textfiles/etext/FICTION/pimpernel

                                      1905
                             THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
                               by Baroness Orczy
                             1
                    Paris: September 1792

  A SURGING, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only
in name, for to the eye and ear they seem nought but savage creatures,
animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.
The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West
Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant
raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity.
  During the greater part of the day, the guillotine had been kept
busy at its ghastly work; all that France had boasted of in the past
centuries of ancient names and blue blood had paid toll to her
desire for liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased
at this late hour of the day because there were other, more
interesting, sights for the people to witness a little while before
the final closing of the barricades for the night.
  And so the crowd rushed away from the Place de la Greve and made for
the various barricades in order to watch this interesting and
amusing sight.
  It was to be seen every day, for those "aristos" were such fools!
They were traitors to the people, of course; all of them- men,
women, and children- who happened to be descendants of the great men
who since the Crusades had made the glory of France: her old noblesse.
Their ancestors had oppressed the people, had crushed them under the
scarlet heels of their dainty buckled shoes, and now the people had
become the rulers of France and crushed their former masters- not
beneath their heels, for they went shoeless mostly in these days,
but beneath a more effectual weight: the knife of the guillotine.
  And daily, hourly, the hideous instrument of torture claimed its
many victims- old men, young women, tiny children, even until the
day when it would finally demand the head of a king and of a beautiful
young queen.
  But this was as it should be. Were not the people now the rulers
of France? Every aristocrat was a traitor, as his ancestors had been
before him; for two hundred years now, the people had sweated and
toiled and starved to keep a lustful court in lavish extravagance. Now
the descendants of those who had helped to make those courts brilliant
had to hide for their lives- to fly, if they wished to avoid the tardy
vengeance of the people.
  And they did try to hide, and tried to fly- that was just the fun of
the whole thing. Every afternoon before the gates closed and the
market carts went out in procession by the various barricades, some
fool of an aristo endeavored to evade the clutches of the Committee of
Public Safety. In various disguises, under various pretexts, they
tried to slip through the barriers which were so well guarded by
citizen soldiers of the Republic. Men in women's clothes, women in
male attire, children disguised in beggars' rags- there were some of
all sorts: ci-devant counts, marquises, even dukes, who wanted to
fly from France, reach England or some other equally accursed country,
and there try to rouse foreign feeling against the glorious Revolution
or to raise an army in order to liberate the wretched prisoners in the
Temple, who had once called themselves sovereigns of France.
  But they were nearly always caught at the barricades. Sergeant
Bibot, especially, at the West Gate had a wonderful nose for
scenting an aristo in the most perfect disguise. Then, of course,
the fun began. Bibot would look at his prey as a cat looks upon the
mouse, play with him, sometimes for quite a quarter of an hour,
pretend to be hoodwinked by the disguise, by the wigs and other bits
of theatrical make-up which hid the identity of a ci-devant noble
marquis or count.
  Oh, Bibot had a keen sense of humor, and it was well worth hanging
round that West Barricade in order to see him catch an aristo in the
very act of trying to flee from the vengeance of the people.
  Sometimes Bibot would let his prey actually out by the gates,
allowing him to think for the space of two minutes at least that he
really had escaped out of Paris and might even manage to reach the
coast of England in safety; but Bibot would let the unfortunate wretch
walk about ten meters toward the open country, then he would send
two men after him and bring him back, stripped of his disguise.
  Oh, that was extremely funny, for as often as not, the fugitive
would prove to be a woman, some proud marquise, who looked terribly
comical when she found herself in Bibot's clutches after all and
knew that a summary trial would await her the next day and, after
that, the fond embrace of Madame la Guillotine.
  No wonder that on this fine afternoon in September the crowd round
Bibot's gate was eager and excited. The lust of blood grows with its
satisfaction- there is no satiety. The crowd had seen a hundred
noble heads fall beneath the guillotine today; it wanted to make
sure that it would see another hundred fall on the morrow.
  Bibot was sitting on an overturned and empty cask close by the
gate of the barricade; a small detachment of citizen soldiers was
under his command. The work had been very hot lately. Those cursed
aristos were becoming terrified and tried their hardest to slip out of
Paris; men, women, and children whose ancestors, even in remote
ages, had served those traitorous Bourbons were all traitors
themselves and right food for the guillotine. Every day, Bibot had had
the satisfaction of unmasking some fugitive Royalists and sending them
back to be tried by the Committee of Public Safety, presided over by
that good patriot, Citoyen Foucquier-Tinville.
  Robespierre and Danton both had commended Bibot for his zeal, and
Bibot was proud of the fact that he, on his own initiative, had sent
at least fifty aristos to the guillotine.
  But today all the sergeants in command at the various barricades had
had special orders. Recently a very great number of aristos had
succeeded in escaping out of France and in reaching England safely.
There were curious rumors about these escapes. They had become very
frequent and singularly daring. The people's minds were becoming
strangely excited about it all. Sergeant Grospierre had been sent to
the guillotine for allowing a whole family of aristos to slip out of
the North Gate under his very nose.
  It was asserted that these escapes were organized by a band of
Englishmen, whose daring seemed to be unparalleled and who, from sheer
desire to meddle in what did not concern them, spent their spare
time in snatching away lawful victims destined for Madame la
Guillotine. These rumors soon grew in extravagance. There was no doubt
that this band of meddlesome Englishmen did exist; moreover, they
seemed to be under the leadership of a man whose pluck and audacity
were almost fabulous. Strange stories were afloat of bow he and
those aristos whom he rescued became suddenly invisible as they
reached the barricades and escaped out of the gates by sheer
supernatural agency.
  No one had seen these mysterious Englishmen; as for their leader, he
was never spoken of, save with a superstitious shudder. Citoyen
Foucquier-Tinville would in the course of the day receive a scrap of
paper from some mysterious source; sometimes he would find it in the
pocket of his coat, at others it would be handed to him by someone
in the crowd while he was on his way to the sitting of the Committee
of Public Safety. The paper always contained a brief notice that the
band of meddlesome Englishmen were at work, and it was always signed
with a device drawn in red- a little star-shaped flower, which we in
England call the scarlet pimpernel. Within a few hours of the
receipt of this impudent notice, the citizens of the Committee of
Public Safety would hear that so many Royalists and aristocrats had
succeeded in reaching the coast and were on their way to England and
safety.
