcern.

“How thoughtful of you, Sir Andrew,” she said gaily, “surely ’twas your
grandmother who taught you that the smell of burnt paper was a
sovereign remedy against giddiness.”

She sighed with satisfaction, holding the paper tightly between her
jewelled fingers; that talisman which perhaps would save her brother
Armand’s life. Sir Andrew was staring at her, too dazed for the moment
to realise what had actually happened; he had been taken so completely
by surprise, that he seemed quite unable to grasp the fact that the
slip of paper, which she held in her dainty hand, was one perhaps on
which the life of his comrade might depend.

Marguerite burst into a long, merry peal of laughter.

“Why do you stare at me like that?” she said playfully. “I assure you I
feel much better; your remedy has proved most effectual. This room is
most delightfully cool,” she added, with the same perfect composure,
“and the sound of the gavotte from the ball-room is fascinating and
soothing.”

She was prattling on in the most unconcerned and pleasant way, whilst
Sir Andrew, in an agony of mind, was racking his brains as to the
quickest method he could employ to get that bit of paper out of that
beautiful woman’s hand. Instinctively, vague and tumultuous thoughts
rushed through his mind: he suddenly remembered her nationality, and
worst of all, recollected that horrible tale anent the Marquis de St.
Cyr, which in England no one had credited, for the sake of Sir Percy,
as well as for her own.

“What? Still dreaming and staring?” she said, with a merry laugh, “you
are most ungallant, Sir Andrew; and now I come to think of it, you
seemed more startled than pleased when you saw me just now. I do
believe, after all, that it was not concern for my health, nor yet a
remedy taught you by your grandmother that caused you to burn this tiny
scrap of paper. . . . I vow it must have been your lady love’s last
cruel epistle you were trying to destroy. Now confess!” she added,
playfully holding up the scrap of paper, “does this contain her final
_congé_, or a last appeal to kiss and make friends?”

“Whichever it is, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew, who was gradually
recovering his self-possession, “this little note is undoubtedly mine,
and . . .”
 Not caring whether his action was one that would be styled ill-bred
 towards a lady, the young man had made a bold dash for the note; but
 Marguerite’s thoughts flew quicker than his own; her actions, under
 pressure of this intense excitement, were swifter and more sure. She
 was tall and strong; she took a quick step backwards and knocked over
 the small Sheraton table which was already top-heavy, and which fell
 down with a crash, together with the massive candelabra upon it.

She gave a quick cry of alarm:

“The candles, Sir Andrew—quick!”

There was not much damage done; one or two of the candles had blown out
as the candelabra fell; others had merely sent some grease upon the
valuable carpet; one had ignited the paper shade over it. Sir Andrew
quickly and dexterously put out the flames and replaced the candelabra
upon the table; but this had taken him a few seconds to do, and those
seconds had been all that Marguerite needed to cast a quick glance at
the paper, and to note its contents—a dozen words in the same distorted
handwriting she had seen before, and bearing the same device—a
star-shaped flower drawn in red ink.

When Sir Andrew once more looked at her, he only saw on her face alarm
at the untoward accident and relief at its happy issue; whilst the tiny
and momentous note had apparently fluttered to the ground. Eagerly the
young man picked it up, and his face looked much relieved, as his
fingers closed tightly over it.

“For shame, Sir Andrew,” she said, shaking her head with a playful
sigh, “making havoc in the heart of some impressionable duchess, whilst
conquering the affections of my sweet little Suzanne. Well, well! I do
believe it was Cupid himself who stood by you, and threatened the
entire Foreign Office with destruction by fire, just on purpose to make
me drop love’s message, before it had been polluted by my indiscreet
eyes. To think that, a moment longer, and I might have known the
secrets of an erring duchess.”

“You will forgive me, Lady Blakeney,” said Sir Andrew, now as calm as
she was herself, “if I resume the interesting occupation which you had
interrupted?”

“By all means, Sir Andrew! How should I venture to thwart the love-god
again? Perhaps he would mete out some terrible chastisement against my
presumption. Burn your love-token, by all means!”

Sir Andrew had already twisted the paper into a long spill, and was
once again holding it to the flame of the candle, which had remained
alight. He did not notice the strange smile on the face of his fair
_vis-à-vis_, so intent was he on the work of destruction; perhaps, had
he done so, the look of relief would have faded from his face. He
watched the fateful note, as it curled under the flame. Soon the last
fragment fell on the floor, and he placed his heel upon the ashes.

“And now, Sir Andrew,” said Marguerite Blakeney, with the pretty
nonchalance peculiar to herself, and with the most winning of smiles,
“will you venture to excite the jealousy of your fair lady by asking me
to dance the minuet?”

CHAPTER XIII.
EITHER—OR?

The few words which Marguerite Blakeney had managed to read on the
half-scorched piece of paper, seemed literally to be the words of Fate.
“Start myself to-morrow. . . .” This she had read quite distinctly;
then came a blur caused by the smoke of the candle, which obliterated
the next few words; but, right at the bottom, there was another
sentence, which was now standing clearly and distinctly, like letters
of fire, before her mental vision. “If you wish to speak to me again, I
shall be in the supper-room at one o’clock precisely.” The whole was
signed with the hastily-scrawled little device—a tiny star-shaped
flower, which had become so familiar to her.

One o’clock precisely! It was now close upon eleven, the last minuet
was being danced, with Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and beautiful Lady Blakeney
leading the couples, through its delicate and intricate figures.

Close upon eleven! the hands of the handsome Louis XV. clock upon its
ormolu bracket seemed to move along with maddening rapidity. Two hours
more, and her fate and that of Armand would be sealed. In two hours she
must make up her mind whether she will keep the knowledge so cunningly
gained to herself, and leave her brother to his fate, or whether she
will wilfully betray a brave man, whose life was devoted to his
fellow-men, who was noble, generous, and above all, unsuspecting. It
seemed a horrible thing to do. But then, there was Armand! Armand, too,
was noble and brave, Armand, too, was unsuspecting. And Armand loved
her, would have willingly trusted his life in her hands, and now, when
she could save him from death, she hesitated. Oh! it was monstrous; her
brother’s kind, gentle face, so full of love for her, seemed to be
looking reproachfully at her. “You might have saved me, Margot!” he
seemed to say to her, “and you chose the life of a stranger, a man you
do not know, whom you have never seen, and preferred that he should be
safe, whilst you sent me to the guillotine!”

All these conflicting thoughts raged through Marguerite’s brain, while,
with a smile upon her lips, she glided through the graceful mazes of
the minuet. She noted—with that acute sense of hers—that she had
succeeded in completely allaying Sir Andrew’s fears. Her self-control
had been absolutely perfect—she was a finer actress at this moment, and
throughout the whole of this minuet, than she had ever been upon the
boards of the Comédie Française; but then, a beloved brother’s life had
not depended upon her histrionic powers.

She was too clever to overdo her part, and made no further allusions to
the supposed _billet doux_, which had caused Sir Andrew Ffoulkes such
an agonising five minutes. She watched his anxiety melting away under
her sunny smile, and soon perceived that, whatever doubt may have
crossed his mind at the moment, she had, by the time the last bars of
the minuet had been played, succeeded in completely dispelling it; he
never realised in what a fever of excitement she was, what effort it
cost her to keep up a constant ripple of _banal_ conversation.