  The guards at the gates had been doubled, the sergeants in command
had been threatened with death, while liberal rewards were offered for
the capture of these daring and impudent Englishmen. There was a sum
of five thousand francs promised to the man who laid hands on the
mysterious and elusive Scarlet Pimpernel.
  Everyone felt that Bibot would be that man, and Bibot allowed that
belief to take firm root in everybody's mind. And so, day after day,
people came to watch him at the West Gate so as to be present when
he laid hands on any fugitive aristo who perhaps might be
accompanied by that mysterious Englishman.
  "Bah!" he said to his trusted corporal. "Citoyen Grospierre was a
fool! Had it been me, now, at that North Gate last week..." Citoyen
Bibot spat on the ground to express his contempt for his comrade's
stupidity.
  "How did it happen, Citoyen?" asked the corporal.
  "Grospierre was at the gate, keeping good watch," began Bibot
pompously, as the crowd closed in round him, listening eagerly to
his narrative. "We've all heard of this meddlesome Englishman, this
accursed Scarlet Pimpernel. He won't get through my gate- morbleu!-
unless he be the devil himself. But Grospierre was a fool. The
market carts were going through the gates; there was one laden with
casks and driven by an old man, with a boy beside him. Grospierre
was a bit drunk, but he thought himself very clever; he looked into
the casks- most of them, at least- and saw they were empty and let the
cart go through."
  A murmur of wrath and contempt went round the group of ill-clad
wretches who crowded round Citoyen Bibot.
  "Half an hour later," continued the sergeant, "up comes a captain of
the guard with a squad of some dozen soldiers with him. 'Has a cart
gone through?' he asks of Grospierre breathlessly. 'Yes,' says
Grospierre, 'not half an hour ago.' 'And you have let them escape,'
shouts the captain furiously. 'You'll go to the guillotine for this,
Citoyen Sergeant! That cart held concealed the ci-devant Duc de Chalis
and all his family!' 'What!' thunders Grospierre, aghast. 'Aye! And
the driver was none other than that cursed Englishman, the Scarlet
Pimpernel.'"
  A howl of execration greeted this tale. Citoyen Grospierre had
paid for his blunder on the guillotine, but what a fool! Oh, what a
fool!
  Bibot was laughing so much at his own tale that it was some time
before he could continue. "'After them, my men,' shouts the
captain," he said after a while. "'Remember the reward; after them-
they cannot have gone far!' And with that he rushes through the
gate, followed by his dozen soldiers."
  "But it was too late!" shouted the crowd excitedly.
  "They never got them!"
  "Curse that Grospierre for his folly!"
  "He deserved his fate!"
  "Fancy not examining those casks properly!"
  But these sallies seemed to amuse Citoyen Bibot exceedingly; he
laughed until his sides ached and the tears streamed down his
cheeks. "Nay, nay!" he said at last. "Those aristos weren't in the
cart; the driver was not the Scarlet Pimpernel!"
  "What?"
  "No! The captain of the guard was that cursed Englishman in
disguise, and every one of his soldiers aristos!"
  The crowd this time said nothing. The story certainly savored of the
supernatural, and though the Republic had abolished God, it had not
quite succeeded in killing the fear of the supernatural in the
hearts of the people. Truly, that Englishman must be the devil
himself.
  The sun was sinking low down in the west. Bibot prepared himself
to close the gates. "En avant the carts," he said.
  Some dozen covered carts were drawn up in a row, ready to leave town
in order to fetch the produce from the country close by for market the
next morning. They were mostly well known to Bibot, as they went
through his gate twice every day on their way to and from the town.
  He spoke to one or two of their drivers- mostly women- and was at
great pains to examine the inside of the carts. "You never know," he
would say, "and I'm not going to be caught like that fool Grospierre."
  The women who drove the carts usually spent their day on the Place
de la Greve, beneath the platform of the guillotine, knitting and
gossiping while they watched the rows of tumbrils arriving with the
victims the Reign of Terror claimed every day. It was great fun to see
the aristos arriving for the reception of Madame la Guillotine, and
the places close by the platform were very much sought after. Bibot,
during the day, had been on duty on the Place. He recognized most of
the old hags- tricoteuses, as they were called- who sat there and
knitted while head after head fell beneath the knife and they
themselves got quite bespattered with the blood of those cursed
aristos.
  "He, la mere!" said Bibot to one of these horrible hags. "What
have you got there?"
  He had seen her earlier in the day, with her knitting and the whip
of her cart close beside her. Now she had fastened a row of curly
locks to the whip handle- all colors, from gold to silver, fair to
dark- and she stroked them with her huge, bony fingers as she
laughed at Bibot.
  "I made friends with Madame Guillotine's lover," she said with a
coarse laugh. "He cut these off for me from the heads as they rolled
down. He has promised me some more tomorrow, but I don't know if I
shall be at my usual place."
  "Ah! How is that, la mere?" asked Bibot, who, hardened soldier
though he was, could not help shuddering at the awful loathsomeness of
this semblance of a woman, with her ghastly trophy on the handle of
her whip.
  "My grandson has got the smallpox," she said with a jerk of her
thumb toward the inside of her cart. "Some say it's the plague! If
it is, I shan't be allowed to come into Paris tomorrow."
  At the first mention of the word smallpox, Bibot had stepped hastily
backward, and when the old bag spoke of the plague, he retreated
from her as fast as he could. "Curse you!" he muttered, while the
whole crowd hastily avoided the cart, leaving it standing all alone in
the midst of the place.
  The old hag laughed. "Curse you, Citoyen, for being a coward," she
said. "Bah! What a man to be afraid of sickness."
  "Morbleu! The plague!"
  Everyone was awe-struck and silent, filled with horror for the
loathsome malady, the one thing which still had the power to arouse
terror and disgust in these savage, brutalized creatures.
  "Get out with you and with your plague-stricken brood!" shouted
Bibot hoarsely.
  And with another rough laugh and coarse jest, the old hag whipped up
her lean nag and drove her cart out of the gate.
  This incident had spoiled the afternoon. The people were terrified
of these two horrible curses, the two maladies which nothing could
cure and which were the precursors of an awful and lonely death.
They hung about the barricades, silent and sullen for a while,
eyeing one another suspiciously, avoiding each other as if by
instinct, lest the plague lurked already in their midst. Presently, as
in the case of Grospierre, a captain of the guard appeared suddenly.
But he was known to Bibot, and there was no fear of his turning out to
be a sly Englishman in disguise.
  "A cart..." he shouted breathlessly, even before he had reached
the gates.
  "What cart?" asked Bibot roughly.
  "Driven by an old hag... A covered cart..."
  "There were a dozen..."
  "An old hag who said her son had the plague?"
  "Yes..."
  "You have not let them go?"
  "Morbleu!" said Bibot, whose purple cheeks had suddenly become white
with fear.
  "The cart contained the ci-devant Comtesse de Tournay and her two
children, all of them traitors and condemned to death."
  "And their driver?" muttered Bibot as a superstitious shudder ran
down his spine.
  "Sacre tonnerre," said the captain, "but it is feared that it was
that accursed Englishman himself- the Scarlet Pimpernel."
                             2
                 Dover: The Fisherman's Rest

  IN THE KITCHEN Sally was extremely busy- saucepans and frying pans
were standing in rows on the gigantic hearth, the huge stockpot
stood in a corner, and the jack turned with slow deliberation and
presented alternately to the glow every side of a noble sirloin of
beef. The two little kitchenmaids bustled around, eager to help, hot
and panting, with cotton sleeves well tucked up above the dimpled
elbows, and giggling over some private jokes of their own whenever
Miss Sally's back was turned for a moment. And old Jemima, stolid in
temper and solid in bulk kept up a long and subdued grumble while
she stirred the stockpot methodically over the fire.
  "What ho, Sally!" came in cheerful if none too melodious accents
from the coffeeroom close by.
  "Lud bless my soul!" exclaimed Sally with a good-humored laugh.
"What be they all wanting now, I wonder!"
  "Beer, of course," grumbled Jemima. "You don't 'xpect Jimmy Pitkin
to 'ave done with one tankard, do ye?"
  "Mr. 'Arry, 'e looked uncommon thirsty too," simpered Martha, one of
the little kitchenmaids; and her beady black eyes twinkled as they met
those of her companion, whereupon both started on a round of short and
suppressed giggles.
  Sally looked across for a moment and thoughtfully rubbed her hands
against her shapely hips; her palms were itching, evidently, to come
in contact with Martha's rosy cheeks- but inherent good humor
prevailed, and with a pout and a shrug of the shoulders she turned her
attention to the fried potatoes.
  "What ho, Sally! Hey, Sally!"
  And a chorus of pewter mugs, tapped with impatient hands against the
oak tables of the coffeeroom, accompanied the shouts for mine host's
buxom daughter.
  "Sally!" shouted a more persistent voice. "Are ye goin' to be all
night with that there beer?"
  "I do think Father might get the beer for them," muttered Sally as
Jemima, stolidly and without further comment, took a couple of
foam-crowned jugs from the shelf and began filling a number of
pewter tankards with some of that home-brewed ale for which The
Fisherman's Rest had been famous since the days of King Charles. "E
knows 'ow busy we are in 'ere."
  "Your father is too busy discussing polities with Mr. 'Empseed to
worry 'isself about you and the kitchen," grumbled Jemima under her
breath.
  Sally had gone to the small mirror which hung in a corner of the
kitchen and was hastily smoothing her hair and setting her frilled cap
at its most becoming angle over her dark curls; then she took up the
tankards by their handles- three in each strong, brown hand- and,
laughing, grumbling, blushing, carried them through into the
coffeeroom.
  There, there was certainly no sign of that bustle and activity which
kept four women busy and hot in the glowing kitchen beyond.
  The coffeeroom of The Fisherman's Rest is a show place now at the
beginning of the twentieth century. At the end of the eighteenth, in
the year of grace 1792, it had not yet gained that notoriety and
importance which a hundred additional years and the craze of the age
have since bestowed upon it. Yet it was an old place, even then, for
the oak rafters and beams were already black with age- as were the
paneled seats, with their tall backs, and the long polished tables
between, on which innumerable pewter tankards had left fantastic
patterns of many-sized rings. In the leaded window, high up, a row
of pots of scarlet geraniums and blue larkspur gave the bright note of
color against the dull background of the oak.
  That Mr. Jellyband, landlord of The Fisherman's Rest at Dover, was a
prosperous man was of course clear to the most casual observer. The
pewter on the fine old dressers, the brass above the gigantic hearth
shone like gold and silver; the red-tiled floor was as brilliant as
the scarlet geranium on the window sill- this meant that his
servants were good and plentiful, that the custom was constant and
of that order which necessitated the keeping up of the coffeeroom to a
high standard of elegance and order.
  As Sally came in, laughing through her frowns and displaying a row
of dazzling white teeth, she was greeted with shouts and a chorus of
applause.
  "Why, here's Sally! What ho, Sally! Hurrah for pretty Sally!"
  "I thought you'd grown deaf in that kitchen of yours," muttered
Jimmy Pitkin as he passed the back of his hand across his very dry
lips.
  "All ri'! All ri'!" laughed Sally as she deposited the freshly
filled tankards upon the tables. "Why, what a 'urry, to be sure! And
is your gran'mother a-dyin' an' you wantin' to see the pore soul afore
she'm gone! I never see'd such a mighty rushin'!"
  A chorus of good-humored laughter greeted this witticism, which gave
the company there present food for many jokes for some considerable
time. Sally now seemed in less of a hurry to get back to her pots
and pans. A young man with fair curly hair and eager bright-blue
eyes was engaging most of her attention and the whole of her time,
while broad witticisms anent Jimmy Pitkin's fictitious grandmother
flew from mouth to mouth, mixed with heavy puffs of pungent tobacco
smoke.
  Facing the hearth, his legs wide apart, a long clay pipe in his
mouth, stood mine host himself- worthy Mr. Jellyband, landlord of
The Fisherman's Rest, as his father had been before him, aye, and
his grandfather and great-grandfather too, for that matter. Portly
in build, jovial in countenance, and somewhat bald of pate, Mr.
Jellyband was indeed a typical rural John Bull of those days- the days
when our prejudiced insularity was at its height, when to an
Englishman, be he lord, yeoman, or peasant, the whole of the continent
of Europe was a den of immorality and the rest of the world an
unexploited land of savages and cannibals.
  There he stood, mine worthy host, firm and well set up on his limbs,
smoking his long churchwarden and caring nothing for nobody at home
and despising everybody abroad. He wore the typical scarlet
waistcoat with shiny brass buttons, the corduroy breeches, the gray
worsted stockings and smart buckled shoes that characterized every
self-respecting innkeeper in Great Britain in these days- and while
pretty, motherless Sally had need of four pairs of brown hands to do
all the work that fell on her shapely shoulders, worthy Jellyband
discussed the affairs of nations with his most privileged guests.