When the minuet was over, she asked Sir Andrew to take her into the
next room.

“I have promised to go down to supper with His Royal Highness,” she
said, “but before we part, tell me . . . am I forgiven?”

“Forgiven?”

“Yes! Confess, I gave you a fright just now. . . . But, remember, I am
not an Englishwoman, and I do not look upon the exchanging of _billet
doux_ as a crime, and I vow I’ll not tell my little Suzanne. But now,
tell me, shall I welcome you at my water-party on Wednesday?”

“I am not sure, Lady Blakeney,” he replied evasively. “I may have to
leave London to-morrow.”

“I would not do that, if I were you,” she said earnestly; then seeing
the anxious look once more reappearing in his eyes, she added gaily;
“No one can throw a ball better than you can, Sir Andrew, we should so
miss you on the bowling-green.”

He had led her across the room, to one beyond, where already His Royal
Highness was waiting for the beautiful Lady Blakeney.

“Madame, supper awaits us,” said the Prince, offering his arm to
Marguerite, “and I am full of hope. The goddess Fortune has frowned so
persistently on me at hazard, that I look with confidence for the
smiles of the goddess of Beauty.”

“Your Highness has been unfortunate at the card tables?” asked
Marguerite, as she took the Prince’s arm.

“Aye! most unfortunate. Blakeney, not content with being the richest
among my father’s subjects, has also the most outrageous luck. By the
way, where is that inimitable wit? I vow, Madam, that this life would
be but a dreary desert without your smiles and his sallies.”

CHAPTER XIV.
ONE O’CLOCK PRECISELY!

Supper had been extremely gay. All those present declared that never
had Lady Blakeney been more adorable, nor that “demmed idiot” Sir Percy
more amusing.

His Royal Highness had laughed until the tears streamed down his cheeks
at Blakeney’s foolish yet funny repartees. His doggerel verse, “We seek
him here, we seek him there,” etc., was sung to the tune of “Ho! Merry
Britons!” and to the accompaniment of glasses knocked loudly against
the table. Lord Grenville, moreover, had a most perfect cook—some wags
asserted that he was a scion of the old French _noblesse_, who, having
lost his fortune, had come to seek it in the _cuisine_ of the Foreign
Office.

Marguerite Blakeney was in her most brilliant mood, and surely not a
soul in that crowded supper-room had even an inkling of the terrible
struggle which was raging within her heart.

The clock was ticking so mercilessly on. It was long past midnight, and
even the Prince of Wales was thinking of leaving the supper-table.
Within the next half-hour the destinies of two brave men would be
pitted against one another—the dearly-beloved brother and he, the
unknown hero.

Marguerite had not even tried to see Chauvelin during this last hour;
she knew that his keen, fox-like eyes would terrify her at once, and
incline the balance of her decision towards Armand. Whilst she did not
see him, there still lingered in her heart of hearts a vague, undefined
hope that “something” would occur, something big, enormous,
epoch-making, which would shift from her young, weak shoulders this
terrible burden of responsibility, of having to choose between two such
cruel alternatives.

But the minutes ticked on with that dull monotony which they invariably
seem to assume when our very nerves ache with their incessant ticking.

After supper, dancing was resumed. His Royal Highness had left, and
there was general talk of departing among the older guests; the young
ones were indefatigable and had started on a new gavotte, which would
fill the next quarter of an hour.

Marguerite did not feel equal to another dance; there is a limit to the
most enduring self-control. Escorted by a Cabinet Minister, she had
once more found her way to the tiny boudoir, still the most deserted
among all the rooms. She knew that Chauvelin must be lying in wait for
her somewhere, ready to seize the first possible opportunity for a
_tête-à-tête_. His eyes had met hers for a moment after the
’fore-supper minuet, and she knew that the keen diplomatist, with those
searching pale eyes of his, had divined that her work was accomplished.

Fate had willed it so. Marguerite, torn by the most terrible conflict
heart of woman can ever know, had resigned herself to its decrees. But
Armand must be saved at any cost; he, first of all, for he was her
brother, had been mother, father, friend to her ever since she, a tiny
babe, had lost both her parents. To think of Armand dying a traitor’s
death on the guillotine was too horrible even to dwell upon—impossible,
in fact. That could never be, never. . . . As for the stranger, the
hero . . . well! there, let Fate decide. Marguerite would redeem her
brother’s life at the hands of the relentless enemy, then let that
cunning Scarlet Pimpernel extricate himself after that.

Perhaps—vaguely—Marguerite hoped that the daring plotter, who for so
many months had baffled an army of spies, would still manage to evade
Chauvelin and remain immune to the end.

She thought of all this, as she sat listening to the witty discourse of
the Cabinet Minister, who, no doubt, felt that he had found in Lady
Blakeney a most perfect listener. Suddenly she saw the keen, fox-like
face of Chauvelin peeping through the curtained doorway.

“Lord Fancourt,” she said to the Minister, “will you do me a service?”

“I am entirely at your ladyship’s service,” he replied gallantly.

“Will you see if my husband is still in the card-room? And if he is,
will you tell him that I am very tired, and would be glad to go home
soon.”

The commands of a beautiful woman are binding on all mankind, even on
Cabinet Ministers. Lord Fancourt prepared to obey instantly.

“I do not like to leave your ladyship alone,” he said.

“Never fear. I shall be quite safe here—and, I think, undisturbed . . .
but I am really tired. You know Sir Percy will drive back to Richmond.
It is a long way, and we shall not—an we do not hurry—get home before
daybreak.”

Lord Fancourt had perforce to go.

The moment he had disappeared, Chauvelin slipped into the room, and the
next instant stood calm and impassive by her side.

“You have news for me?” he said.

An icy mantle seemed to have suddenly settled round Marguerite’s
shoulders; though her cheeks glowed with fire, she felt chilled and
numbed. Oh, Armand! will you ever know the terrible sacrifice of pride,
of dignity, of womanliness a devoted sister is making for your sake?

“Nothing of importance,” she said, staring mechanically before her,
“but it might prove a clue. I contrived—no matter how—to detect Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes in the very act of burning a paper at one of these
candles, in this very room. That paper I succeeded in holding between
my fingers for the space of two minutes, and to cast my eye on it for
that of ten seconds.”

“Time enough to learn its contents?” asked Chauvelin, quietly.

She nodded. Then she continued in the same even, mechanical tone of
voice—

“In the corner of the paper there was the usual rough device of a small
star-shaped flower. Above it I read two lines, everything else was
scorched and blackened by the flame.”

“And what were these two lines?”

Her throat seemed suddenly to have contracted. For an instant she felt
that she could not speak the words, which might send a brave man to his
death.

“It is lucky that the whole paper was not burned,” added Chauvelin,
with dry sarcasm, “for it might have fared ill with Armand St. Just.
What were the two lines, citoyenne?”

“One was, ‘I start myself to-morrow,’” she said quietly; “the other—‘If
you wish to speak to me, I shall be in the supper-room at one o’clock
precisely.’”

Chauvelin looked up at the clock just above the mantelpiece.

“Then I have plenty of time,” he said placidly.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

She was pale as a statue, her hands were icy cold, her head and heart
throbbed with the awful strain upon her nerves. Oh, this was cruel!
cruel! What had she done to have deserved all this? Her choice was
made: had she done a vile action or one that was sublime? The recording
angel, who writes in the book of gold, alone could give an answer.

“What are you going to do?” she repeated mechanically.

“Oh, nothing for the present. After that it will depend.”

“On what?”

“On whom I shall see in the supper-room at one o’clock precisely.”

“You will see the Scarlet Pimpernel, of course. But you do not know
him.”

“No. But I shall presently.”

“Sir Andrew will have warned him.”

“I think not. When you parted from him after the minuet he stood and
watched you, for a moment or two, with a look which gave me to
understand that something had happened between you. It was only
natural, was it not? that I should make a shrewd guess as to the nature
of that ‘something.’ I thereupon engaged the young gallant in a long
and animated conversation—we discussed Herr Glück’s singular success in
London—until a lady claimed his arm for supper.”

“Since then?”

“I did not lose sight of him through supper. When we all came upstairs
again, Lady Portarles buttonholed him and started on the subject of
pretty Mlle. Suzanne de Tournay. I knew he would not move until Lady
Portarles had exhausted the subject, which will not be for another
quarter of an hour at least, and it is five minutes to one now.”

He was preparing to go, and went up to the doorway, where, drawing
aside the curtain, he stood for a moment pointing out to Marguerite the
distant figure of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes in close conversation with Lady
Portarles.

“I think,” he said, with a triumphant smile, “that I may safely expect
to find the person I seek in the dining-room, fair lady.”

“There may be more than one.”

“Whoever is there, as the clock strikes one, will be shadowed by one of
my men; of these, one, or perhaps two, or even three, will leave for
France to-morrow. _One_ of these will be the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel.’”

“Yes?—And?”

“I also, fair lady, will leave for France to-morrow. The papers found
at Dover upon the person of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes speak of the
neighbourhood of Calais, of an inn which I know well, called ‘Le Chat
Gris,’ of a lonely place somewhere on the coast—the Père Blanchard’s
hut—which I must endeavour to find. All these places are given as the
point where this meddlesome Englishman has bidden the traitor de
Tournay and others to meet his emissaries. But it seems that he has
decided not to send his emissaries, that ‘he will start himself
to-morrow.’ Now, one of those persons whom I shall see anon in the
supper-room, will be journeying to Calais, and I shall follow that
person, until I have tracked him to where those fugitive aristocrats
await him; for that person, fair lady, will be the man whom I have
sought for, for nearly a year, the man whose energy has outdone me,
whose ingenuity has baffled me, whose audacity has set me
wondering—yes! me!—who have seen a trick or two in my time—the
mysterious and elusive Scarlet Pimpernel.”

“And Armand?” she pleaded.

“Have I ever broken my word? I promise you that the day the Scarlet
Pimpernel and I start for France, I will send you that imprudent letter
of his by special courier. More than that, I will pledge you the word
of France, that the day I lay hands on that meddlesome Englishman, St.
Just will be here in England, safe in the arms of his charming sister.”

And with a deep and elaborate bow and another look at the clock,
Chauvelin glided out of the room.

It seemed to Marguerite that through all the noise, all the din of
music, dancing, and laughter, she could hear his cat-like tread,
gliding through the vast reception-rooms; that she could hear him go
down the massive staircase, reach the dining-room and open the door.
Fate _had_ decided, had made her speak, had made her do a vile and
abominable thing, for the sake of the brother she loved. She lay back
in her chair, passive and still, seeing the figure of her relentless
enemy ever present before her aching eyes.

When Chauvelin reached the supper-room it was quite deserted. It had
that woebegone, forsaken, tawdry appearance, which reminds one so much
of a ball-dress, the morning after.

Half-empty glasses littered the table, unfolded napkins lay about, the
chairs—turned towards one another in groups of twos and threes—seemed
like the seats of ghosts, in close conversation with one another. There
were sets of two chairs—very close to one another—in the far corners of
the room, which spoke of recent whispered flirtations, over cold
game-pie and champagne; there were sets of three and four chairs, that
recalled pleasant, animated discussions over the latest scandals; there
were chairs straight up in a row that still looked starchy, critical,
acid, like antiquated dowagers; there were a few isolated, single
chairs, close to the table, that spoke of gourmands intent on the most
_recherché_ dishes, and others overturned on the floor, that spoke
volumes on the subject of my Lord Grenville’s cellars.

It was a ghostlike replica, in fact, of that fashionable gathering
upstairs; a ghost that haunts every house where balls and good suppers
are given; a picture drawn with white chalk on grey cardboard, dull and
colourless, now that the bright silk dresses and gorgeously embroidered
coats were no longer there to fill in the foreground, and now that the
candles flickered sleepily in their sockets.

Chauvelin smiled benignly, and rubbing his long, thin hands together,
he looked round the deserted supper-room, whence even the last flunkey
had retired in order to join his friends in the hall below. All was
silence in the dimly-lighted room, whilst the sound of the gavotte, the
hum of distant talk and laughter, and the rumble of an occasional coach
outside, only seemed to reach this palace of the Sleeping Beauty as the
murmur of some flitting spooks far away.

It all looked so peaceful, so luxurious, and so still, that the keenest
observer—a veritable prophet—could never have guessed that, at this
present moment, that deserted supper-room was nothing but a trap laid
for the capture of the most cunning and audacious plotter those
stirring times had ever seen.

Chauvelin pondered and tried to peer into the immediate future. What
would this man be like, whom he and the leaders of a whole revolution
had sworn to bring to his death? Everything about him was weird and
mysterious; his personality, which he had so cunningly concealed, the
power he wielded over nineteen English gentlemen who seemed to obey his
every command blindly and enthusiastically, the passionate love and
submission he had roused in his little trained band, and, above all,
his marvellous audacity, the boundless impudence which had caused him
to beard his most implacable enemies, within the very walls of Paris.

No wonder that in France the _sobriquet_ of the mysterious Englishman
roused in the people a superstitious shudder. Chauvelin himself as he
gazed round the deserted room, where presently the weird hero would
appear, felt a strange feeling of awe creeping all down his spine.

But his plans were well laid. He felt sure that the Scarlet Pimpernel
had not been warned, and felt equally sure that Marguerite Blakeney had
not played him false. If she had . . . a cruel look, that would have
made her shudder, gleamed in Chauvelin’s keen, pale eyes. If she had
played him a trick, Armand St. Just would suffer the extreme penalty.

But no, no! of course she had not played him false!

Fortunately the supper-room was deserted: this would make Chauvelin’s
task all the easier, when presently that unsuspecting enigma would
enter it alone. No one was here now save Chauvelin himself.

Stay! as he surveyed with a satisfied smile the solitude of the room,
the cunning agent of the French Government became aware of the
peaceful, monotonous breathing of some one of my Lord Grenville’s
guests, who, no doubt, had supped both wisely and well, and was
enjoying a quiet sleep, away from the din of the dancing above.