  The coffeeroom indeed, lighted by two well-polished lamps which hung
from the raftered ceiling, looked cheerful and cozy in the extreme.
Through the dense clouds of tobacco smoke that hung about in every
corner, the faces of Mr. Jellyband's customers appeared red and
pleasant to look at and on good terms with themselves, their host, and
all the world; from every side of the room, loud guffaws accompanied
pleasant, if not highly intellectual, conversation, while Sally's
repeated giggles testified to the good use Mr. Harry Waite was
making of the short time she seemed inclined to spare him.
  They were mostly fisherfolk who patronized Mr. Jellyband's
coffeeroom, but fishermen are known to be very thirsty people; the
salt which they breathe in when they are on the sea accounts for their
parched throats when on shore. But The Fisherman's Rest was
something more than a rendezvous for these humble folk. The London and
Dover coach started from the hostel daily, and passengers who had come
across the Channel and those who started for the "grand tour" all
became acquainted with Mr. Jellyband, his French wines, and his
home-brewed ales.
  It was toward the close of September, 1792, and the weather, which
had been brilliant and hot throughout the month, had suddenly broken
up; for two days, torrents of rain had deluged the south of England,
doing its level best to ruin what chances the apples and pears and
late plums had of becoming really fine, self-respecting fruit. Even
now, it was beating against the leaded windows and tumbling down the
chimney, making the cheerful wood fire sizzle in the hearth.
  "Lud! Did you ever see such a wet September, Mr. Jellyband?" asked
Mr. Hempseed. He sat in one of the seats inside the hearth, did Mr.
Hempseed, for he was an authority and an important personage not
only at The Fisherman's Rest, where Mr. Jellyband always made a
special selection of him as a foil for political arguments, but
throughout the neighborhood, where his learning, and notably his
knowledge of the Scriptures, was held in the most profound awe and
respect. With one hand buried in the capacious pockets of his
corduroys underneath his elaborately worked, well-worn smock, the
other holding his long clay pipe, Mr. Hempseed sat there looking
dejectedly across the room at the rivulets of moisture which
trickled down the window panes.
  "No," replied Mr. Jellyband sententiously, "I dunno, Mr. 'Empseed,
as I ever did. An' I've been in these parts nigh on sixty years."
  "Aye! You wouldn't recollect the first three years of them sixty,
Mr. Jellyband," quietly interposed Mr. Hempseed. "I dunno as I ever
see'd an infant take much note of the weather, leastways not in
these parts, an' I've lived 'ere nigh on seventy-five years, Mr.
Jellyband."
  The superiority of this wisdom was so incontestable that for the
moment Mr. Jellyband was not ready with his usual flow of argument.
  "It do seem more like April than September, don't it?" continued Mr.
Hempseed dolefully, as a shower of raindrops fell with a sizzle upon
the fire.
  "Aye! That it do," assented the worthy host. "But then, what can you
'xpect, Mr. 'Empseed, I says, with sich a government as we've got?"
  Mr. Hempseed shook his head with an infinity of wisdom, tempered
by deeply rooted mistrust of the British climate and the British
government. "I don't 'xpect nothing, Mr. Jellyband," he said. "Pore
folks like us is of no account up there in Lunnon, I knows that, and
it's not often as I do complain. But when it comes to sich wet weather
in September, and all me fruit a-rottin' and a-dyin' like the 'Guptian
mother's first-born, and doin' no more good than they did, pore dears,
save to a lot of Jews, peddlers and sich, with their oranges and
sichlike foreign ungodly fruit, which nobody'd buy if English apples
and pears was nicely swelled. As the Scriptures say-"
  "That's quite right, Mr. 'Empseed," retorted Jellyband. "And as I
says, what can you 'xpect? There's all them Frenchy devils over the
Channel yonder a-murderin' their king and nobility, and Mr. Pitt and
Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke a-fightin' and a-wranglin' between them if we
Englishmen should 'low them to go on in their ungodly way. 'Let 'em
murder!' says Mr. Pitt. 'Stop 'em!' says Mr. Burke."
  "And let 'em murder, says I, and be demmed to 'em," said Mr.
Hempseed emphatically, for he had but little liking for his friend
Jellyband's political arguments, wherein he always got out of his
depth and had but little chance for displaying those pearls of
wisdom which had earned for him so high a reputation in the
neighborhood and so many free tankards of ale at The Fisherman's Rest.
"Let 'em murder," he repeated again, "but don't let's 'ave sich rain
in September, for that is agin the law and the Scriptures which says-"
  "Lud! Mr. 'Arry, 'ow you made me jump!" It was unfortunate for Sally
and her flirtation that this remark of hers should have occurred at
the precise moment when Mr. Hempseed was collecting his breath in
order to deliver himself of one of those scriptural utterances which
had made him famous, for it brought down upon her pretty head the full
flood of her father's wrath.
  "Now then, Sally, me girl, now then!" he said, trying to force a
frown upon his good-humored face. "Stop that fooling with them young
jackanapes and get on with the work."
  "The work's gettin' on all ri', Father."
  But Mr. Jellyband was peremptory. He had other views for his buxom
daughter, his only child, who would in God's good time become the
owner of The Fisherman's Rest, than to see her married to one of these
young fellows who earned but a precarious livelihood with their net.
  "Did ye hear me speak, me girl?" he said in that quiet tone which no
one inside the inn dared to disobey. "Get on with my Lord Tony's
supper, for if it ain't the best we can do and 'e not satisfied, see
what you'll get, that's all."
  Reluctantly Sally obeyed.
  "Is you 'xpecting special guests, then, tonight, Mr. Jellyband?"
asked Jimmy Pitkin, in a loyal attempt to divert his host's
attention from the circumstances connected with Sally's exit from
the room.
  "Aye! That I be," replied Jellyband. "Friends of my Lord Tony
hisself. Dukes and duchesses from over the water yonder, whom the
young lord and his friend Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and other young noblemen
have helped out of the clutches of them murderin' devils."
  But this was too much for Mr. Hempseed's querulous philosophy.
"Lud!" he said. "What they do that for, I wonder? I don't 'old not
with interferin' in other folks' ways. As the Scriptures say-"
  "Maybe, Mr. 'Empseed," interrupted Jellyband with biting sarcasm,
"as you're a personal friend of Mr. Pitt and as you says along with
Mr. Fox, 'Let 'em murder!' says you-"
  "Pardon me, Mr. Jellyband," feebly protested Mr. Hempseed, "I
dunno as I ever did."