Chauvelin looked round once more, and there in the corner of a sofa, in
the dark angle of the room, his mouth open, his eyes shut, the sweet
sounds of peaceful slumbers proceeding from his nostrils, reclined the
gorgeously-apparelled, long-limbed husband of the cleverest woman in
Europe.

Chauvelin looked at him as he lay there, placid, unconscious, at peace
with all the world and himself, after the best of suppers, and a smile,
that was almost one of pity, softened for a moment the hard lines of
the Frenchman’s face and the sarcastic twinkle of his pale eyes.

Evidently the slumberer, deep in dreamless sleep, would not interfere
with Chauvelin’s trap for catching that cunning Scarlet Pimpernel.
Again he rubbed his hands together, and, following the example of Sir
Percy Blakeney, he, too, stretched himself out in the corner of another
sofa, shut his eyes, opened his mouth, gave forth sounds of peaceful
breathing, and . . . waited!

CHAPTER XV.
DOUBT

Marguerite Blakeney had watched the slight sable-clad figure of
Chauvelin, as he worked his way through the ball-room. Then perforce
she had had to wait, while her nerves tingled with excitement.

Listlessly she sat in the small, still deserted boudoir, looking out
through the curtained doorway on the dancing couples beyond: looking at
them, yet seeing nothing, hearing the music, yet conscious of naught
save a feeling of expectancy, of anxious, weary waiting.

Her mind conjured up before her the vision of what was, perhaps at this
very moment, passing downstairs. The half-deserted dining-room, the
fateful hour—Chauvelin on the watch!—then, precise to the moment, the
entrance of a man, he, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the mysterious leader,
who to Marguerite had become almost unreal, so strange, so weird was
this hidden identity.

She wished she were in the supper-room, too, at this moment, watching
him as he entered; she knew that her woman’s penetration would at once
recognise in the stranger’s face—whoever he might be—that strong
individuality which belongs to a leader of men—to a hero: to the
mighty, high-soaring eagle, whose daring wings were becoming entangled
in the ferret’s trap.

Woman-like, she thought of him with unmixed sadness; the irony of that
fate seemed so cruel which allowed the fearless lion to succumb to the
gnawing of a rat! Ah! had Armand’s life not been at stake! . . .

“Faith! your ladyship must have thought me very remiss,” said a voice
suddenly, close to her elbow. “I had a deal of difficulty in delivering
your message, for I could not find Blakeney anywhere at first . . .”

Marguerite had forgotten all about her husband and her message to him;
his very name, as spoken by Lord Fancourt, sounded strange and
unfamiliar to her, so completely had she in the last five minutes lived
her old life in the Rue de Richelieu again, with Armand always near her
to love and protect her, to guard her from the many subtle intrigues
which were forever raging in Paris in those days.

“I did find him at last,” continued Lord Fancourt, “and gave him your
message. He said that he would give orders at once for the horses to be
put to.”

“Ah!” she said, still very absently, “you found my husband, and gave
him my message?”

“Yes; he was in the dining-room fast asleep. I could not manage to wake
him up at first.”

“Thank you very much,” she said mechanically, trying to collect her
thoughts.

“Will your ladyship honour me with the _contredanse_ until your coach
is ready?” asked Lord Fancourt.

“No, I thank you, my lord, but—and you will forgive me—I really am too
tired, and the heat in the ball-room has become oppressive.”

“The conservatory is deliciously cool; let me take you there, and then
get you something. You seem ailing, Lady Blakeney.”

“I am only very tired,” she repeated wearily, as she allowed Lord
Fancourt to lead her, where subdued lights and green plants lent
coolness to the air. He got her a chair, into which she sank. This long
interval of waiting was intolerable. Why did not Chauvelin come and
tell her the result of his watch?

Lord Fancourt was very attentive. She scarcely heard what he said, and
suddenly startled him by asking abruptly,—

“Lord Fancourt, did you perceive who was in the dining-room just now
besides Sir Percy Blakeney?”

“Only the agent of the French Government, M. Chauvelin, equally fast
asleep in another corner,” he said. “Why does your ladyship ask?”

“I know not . . . I . . . Did you notice the time when you were there?”

“It must have been about five or ten minutes past one. . . . I wonder
what your ladyship is thinking about,” he added, for evidently the fair
lady’s thoughts were very far away, and she had not been listening to
his intellectual conversation.

But indeed her thoughts were not very far away: only one storey below,
in this same house, in the dining-room where sat Chauvelin still on the
watch. Had he failed? For one instant that possibility rose before her
as a hope—the hope that the Scarlet Pimpernel had been warned by Sir
Andrew, and that Chauvelin’s trap had failed to catch his bird; but
that hope soon gave way to fear. Had he failed? But then—Armand!

Lord Fancourt had given up talking since he found that he had no
listener. He wanted an opportunity for slipping away: for sitting
opposite to a lady, however fair, who is evidently not heeding the most
vigorous efforts made for her entertainment, is not exhilarating, even
to a Cabinet Minister.

“Shall I find out if your ladyship’s coach is ready,” he said at last,
tentatively.

“Oh, thank you . . . thank you . . . if you would be so kind . . . I
fear I am but sorry company . . . but I am really tired . . . and,
perhaps, would be best alone.”
 She had been longing to be rid of him, for she hoped that, like the
 fox he so resembled, Chauvelin would be prowling round, thinking to
 find her alone.

But Lord Fancourt went, and still Chauvelin did not come. Oh! what had
happened? She felt Armand’s fate trembling in the balance . . . she
feared—now with a deadly fear—that Chauvelin _had_ failed, and that the
mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel had proved elusive once more; then she
knew that she need hope for no pity, no mercy, from him.

He had pronounced his “Either—or—” and nothing less would content him:
he was very spiteful, and would affect the belief that she had wilfully
misled him, and having failed to trap the eagle once again, his
revengeful mind would be content with the humble prey—Armand!

Yet she had done her best; had strained every nerve for Armand’s sake.
She could not bear to think that all had failed. She could not sit
still; she wanted to go and hear the worst at once; she wondered even
that Chauvelin had not come yet, to vent his wrath and satire upon her.

Lord Grenville himself came presently to tell her that her coach was
ready, and that Sir Percy was already waiting for her—ribbons in hand.
Marguerite said “Farewell” to her distinguished host; many of her
friends stopped her, as she crossed the rooms, to talk to her, and
exchange pleasant _au revoirs_.

The Minister only took final leave of beautiful Lady Blakeney on the
top of the stairs; below, on the landing, a veritable army of gallant
gentlemen were waiting to bid “Good-bye” to the queen of beauty and
fashion, whilst outside, under the massive portico, Sir Percy’s
magnificent bays were impatiently pawing the ground.

At the top of the stairs, just after she had taken final leave of her
host, she suddenly saw Chauvelin; he was coming up the stairs slowly,
and rubbing his thin hands very softly together.

There was a curious look on his mobile face, partly amused and wholly
puzzled, and as his keen eyes met Marguerite’s they became strangely
sarcastic.

“M. Chauvelin,” she said, as he stopped on the top of the stairs,
bowing elaborately before her, “my coach is outside; may I claim your
arm?”