  But Mr. Jellyband had at last succeeded in getting upon his favorite
hobbyhorse and had no intention of dismounting in any hurry. "Or maybe
you've made friends with some of them French chaps 'oo they do say
have come over here o' purpose to make us Englishmen agree with
their murderin' ways."
  "I dunno what you mean, Mr. Jellyband," suggested Mr. Hempseed. "All
I know is-"
  "All I know is," loudly asserted mine host, "that there was my
friend Peppercorn, 'oo owns the Blue-faced Boar, an' as true and loyal
an Englishman as you'd see in the land. And now look at 'im- 'e made
friends with some o' them frog-eaters, 'obnobbed with them just as
if they was Englishmen and not just a lot of immoral, God-forsaking
furrin' spies. Well! And what happened? Peppercorn- 'e now ups and
talks of revolutions and liberty and down with the aristocrats, just
like Mr. 'Empseed over 'ere!"
  "Pardon me, Mr. Jellyband," again interposed Mr. Hempseed feebly, "I
dunno as I ever did-"
  Mr. Jellyband had appealed to the company in general, who were
listening awe-struck and openmouthed at the recital of Mr.
Peppercorn's defalcations. At one table two customers- gentlemen,
apparently, by their clothes- had pushed aside their half-finished
game of dominoes and had been listening for some time- and evidently
with much amusement at Mr. Jellyband's international opinions.
  One of them now, with a quiet, sarcastic smile still lurking round
the corners of his mobile mouth, turned toward the center of the
room where Mr. Jellyband was standing. "You seem to think, mine honest
friend," he said quietly, "that these Frenchmen- spies, I think you
called them- are mighty clever fellows to have made mincemeat, so to
speak, of your friend Mr. Peppercorn's opinions. How did they
accomplish that now, think you?"
  "Lud, sir, I suppose they talked 'im over. Those Frenchies, I've
'eard it said, 'ave got the gift of the gab- and Mr. 'Empseed 'ere
will tell you 'ow it is that they just twist some people round their
little finger like."
  "Indeed, and is that so, Mr. Hempseed?" inquired the stranger
politely.
  "Nay, sir!" replied Mr. Hempseed, much irritated. "I dunno as I
can give you the information you require."
  "Faith, then," said the stranger, "let us hope, my worthy host, that
these clever spies will not succeed in upsetting your extremely
loyal opinions."
  But this was too much for Mr. Jellyband's pleasant equanimity. He
burst into an uproarious fit of laughter, which was soon echoed by
those who happened to be in his debt. "Hahaha! Hohoho! Hehehe!" He
laughed in every key, did my worthy host, and laughed until his
sides ached and his eyes streamed. "At me! Hark at that! Did ye 'ear
'im say that they'd be upsettin' my opinions, eh? Lud love you, sir,
but you do say some queer things."
  "Well, Mr. Jellyband," said Mr. Hempseed sententiously, "you know
what the Scriptures say: 'Let 'im 'oo stands take 'eed lest 'e fall.'"
  "But then hark 'ee, Mr. 'Empseed," retorted Jellyband, still holding
his sides with laughter, "the Scriptures didn't know me. Why, I
wouldn't so much as drink a glass of ale with one o' them murderin'
Frenchmen, and nothin' 'd make me change my opinions. Why, I've
'eard it said that them frog-eaters can't even speak the King's
English, so, of course, if any of 'em tried to speak their
God-forsaken lingo to me, why, I should spot them directly, see- and
forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes."
  "Aye, my honest friend," assented the stranger cheerfully, "I see
that you are much too sharp and a match for any twenty Frenchmen,
and here's to your very good health, my worthy host, if you'll do me
the honor to finish this bottle of wine with me."
  "I am sure you're very polite, sir," said Mr, Jellyband, wiping
his eyes, which were still streaming with the abundance of his
laughter, "and I don't mind if I do."
  The stranger poured out a couple of tankards full of wine, and
having offered one to mine host, he took the other himself. "Loyal
Englishmen as we all are," he said, while the same humorous smile
played round the corners of his thin lips, "loyal as we are, we must
admit that this at least is one good thing which comes to us from
France."
  "Aye! We'll none of us deny that, sir," assented mine host.
  "And here's to the best landlord in England, our worthy host, Mr.
Jellyband," said the stranger in a loud tone of voice.
  "Hip, hip, hurrah!" retorted the whole company present.
  Then there was loud clapping of hands, and mugs and tankards made
a rattling music upon the tables to the accompaniment of loud laughter
at nothing in particular and of Mr. Jellyband's muttered exclamations:
"Just fancy me bein' talked over by any God-forsaken furriner! What?
Lud love you, sir, but you do say some queer things."
  To which obvious fact the stranger heartily assented. It was
certainly a preposterous suggestion that anyone could ever upset Mr.
Jellyband's firmly rooted opinions anent the utter worthlessness of
the inhabitants of the whole continent of Europe.
                             3
                        The Refugees

  FEELING IN EVERY part of England certainly ran very high at this
time against the French and their doings. Smugglers and legitimate
traders between the French and English coasts brought snatches of news
from over the water which made every honest Englishman's blood boil
and made him long to have "a good go" at those murderers, who had
imprisoned their king and all his family, subjected the queen and
the royal children to every species of indignity, and were even now
loudly demanding the blood of the whole Bourbon family and of every
one of its adherents.
  The execution of the Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette's young
and charming friend, had filled everyone in England with unspeakable
horror; the daily execution of scores of Royalists of good family,
whose only sin was their aristocratic name, seemed to cry for
vengeance to the whole of civilized Europe.
  Yet, with all that, no one dared to interfere. Burke had exhausted
all his eloquence in trying to induce the British government to
fight the revolutionary government of France, but Mr. Pitt, with
characteristic prudence, did not feel that this country was fit yet to
embark on another arduous and costly war. It was for Austria to take
the initiative- Austria, whose fairest daughter was even now a
dethroned queen, imprisoned and insulted by a howling mob; and
surely 'twas not- so argued Mr. Fox- for the whole of England to
take up arms because one set of Frenchmen chose to murder another.
  As for Mr. Jellyband and his fellow John Bulls, though they looked
upon all foreigners with withering contempt, they were royalist and
antirevolutionists to a man and at this present moment were furious
with Pitt for his caution and moderation, although they naturally
understood nothing of the diplomatic reasons which guided that great
man's policy.