As gallant as ever, he offered her his arm and led her downstairs. The
crowd was very great, some of the Minister’s guests were departing,
others were leaning against the banisters watching the throng as it
filed up and down the wide staircase.

“Chauvelin,” she said at last desperately, “I must know what has
happened.”

“What has happened, dear lady?” he said, with affected surprise.
“Where? When?”

“You are torturing me, Chauvelin. I have helped you to-night . . .
surely I have the right to know. What happened in the dining-room at
one o’clock just now?”

She spoke in a whisper, trusting that in the general hubbub of the
crowd her words would remain unheeded by all, save the man at her side.

“Quiet and peace reigned supreme, fair lady; at that hour I was asleep
in the corner of one sofa and Sir Percy Blakeney in another.”

“Nobody came into the room at all?”

“Nobody.”

“Then we have failed, you and I? . . .”

“Yes! we have failed—perhaps . . .”

“But Armand?” she pleaded.

“Ah! Armand St. Just’s chances hang on a thread . . . pray heaven, dear
lady, that that thread may not snap.”

“Chauvelin, I worked for you, sincerely, earnestly . . . remember. . .
.”

“I remember my promise,” he said quietly; “the day that the Scarlet
Pimpernel and I meet on French soil, St. Just will be in the arms of
his charming sister.”

“Which means that a brave man’s blood will be on my hands,” she said,
with a shudder.

“His blood, or that of your brother. Surely at the present moment you
must hope, as I do, that the enigmatical Scarlet Pimpernel will start
for Calais to-day—”

“I am only conscious of one hope, citoyen.”

“And that is?”

“That Satan, your master, will have need of you elsewhere, before the
sun rises to-day.”

“You flatter me, citoyenne.”

She had detained him for a while, midway down the stairs, trying to get
at the thoughts which lay beyond that thin, fox-like mask. But
Chauvelin remained urbane, sarcastic, mysterious; not a line betrayed
to the poor, anxious woman whether she need fear or whether she dared
to hope.

Downstairs on the landing she was soon surrounded. Lady Blakeney never
stepped from any house into her coach, without an escort of fluttering
human moths around the dazzling light of her beauty. But before she
finally turned away from Chauvelin, she held out a tiny hand to him,
with that pretty gesture of childish appeal which was so essentially
her own.

 “Give me some hope, my little Chauvelin,” she pleaded.

With perfect gallantry he bowed over that tiny hand, which looked so
dainty and white through the delicately transparent black lace mitten,
and kissing the tips of the rosy fingers:—

“Pray heaven that the thread may not snap,” he repeated, with his
enigmatic smile.

And stepping aside, he allowed the moths to flutter more closely round
the candle, and the brilliant throng of the _jeunesse dorée_, eagerly
attentive to Lady Blakeney’s every movement, hid the keen, fox-like
face from her view.

CHAPTER XVI.
RICHMOND

A few minutes later she was sitting, wrapped in costly furs, near Sir
Percy Blakeney on the box-seat of his magnificent coach, and the four
splendid bays had thundered down the quiet street.

The night was warm in spite of the gentle breeze which fanned
Marguerite’s burning cheeks. Soon London houses were left behind, and
rattling over old Hammersmith Bridge, Sir Percy was driving his bays
rapidly towards Richmond.

The river wound in and out in its pretty delicate curves, looking like
a silver serpent beneath the glittering rays of the moon. Long shadows
from overhanging trees spread occasional deep palls right across the
road. The bays were rushing along at breakneck speed, held but slightly
back by Sir Percy’s strong, unerring hands.

These nightly drives after balls and suppers in London were a source of
perpetual delight to Marguerite, and she appreciated her husband’s
eccentricity keenly, which caused him to adopt this mode of taking her
home every night, to their beautiful home by the river, instead of
living in a stuffy London house. He loved driving his spirited horses
along the lonely, moonlit roads, and she loved to sit on the box-seat,
with the soft air of an English late summer’s night fanning her face
after the hot atmosphere of a ball or supper-party. The drive was not a
long one—less than an hour, sometimes, when the bays were very fresh,
and Sir Percy gave them full rein.

To-night he seemed to have a very devil in his fingers, and the coach
seemed to fly along the road, beside the river. As usual, he did not
speak to her, but stared straight in front of him, the ribbons seeming
to lie quite loosely in his slender, white hands. Marguerite looked at
him tentatively once or twice; she could see his handsome profile, and
one lazy eye, with its straight fine brow and drooping heavy lid.

The face in the moonlight looked singularly earnest, and recalled to
Marguerite’s aching heart those happy days of courtship, before he had
become the lazy nincompoop, the effete fop, whose life seemed spent in
card and supper rooms.

But now, in the moonlight, she could not catch the expression of the
lazy blue eyes; she could only see the outline of the firm chin, the
corner of the strong mouth, the well-cut massive shape of the forehead;
truly, nature had meant well by Sir Percy; his faults must all be laid
at the door of that poor, half-crazy mother, and of the distracted
heart-broken father, neither of whom had cared for the young life which
was sprouting up between them, and which, perhaps, their very
carelessness was already beginning to wreck.

Marguerite suddenly felt intense sympathy for her husband. The moral
crisis she had just gone through made her feel indulgent towards the
faults, the delinquencies, of others.

How thoroughly a human being can be buffeted and overmastered by Fate,
had been borne in upon her with appalling force. Had anyone told her a
week ago that she would stoop to spy upon her friends, that she would
betray a brave and unsuspecting man into the hands of a relentless
enemy, she would have laughed the idea to scorn.

Yet she had done these things; anon, perhaps the death of that brave
man would be at her door, just as two years ago the Marquis de St. Cyr
had perished through a thoughtless word of hers; but in that case she
was morally innocent—she had meant no serious harm—fate merely had
stepped in. But this time she had done a thing that obviously was base,
had done it deliberately, for a motive which, perhaps, high moralists
would not even appreciate.

And as she felt her husband’s strong arm beside her, she also felt how
much more he would dislike and despise her, if he knew of this night’s
work. Thus human beings judge of one another, superficially, casually,
throwing contempt on one another, with but little reason, and no
charity. She despised her husband for his inanities and vulgar,
unintellectual occupations; and he, she felt, would despise her still
worse, because she had not been strong enough to do right for right’s
sake, and to sacrifice her brother to the dictates of her conscience.

Buried in her thoughts, Marguerite had found this hour in the breezy
summer night all too brief; and it was with a feeling of keen
disappointment, that she suddenly realised that the bays had turned
into the massive gates of her beautiful English home.

Sir Percy Blakeney’s house on the river has become a historic one:
palatial in its dimensions, it stands in the midst of exquisitely
laid-out gardens, with a picturesque terrace and frontage to the river.
Built in Tudor days, the old red brick of the walls looks eminently
picturesque in the midst of a bower of green, the beautiful lawn, with
its old sun-dial, adding the true note of harmony to its foreground.
Great secular trees lent cool shadows to the grounds, and now, on this
warm early autumn night, the leaves slightly turned to russets and
gold, the old garden looked singularly poetic and peaceful in the
moonlight.

With unerring precision, Sir Percy had brought the four bays to a
standstill immediately in front of the fine Elizabethan entrance hall;
in spite of the lateness of the hour, an army of grooms seemed to have
emerged from the very ground, as the coach had thundered up, and were
standing respectfully round.

Sir Percy jumped down quickly, then helped Marguerite to alight. She
lingered outside for a moment, whilst he gave a few orders to one of
his men. She skirted the house, and stepped on to the lawn, looking out
dreamily into the silvery landscape. Nature seemed exquisitely at
peace, in comparison with the tumultuous emotions she had gone through:
she could faintly hear the ripple of the river and the occasional soft
and ghostlike fall of a dead leaf from a tree.

All else was quiet round her. She had heard the horses prancing as they
were being led away to their distant stables, the hurrying of servants’
feet as they had all gone within to rest: the house also was quite
still. In two separate suites of apartments, just above the magnificent
reception-rooms, lights were still burning; they were her rooms, and
his, well divided from each other by the whole width of the house, as
far apart as their own lives had become. Involuntarily she sighed—at
that moment she could really not have told why.

She was suffering from unconquerable heartache. Deeply and achingly she
was sorry for herself. Never had she felt so pitiably lonely, so
bitterly in want of comfort and of sympathy. With another sigh she
turned away from the river towards the house, vaguely wondering if,
after such a night, she could ever find rest and sleep.

Suddenly, before she reached the terrace, she heard a firm step upon
the crisp gravel, and the next moment her husband’s figure emerged out
of the shadow. He, too, had skirted the house, and was wandering along
the lawn, towards the river. He still wore his heavy driving coat with
the numerous lapels and collars he himself had set in fashion, but he
had thrown it well back, burying his hands as was his wont, in the deep
pockets of his satin breeches: the gorgeous white costume he had worn
at Lord Grenville’s ball, with its jabot of priceless lace, looked
strangely ghostly against the dark background of the house.

He apparently did not notice her, for, after a few moments’ pause, he
presently turned back towards the house, and walked straight up to the
terrace.

“Sir Percy!”

He already had one foot on the lowest of the terrace steps, but at her
voice he started, and paused, then looked searchingly into the shadows
whence she had called to him.

She came forward quickly into the moonlight, and, as soon as he saw
her, he said, with that air of consummate gallantry he always wore when
speaking to her,—

“At your service, Madame!”
 But his foot was still on the step, and in his whole attitude there
 was a remote suggestion, distinctly visible to her, that he wished to
 go, and had no desire for a midnight interview.

“The air is deliciously cool,” she said, “the moonlight peaceful and
poetic, and the garden inviting. Will you not stay in it awhile; the
hour is not yet late, or is my company so distasteful to you, that you
are in a hurry to rid yourself of it?”

“Nay, Madame,” he rejoined placidly, “but ’tis on the other foot the
shoe happens to be, and I’ll warrant you’ll find the midnight air more
poetic without my company: no doubt the sooner I remove the obstruction
the better your ladyship will like it.”

He turned once more to go.

“I protest you mistake me, Sir Percy,” she said hurriedly, and drawing
a little closer to him; “the estrangement, which, alas! has arisen
between us, was none of my making, remember.”

“Begad! you must pardon me there, Madame!” he protested coldly, “my
memory was always of the shortest.”

He looked her straight in the eyes, with that lazy nonchalance which
had become second nature to him. She returned his gaze for a moment,
then her eyes softened, as she came up quite close to him, to the foot
of the terrace steps.

“Of the shortest, Sir Percy? Faith! how it must have altered! Was it
three years ago or four that you saw me for one hour in Paris, on your
way to the East? When you came back two years later you had not
forgotten me.”

She looked divinely pretty as she stood there in the moonlight, with
the fur-cloak sliding off her beautiful shoulders, the gold embroidery
on her dress shimmering around her, her childlike blue eyes turned up
fully at him.

He stood for a moment, rigid and still, but for the clenching of his
hand against the stone balustrade of the terrace.

“You desired my presence, Madame,” he said frigidly. “I take it that it
was not with a view to indulging in tender reminiscences.”

His voice certainly was cold and uncompromising: his attitude before
her, stiff and unbending. Womanly decorum would have suggested that
Marguerite should return coldness for coldness, and should sweep past
him without another word, only with a curt nod of the head: but womanly
instinct suggested that she should remain—that keen instinct, which
makes a beautiful woman conscious of her powers long to bring to her
knees the one man who pays her no homage. She stretched out her hand to
him.

“Nay, Sir Percy, why not? the present is not so glorious but that I
should not wish to dwell a little in the past.”

He bent his tall figure, and taking hold of the extreme tip of the
fingers which she still held out to him, he kissed them ceremoniously.

“I’ faith, Madame,” he said, “then you will pardon me, if my dull wits
cannot accompany you there.”

Once again he attempted to go, once more her voice, sweet, childlike,
almost tender, called him back.

“Sir Percy.”

“Your servant, Madame.”

“Is it possible that love can die?” she said with sudden, unreasoning
vehemence. “Methought that the passion which you once felt for me would
outlast the span of human life. Is there nothing left of that love,
Percy . . . which might help you . . . to bridge over that sad
estrangement?”

His massive figure seemed, while she spoke thus to him, to stiffen
still more, the strong mouth hardened, a look of relentless obstinacy
crept into the habitually lazy blue eyes.

“With what object, I pray you, Madame?” he asked coldly.

“I do not understand you.”

“Yet ’tis simple enough,” he said with sudden bitterness, which seemed
literally to surge through his words, though he was making visible
efforts to suppress it, “I humbly put the question to you, for my slow
wits are unable to grasp the cause of this, your ladyship’s sudden new
mood. Is it that you have the taste to renew the devilish sport which
you played so successfully last year? Do you wish to see me once more a
love-sick suppliant at your feet, so that you might again have the
pleasure of kicking me aside, like a troublesome lap-dog?”

She had succeeded in rousing him for the moment: and again she looked
straight at him, for it was thus she remembered him a year ago.

“Percy! I entreat you!” she whispered, “can we not bury the past?”

“Pardon me, Madame, but I understood you to say that your desire was to
dwell in it.”

“Nay! I spoke not of _that_ past, Percy!” she said, while a tone of
tenderness crept into her voice. “Rather did I speak of the time when
you loved me still! and I . . . oh! I was vain and frivolous; your
wealth and position allured me: I married you, hoping in my heart that
your great love for me would beget in me a love for you . . . but,
alas! . . .”

The moon had sunk low down behind a bank of clouds. In the east a soft
grey light was beginning to chase away the heavy mantle of the night.
He could only see her graceful outline now, the small queenly head,
with its wealth of reddish golden curls, and the glittering gems
forming the small, star-shaped, red flower which she wore as a diadem
in her hair.

“Twenty-four hours after our marriage, Madame, the Marquis de St. Cyr
and all his family perished on the guillotine, and the popular rumour
reached me that it was the wife of Sir Percy Blakeney who helped to
send them there.”

“Nay! I myself told you the truth of that odious tale.”

“Not till after it had been recounted to me by strangers, with all its
horrible details.”