  But now Sally came running back, very excited and very eager. The
joyous company in the coffeeroom had heard nothing of the noise
outside, but she had spied a dripping horse and rider who had
stopped at the door of The Fisherman's Rest; and while the stableboy
ran forward to take charge of the horse, pretty Miss Sally went to the
front door to greet the welcome visitor. "I think I see'd Lord
Antony's horse out in the yard, Father," she said as she ran across
the coffeeroom.
  But already the door had been thrown open from outside, and the next
moment an arm, covered in drab cloth and dripping with the heavy rain,
was around pretty Sally's waist, while a hearty voice echoed along the
polished rafters of the coffeeroom. "Aye, and bless your brown eyes
for being so sharp, my pretty Sally," said the man who had just
entered, while worthy Mr. Jellyband came bustling forward, eager,
alert, and fussy, as became the advent of one of the most favored
guests of his hostel.
  "Lud, I protest, Sally," added Lord Antony as he deposited a kiss on
Miss Sally's blooming cheeks, "but you are growing prettier and
prettier every time I see you- and my honest friend, Jellyband here,
must have hard work to keep the fellows off that slim waist of
yours. What say you, Mr. Waite?"
  Mr. Waite- torn between his respect for my lord and his dislike of
that particular type of joke- only replied with a doubtful grunt.
  Lord Antony Dewhurst, one of the sons of the Duke of Exeter, was
in those days a very perfect type of a young English gentleman-
tall, well set up, broad of shoulders, and merry of face, his laughter
rang loudly wherever he went. A good sportsman, a lively companion,
a courteous, well-bred man of the world, with not too much brains to
spoil his temper, he was a universal favorite in London drawing
rooms or in the coffeerooms of village inns. At The Fisherman's Rest
everyone knew him, for he was fond of a trip across to France and
always spent a night under worthy Mr. Jellyband's roof on his way
there or back.
  He nodded to Waite, Pitkin, and the others as he at last released
Sally's waist and crossed over to the hearth to warm and dry
himself. As he did so, he cast a quick, somewhat suspicious glance
at the two strangers, who had quietly resumed their game of
dominoes, and for a moment a look of deep earnestness, even of
anxiety, clouded his jovial face.
  But only for a moment; the next he had turned to Mr. Hempseed, who
was respectfully touching his forelock. "Well, Mr. Hempseed, and how
is the fruit?"
  "Badly, my lord, badly," replied Mr. Hempseed dolefully, "but what
can you 'xpect with this 'ere government favorin' them rascals over in
France, who would murder their king and all their nobility."
  "Odd's life!" retorted Lord Antony. "So they would, honest Hempseed-
at least those they can get hold of, worse luck! But we have got
some friends coming here tonight who, at any rate, have evaded their
clutches."
  It almost seemed, when the young man said these words, as if he
threw a defiant look toward the quiet strangers in the corner.
  "Thanks to you, my lord, and to your friends, so I've heard it
said," said Mr. Jellyband.
  But in a moment, Lord Antony's hand fell warningly on mine host's
arm. "Hush!" he said peremptorily, and instinctively once again looked
toward the strangers.
  "Oh! Lud love you, they are all right, my lord," retorted Jellyband.
"Don't you be afraid. I wouldn't have spoken, only I knew we were
among friends. That gentleman over there is as true and loyal a
subject of King George as you are yourself, my lord, saving your
presence. He is but lately arrived in Dover and is settling down in
business in these parts."
  "In business? Faith, then, it must be as an undertaker, or I vow I
never beheld a more rueful countenance."
  "Nay, my lord, I believe that the gentleman is a widower, which no
doubt would account for the melancholy of his bearing; but he is a
friend, nevertheless, I'll vouch for that- and you will own, my
lord, that who should judge of a face better than the landlord of a
popular inn-"
  "Oh, that's all right, then, if we are among friends," said Lord
Antony, who evidently did not care to discuss the subject with his
host. "But, tell me, you have no one else staying here, have you?"
  "No one, my lord, and no one coming either. Leastways-"
  "Leastways?"
  "No one your lordship would object to, I know."
  "Who is it?"
  "Well, my lord, Sir Percy Blakeney and his lady will be here
presently, but they ain't a-goin' to stay-"
  "Lady Blakeney?" queried Lord Antony in some astonishment.
  "Aye, my lord. Sir Percy's skipper was here just now. He says that
my lady's brother is crossing over to France today in the Day Dream,
which is Sir Percy's yacht, and Sir Percy and my lady will come with
him as far as here to see the last of him. It don't put you out, do
it, my lord?"
  "No, no, it doesn't put me out, friend; nothing will put me out
unless supper is not the very best which Miss Sally can cook and which
has ever been served in The Fisherman's Rest."
  "You need have no fear of that, my lord," said Sally, who all this
while had been busy setting the table for supper. And very gay and
inviting it looked, with a large bunch of brilliantly colored
dahlias in the center and the bright pewter goblets and blue china
about. "How many shall I lay for, my lord?"
  "Five places, pretty Sally, but let the supper be enough for ten
at least- our friends will be tired and, I hope, hungry. As for me,
I vow I could demolish a baron of beef tonight."
  "Here they are, I do believe," said Sally excitedly, as a distant
clatter of horses and wheels could now be distinctly heard, drawing
rapidly nearer.
  There was general commotion in the coffeeroom. Everyone was
curious to see my Lord Antony's swell friends from over the water.
Miss Sally cast one or two quick glances at the little bit of mirror
which hung on the wall, and worthy Mr. Jellyband bustled out in
order to give the first welcome himself to his distinguished guests.
Only the two strangers in the corner did not participate in the
general excitement. They were calmly finishing their game of
dominoes and did not even look once toward the door.
  "Straight ahead, Comtesse, the door on your right," said a
pleasant voice outside.
  "Aye! There they are, all right enough," said Lord Antony
joyfully. "Off with you, my pretty Sally, and see how quickly you
can dish up the soup."
  The door was thrown wide open, and, preceded by Mr. Jellyband, who
was profuse in his bows and welcomes, a party of four- two ladies
and two gentlemen- entered the coffeeroom.
  "Welcome! Welcome to old England!" said Lord Antony effusively, as
he came eagerly forward with both hands outstretched toward the
newcomers.