“And you believed them then and there,” she said with great vehemence,
“without a proof or question—you believed that I, whom you vowed you
loved more than life, whom you professed you worshipped, that _I_ could
do a thing so base as these _strangers_ chose to recount. You thought I
meant to deceive you about it all—that I ought to have spoken before I
married you: yet, had you listened, I would have told you that up to
the very morning on which St. Cyr went to the guillotine, I was
straining every nerve, using every influence I possessed, to save him
and his family. But my pride sealed my lips, when your love seemed to
perish, as if under the knife of that same guillotine. Yet I would have
told you how I was duped! Aye! I, whom that same popular rumour had
endowed with the sharpest wits in France! I was tricked into doing this
thing, by men who knew how to play upon my love for an only brother,
and my desire for revenge. Was it unnatural?”

Her voice became choked with tears. She paused for a moment or two,
trying to regain some sort of composure. She looked appealingly at him,
almost as if he were her judge. He had allowed her to speak on in her
own vehement, impassioned way, offering no comment, no word of
sympathy: and now, while she paused, trying to swallow down the hot
tears that gushed to her eyes, he waited, impassive and still. The dim,
grey light of early dawn seemed to make his tall form look taller and
more rigid. The lazy, good-natured face looked strangely altered.
Marguerite, excited, as she was, could see that the eyes were no longer
languid, the mouth no longer good-humoured and inane. A curious look of
intense passion seemed to glow from beneath his drooping lids, the
mouth was tightly closed, the lips compressed, as if the will alone
held that surging passion in check.

Marguerite Blakeney was, above all, a woman, with all a woman’s
fascinating foibles, all a woman’s most lovable sins. She knew in a
moment that for the past few months she had been mistaken: that this
man who stood here before her, cold as a statue, when her musical voice
struck upon his ear, loved her, as he had loved her a year ago: that
his passion might have been dormant, but that it was there, as strong,
as intense, as overwhelming, as when first her lips met his in one
long, maddening kiss.

 Pride had kept him from her, and, woman-like, she meant to win back
 that conquest which had been hers before. Suddenly it seemed to her
 that the only happiness life could ever hold for her again would be in
 feeling that man’s kiss once more upon her lips.

“Listen to the tale, Sir Percy,” she said, and her voice now was low,
sweet, infinitely tender. “Armand was all in all to me! We had no
parents, and brought one another up. He was my little father, and I,
his tiny mother; we loved one another so. Then one day—do you mind me,
Sir Percy? the Marquis de St. Cyr had my brother Armand
thrashed—thrashed by his lacqueys—that brother whom I loved better than
all the world! And his offence? That he, a plebeian, had dared to love
the daughter of the aristocrat; for that he was waylaid and thrashed .
. . thrashed like a dog within an inch of his life! Oh, how I suffered!
his humiliation had eaten into my very soul! When the opportunity
occurred, and I was able to take my revenge, I took it. But I only
thought to bring that proud marquis to trouble and humiliation. He
plotted with Austria against his own country. Chance gave me knowledge
of this; I spoke of it, but I did not know—how could I guess?—they
trapped and duped me. When I realised what I had done, it was too
late.”

“It is perhaps a little difficult, Madame,” said Sir Percy, after a
moment of silence between them, “to go back over the past. I have
confessed to you that my memory is short, but the thought certainly
lingered in my mind that, at the time of the Marquis’ death, I
entreated you for an explanation of those same noisome popular rumours.
If that same memory does not, even now, play me a trick, I fancy that
you refused me _all_ explanation then, and demanded of my love a
humiliating allegiance it was not prepared to give.”

“I wished to test your love for me, and it did not bear the test. You
used to tell me that you drew the very breath of life but for me, and
for love of me.”

“And to probe that love, you demanded that I should forfeit mine
honour,” he said, whilst gradually his impassiveness seemed to leave
him, his rigidity to relax; “that I should accept without murmur or
question, as a dumb and submissive slave, every action of my mistress.
My heart overflowing with love and passion, I _asked_ for no
explanation—I _waited_ for one, not doubting—only hoping. Had you
spoken but one word, from you I would have accepted any explanation and
believed it. But you left me without a word, beyond a bald confession
of the actual horrible facts; proudly you returned to your brother’s
house, and left me alone . . . for weeks . . . not knowing, now, in
whom to believe, since the shrine, which contained my one illusion, lay
shattered to earth at my feet.”

She need not complain now that he was cold and impassive; his very
voice shook with an intensity of passion, which he was making
superhuman efforts to keep in check.

“Aye! the madness of my pride!” she said sadly. “Hardly had I gone,
already I had repented. But when I returned, I found you, oh, so
altered! wearing already that mask of somnolent indifference which you
have never laid aside until . . . until now.”

She was so close to him that her soft, loose hair was wafted against
his cheek; her eyes, glowing with tears, maddened him, the music in her
voice sent fire through his veins. But he would not yield to the magic
charm of this woman whom he had so deeply loved, and at whose hands his
pride had suffered so bitterly. He closed his eyes to shut out the
dainty vision of that sweet face, of that snow-white neck and graceful
figure, round which the faint rosy light of dawn was just beginning to
hover playfully.

“Nay, Madame, it is no mask,” he said icily; “I swore to you . . .
once, that my life was yours. For months now it has been your plaything
. . . it has served its purpose.”

But now she knew that that very coldness was a mask. The trouble, the
sorrow she had gone through last night, suddenly came back to her mind,
but no longer with bitterness, rather with a feeling that this man who
loved her, would help her to bear the burden.

“Sir Percy,” she said impulsively, “Heaven knows you have been at pains
to make the task, which I had set to myself, terribly difficult to
accomplish. You spoke of my mood just now; well! we will call it that,
if you will. I wished to speak to you . . . because . . . because I was
in trouble . . . and had need . . . of your sympathy.”

“It is yours to command, Madame.”

“How cold you are!” she sighed. “Faith! I can scarce believe that but a
few months ago one tear in my eye had set you well-nigh crazy. Now I
come to you . . . with a half-broken heart . . . and . . . and . . .”

“I pray you, Madame,” he said, whilst his voice shook almost as much as
hers, “in what way can I serve you?”

“Percy!—Armand is in deadly danger. A letter of his . . . rash,
impetuous, as were all his actions, and written to Sir Andrew Ffoulkes,
has fallen into the hands of a fanatic. Armand is hopelessly
compromised . . . to-morrow, perhaps he will be arrested . . . after
that the guillotine . . . unless . . . unless . . . oh! it is
horrible!” . . . she said, with a sudden wail of anguish, as all the
events of the past night came rushing back to her mind, “horrible! . .
. and you do not understand . . . you cannot . . . and I have no one to
whom I can turn . . . for help . . . or even for sympathy. . . .”

Tears now refused to be held back. All her trouble, her struggles, the
awful uncertainty of Armand’s fate overwhelmed her. She tottered, ready
to fall, and leaning against the stone balustrade, she buried her face
in her hands and sobbed bitterly.

At first mention of Armand St. Just’s name and of the peril in which he
stood, Sir Percy’s face had become a shade more pale; and the look of
determination and obstinacy appeared more marked than ever between his
eyes. However, he said nothing for the moment, but watched her, as her
delicate frame was shaken with sobs, watched her until unconsciously
his face softened, and what looked almost like tears seemed to glisten
in his eyes.

“And so,” he said with bitter sarcasm, “the murderous dog of the
revolution is turning upon the very hands that fed it? . . . Begad,
Madame,” he added very gently, as Marguerite continued to sob
hysterically, “will you dry your tears? . . . I never could bear to see
a pretty woman cry, and I . . .”

Instinctively, with sudden, overmastering passion, at sight of her
helplessness and of her grief, he stretched out his arms, and the next,
would have seized her and held her to him, protected from every evil
with his very life, his very heart’s blood. . . . But pride had the
better of it in this struggle once again; he restrained himself with a
tremendous effort of will, and said coldly, though still very gently,—

“Will you not turn to me, Madame, and tell me in what way I may have
the honour to serve you?”

She made a violent effort to control herself, and turning her
tear-stained face to him, she once more held out her hand, which he
kissed with the same punctilious gallantry; but Marguerite’s fingers,
this time, lingered in his hand for a second or two longer than was
absolutely necessary, and this was because she had felt that his hand
trembled perceptibly and was burning hot, whilst his lips felt as cold
as marble.

“Can you do aught for Armand?” she said sweetly and simply. “You have
so much influence at court . . . so many friends . . .”

“Nay, Madame, should you not rather seek the influence of your French
friend, M. Chauvelin? His extends, if I mistake not, even as far as the
Republican Government of France.”

“I cannot ask him, Percy. . . . Oh! I wish I dared to tell you . . .
but . . . but . . . he has put a price on my brother’s head, which . .
.”

She would have given worlds if she had felt the courage then to tell
him everything . . . all she had done that night—how she had suffered
and how her hand had been forced. But she dared not give way to that
impulse . . . not now, when she was just beginning to feel that he
still loved her, when she hoped that she could win him back. She dared
not make another confession to him. After all, he might not understand;
he might not sympathise with her struggles and temptation. His love
still dormant might sleep the sleep of death.

Perhaps he divined what was passing in her mind. His whole attitude was
one of intense longing—a veritable prayer for that confidence, which
her foolish pride withheld from him. When she remained silent he
sighed, and said with marked coldness—

“Faith, Madame, since it distresses you, we will not speak of it. . . .
As for Armand, I pray you have no fear. I pledge you my word that he
shall be safe. Now, have I your permission to go? The hour is getting
late, and . . .”

“You will at least accept my gratitude?” she said, as she drew quite
close to him, and speaking with real tenderness.

With a quick, almost involuntary effort he would have taken her then in
his arms, for her eyes were swimming in tears, which he longed to kiss
away; but she had lured him once, just like this, then cast him aside
like an ill-fitting glove. He thought this was but a mood, a caprice,
and he was too proud to lend himself to it once again.

“It is too soon, Madame!” he said quietly; “I have done nothing as yet.
The hour is late, and you must be fatigued. Your women will be waiting
for you upstairs.”

He stood aside to allow her to pass. She sighed, a quick sigh of
disappointment. His pride and her beauty had been in direct conflict,
and his pride had remained the conqueror. Perhaps, after all, she had
been deceived just now; what she took to be the light of love in his
eyes might only have been the passion of pride or, who knows, of hatred
instead of love. She stood looking at him for a moment or two longer.
He was again as rigid, as impassive, as before. Pride had conquered,
and he cared naught for her. The grey of dawn was gradually yielding to
the rosy light of the rising sun. Birds began to twitter; Nature
awakened, smiling in happy response to the warmth of this glorious
October morning. Only between these two hearts there lay a strong,
impassable barrier, built up of pride on both sides, which neither of
them cared to be the first to demolish.

He had bent his tall figure in a low ceremonious bow, as she finally,
with another bitter little sigh, began to mount the terrace steps.

The long train of her gold-embroidered gown swept the dead leaves off
the steps, making a faint harmonious sh—sh—sh as she glided up, with
one hand resting on the balustrade, the rosy light of dawn making an
aureole of gold round her hair, and causing the rubies on her head and
arms to sparkle. She reached the tall glass doors which led into the
house. Before entering, she paused once again to look at him, hoping
against hope to see his arms stretched out to her, and to hear his
voice calling her back. But he had not moved; his massive figure looked
the very personification of unbending pride, of fierce obstinacy.

Hot tears again surged to her eyes, and as she would not let him see
them, she turned quickly within, and ran as fast as she could up to her
own rooms.

Had she but turned back then, and looked out once more on to the
rose-lit garden, she would have seen that which would have made her own
sufferings seem but light and easy to bear—a strong man, overwhelmed
with his own passion and his own despair. Pride had given way at last,
obstinacy was gone: the will was powerless. He was but a man madly,
blindly, passionately in love, and as soon as her light footsteps had
died away within the house, he knelt down upon the terrace steps, and
in the very madness of his love he kissed one by one the places where
her small foot had trodden, and the stone balustrade there, where her
tiny hand had rested last.

CHAPTER XVII.
FAREWELL

When Marguerite reached her room, she found her maid terribly anxious
about her.

“Your ladyship will be so tired,” said the poor woman, whose own eyes
were half closed with sleep. “It is past five o’clock.”

“Ah, yes, Louise, I daresay I shall be tired presently,” said
Marguerite, kindly; “but you are very tired now, so go to bed at once.
I’ll get into bed alone.”

“But, my lady . . .”

“Now, don’t argue, Louise, but go to bed. Give me a wrap, and leave me
alone.”

Louise was only too glad to obey. She took off her mistress’s gorgeous
ball-dress, and wrapped her up in a soft billowy gown.

“Does your ladyship wish for anything else?” she asked, when that was
done.

“No, nothing more. Put out the lights as you go out.”

“Yes, my lady. Good-night, my lady.”

“Good-night, Louise.”

When the maid was gone, Marguerite drew aside the curtains and threw
open the windows. The garden and the river beyond were flooded with
rosy light. Far away to the east, the rays of the rising sun had
changed the rose into vivid gold. The lawn was deserted now, and
Marguerite looked down upon the terrace where she had stood a few
moments ago trying vainly to win back a man’s love, which once had been
so wholly hers.

It was strange that through all her troubles, all her anxiety for
Armand, she was mostly conscious at the present moment of a keen and
bitter heartache.

Her very limbs seemed to ache with longing for the love of a man who
had spurned her, who had resisted her tenderness, remained cold to her
appeals, and had not responded to the glow of passion, which had caused
her to feel and hope that those happy olden days in Paris were not all
dead and forgotten.

How strange it all was! She loved him still. And now that she looked
back upon the last few months of misunderstandings and of loneliness,
she realised that she had never ceased to love him; that deep down in
her heart she had always vaguely felt that his foolish inanities, his
empty laugh, his lazy nonchalance were nothing but a mask; that the
real man, strong, passionate, wilful, was there still—the man she had
loved, whose intensity had fascinated her, whose personality attracted
her, since she always felt that behind his apparently slow wits there
was a certain something, which he kept hidden from all the world, and
most especially from her.

A woman’s heart is such a complex problem—the owner thereof is often
most incompetent to find the solution of this puzzle.

Did Marguerite Blakeney, “the cleverest woman in Europe,” really love a