  "Ah, you are Lord Antony Dewhurst, I think," said one of the ladies,
speaking with a strong foreign accent.
  "At your service, Madame," he replied as he ceremoniously kissed the
hands of both the ladies, then turned to the men and shook them both
warmly by the hand.
  Sally was already helping the ladies to take off their traveling
cloaks, and both turned with a shiver toward the brightly blazing
hearth.
  There was a general movement among the company in the coffeeroom.
Sally had bustled off to her kitchen, while Jellyband, still profuse
with his respectful salutations, arranged one or two chairs around the
fire. Mr. Hempseed, touching his forelock, was quietly vacating the
seat in the hearth. Everyone was staring curiously, yet deferentially,
at the foreigners.
  "Ah, Messieurs! What can I say?" said the elder of the two ladies as
she stretched a pair of fine, aristocratic hands to the warmth of
the blaze and looked with unspeakable gratitude first at Lord
Antony, then at one of the young men who had accompanied her party and
who was busy divesting himself of his heavy caped coat.
  "Only that you are glad to be in England, Comtesse," replied Lord
Antony, "and that you have not suffered too much from your trying
voyage."
  "Indeed, indeed, we are glad to be in England," she said, while
her eyes filled with tears, "and we have already forgotten all that we
have suffered." Her voice was musical and low, and there was a great
deal of calm dignity and of many sufferings nobly endured marked in
the handsome, aristocratic face, with its wealth of snow-white hair
dressed high above the forehead, after the fashion of the times.
  "I hope my friend Sir Andrew Ffoulkes proved an entertaining
traveling companion, Madame?"
  "Ah, indeed, Sir Andrew was kindness itself. How could my children
and I ever show enough gratitude to you all, Messieurs?"
  Her companion, a dainty, girlish figure, childlike and pathetic in
its look of fatigue and of sorrow, had said nothing as yet, but her
eyes, large, brown, and full of tears, looked up from the fire and
sought those of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, who had drawn near to the
hearth and to her; then, as they met his, which were fixed with
unconcealed admiration upon the sweet face before him, a thought of
warmer color rushed up to her pale cheeks. "So this is England," she
said as she looked round with childlike curiosity at the great open
hearth, the oak rafters, and the yokels with their elaborate smocks
and jovial, rubicund British countenances.
  "A bit of it, Mademoiselle," replied Sir Andrew, smiling, "but all
of it at your service."
  The young girl blushed again, but this time a bright smile, fleet
and sweet, illumined her dainty face. She said nothing, and Sir Andrew
too was silent, yet those two young people understood one another,
as young people have a way of doing all the world over and have done
since the world began.
  "But, I say, supper!" here broke in Lord Antony's jovial voice.
"Supper, honest Jellyband. Where is that pretty wench of yours and the
dish of soup? Zooks, man, while you stand there gaping at the
ladies, they will faint with hunger."
  "One moment! One moment, my lord," said Jellyband as he threw open
the door that led to the kitchen and shouted lustily, "Sally! Hey,
Sally there, are ye ready, my girl?"
  Sally was ready, and the next moment she appeared in the doorway
carrying a gigantic tureen, from which rose a cloud of steam and an
abundance of savory odor.
  "Odd's my life, supper at last!" ejaculated Lord Antony merrily,
as he gallantly offered his arm to the Comtesse. "May I have the
honor?" he added ceremoniously, as he led her toward the supper table.
  There was general bustle in the coffeeroom. Mr. Hempseed and most of
the yokels and fisherfolk had gone to make way for "the quality" and
to finish smoking their pipes elsewhere. Only the two strangers stayed
on, quietly and unconcernedly playing their game of dominoes and
sipping their wine; while at another table, Harry Waite, who was
fast losing his temper, watched pretty Sally bustling round the table.
  She looked a very dainty picture of English rural life, and no
wonder that the susceptible young Frenchman could scarce take his eyes
off her pretty face. The Vicomte de Tournay was scarce nineteen, a
beardless boy on whom the terrible tragedies which were being
enacted in his own country had made but little impression. He was
elegantly and even foppishly dressed, and once safely landed in
England he was evidently ready to forget the horrors of the Revolution
in the delights of English life. "Pardi, if zis is England," he said
as he continued to ogle Sally with marked satisfaction, "I am of it
satisfied."
  It would be impossible at this point to record the exact exclamation
which escaped through Mr. Harry Waite's clenched teeth. Only respect
for "the quality," and notably for my Lord Antony, kept his marked
disapproval of the young foreigner in check.
  "Nay, but this is England, you abandoned young reprobate,"
interposed Lord Antony with a laugh, "and do not, I pray, bring your
loose foreign ways into this most moral country."
  Lord Antony had already sat down at the head of the table, with
the Comtesse on his right. Jellyband was bustling round, filling
glasses and putting chairs straight. Sally waited, ready to hand round
the soup. Mr. Harry Waite's friends had at last succeeded in taking
him out of the room, for his temper was growing more and more
violent under the Vicomte's obvious admiration for Sally.
  "Suzanne," came in stern, commanding accents from the rigid
Comtesse.
  Suzanne blushed again; she had lost count of time and of place while
she had stood beside the fire, allowing the handsome young
Englishman's eyes to dwell upon her sweet face and his hand, as if
unconsciously, to rest upon hers. Her mother's voice brought her
back to reality once more, and with a submissive, "Yes, Mama," she too
took her place at the supper table.
                             4
              The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

  THEY ALL LOOKED a merry, even a happy, party as they sat round the
table: Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Antony Dewhurst, two typical,
good-looking, wellborn, and well-bred Englishmen of that year of grace
1792, and the aristocratic French Comtesse with her two children,
who had just escaped from such dire perils and found a safe retreat at
last on the shores of protecting England.
  In the corner, the two strangers had apparently finished their game.
One of them arose, and standing with his back to the merry company
at the table, he adjusted with much deliberation his large
triple-caped coat. As he did so, he gave one quick glance all around
him. Everyone was busy laughing and chatting, and he murmured the
words, "All safe!" His companion then, with the alertness born of long
practice, slipped onto his knees in a moment, and the next had crept
noiselessly under the oak bench. The stranger then, with a loud, "Good
night," quietly walked out of the coffeeroom.
  Not one of those at the supper table had noticed this curious and
silent maneuver, but when the stranger finally closed the door of
the coffeeroom behind him they all instinctively sighed a sigh of
relief.
  "Alone, at last!" said Lord Antony jovially.
  Then the young Vicomte de Tournay rose, glass in hand, and with
the graceful affectation peculiar to the times, he raised it aloft and
said in broken English, "To His Majesty George Three of England. God
bless him for his hospitality to us all, poor exiles from France."
  "His Majesty the King!" echoed Lord Antony and Sir Andrew as they
drank loyally to the toast.
  "To His Majesty King Louis of France," added Sir Andrew with
solemnity. "May God protect him and give him victory over his
enemies."
  Everyone rose and drank this toast in silence. The fate of the
unfortunate king of France, then a prisoner of his own people,
seemed to cast a gloom even over Mr. Jellyband's pleasant countenance.
  "And to Monsieur le Comte de Tournay de Basserive," said Lord Antony
merrily. "May we welcome him in England before many days are over."
  "Ah, Monsieur," said the Comtesse, as with a slightly trembling hand
she conveyed her glass to her lips, "I scarcely dare to hope."
  But already Lord Antony had served out the soup, and for the next
few moments all conversation ceased, while Jellyband and Sally
handed round the plates and everyone began to eat.
  "Faith, Madame!" said Lord Antony after a while. "Mine was no idle
toast; seeing yourself, Mademoiselle Suzanne, and my friend the
Vicomte safely in England now, surely you must feel reassured as to
the fate of Monsieur le Comte."
  "Ah, Monsieur," replied the Comtesse with a heavy sigh, "I trust
in God- I can but pray- and hope..."
  "Aye, Madame!" here interposed Sir Andrew Ffoulkes. "Trust in God by
all means, but believe also a little in your English friends, who have
sworn to bring the Count safely across the Channel, even as they
have brought you today."
  "Indeed, indeed, Monsieur," she replied, "I have the fullest
confidence in you and in your friends. Your fame, I assure you, has
spread throughout the whole of France. The way some of my own
friends have escaped from the clutches of that awful revolutionary
tribunal was nothing short of a miracle- and all done by you and
your friends-"
  "We were but the hands, Madame la Comtesse..."
  "But my husband, Monsieur," said the Comtesse, while unshed tears
seemed to veil her voice, "he is in such deadly peril- I would never
have left him, only... there were my children... I was torn between my
duty to him and to them. They refused to go without me... and you
and your friends assured me so solemnly that my husband would be safe.
But, oh! Now that I am here- amongst you all- in this beautiful,
free England, I think of him, flying for his life, hunted like a
poor beast... in such peril... Ah! I should not have left him... I
should not have left him!"
  The poor woman had completely broken down; fatigue, sorrow, and
emotion had overmastered her rigid, aristocratic bearing. She was
crying gently to herself, while Suzanne ran up to her and tried to
kiss away her tears.
  Lord Antony and Sir Andrew had said nothing to interrupt the
Comtesse while she was speaking. There was no doubt that they felt
deeply for her; their very silence testified to that- but in every
century and ever since England has been what it is, an Englishman
has always felt somewhat ashamed of his own emotion and of his own
sympathy. And so the two young men said nothing and busied
themselves in trying to hide their feelings, only succeeding in
looking immeasurably sheepish.
  "As for me, Monsieur," said Suzanne suddenly, as she looked
through a wealth of brown curls across at Sir Andrew, "I trust you
absolutely, and I know that you will bring my dear father safely to
England, just as you brought us today."
  This was said with so much confidence, such unuttered hope and
belief, that it seemed as if by magic to dry the mother's eyes and
to bring a smile upon everybody's lips.
  "Nay! You shame me, Mademoiselle," replied Sir Andrew. "Though my
life is at your service, I have been but a humble tool in the hands of
our great leader, who organized and effected your escape."
  He had spoken with so much warmth and vehemence that Suzanne's
eyes fastened upon him in undisguised wonder.
  "Your leader, Monsieur?" said the Comtesse eagerly. "Ah! Of course
you must have a leader. And I did not think of that before! But tell
me where is he? I must go to him at once, and I and my children must
throw ourselves at his feet and thank him for all that he has done for
us."
  "Alas, Madame," said Lord Antony, "that is impossible."
  "Impossible? Why?"
  "Because the Scarlet Pimpernel works in the dark, and his identity
is only known under a solemn oath of secrecy to his immediate
followers."
  "The scarlet pimpernel?" said Suzanne with a merry laugh. "Why, what
a droll name! What is the scarlet pimpernel, Monsieur?" She looked
at Sir Andrew with eager curiosity.
  The young man's face had become almost transfigured. His eyes
shone with enthusiasm; hero worship, love, admiration for his leader
seemed literally to glow upon his face. "The scarlet pimpernel,
Mademoiselle," he said at last, "is the name of a humble English
wayside flower; but it is also the name chosen to hide the identity of
the best and bravest man in all the world so that he may better
succeed in accomplishing the noble task he has set himself to do."
  "Ah, yes," here interposed the young Vicomte, "I have heard speak of
this scarlet pimpernel. A little flower- red?- yes! They say in
Paris that every time a Royalist escapes to England, that devil
Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, receives a paper with
that little flower dessinated in red upon it. Yes?"
  "Yes, that is so," assented Lord Antony.
  "Then he will have received one such paper today?"
  "Undoubtedly."
  "Oh! I wonder what he will say!" said Suzanne merrily. "I have heard
that the picture of that little red flower is the only thing that
frightens him."
  "Faith, then," said Sir Andrew, "he will have many more
opportunities of studying the shape of that small scarlet flower."
  "Ah! Monsieur," sighed the Comtesse, "it all sounds like a
romance, and I cannot understand it all."
  "Why should you try, Madame?"
  "But, tell me, why should your leader- why should you all- spend
your money and risk your lives, for it is your lives you risk,
Messieurs, when you set foot in France- and all for us French men
and women, who are nothing to you?"
  "Sport, Madame la Comtesse, sport," asserted Lord Antony with his
jovial, loud, and pleasant voice. "We are a nation of sportsmen, you
know, and just now it is the fashion to pull the hare from between the
teeth of the hound."
  "Ah, no, no, not sport only, Monsieur... you have a more noble
motive, I am sure, for the good work you do."
  "Faith, Madame, I would like you to find it then; as for me, I
vow, I love the game, for this is the finest sport I have yet
encountered. Hairbreadth escapes- the devils own risks! Tally ho!
And away we go!"
  But the Comtesse shook her head, still incredulously. To her it
seemed preposterous that these young men and their great leader, all
of them rich, probably wellborn, and young, should for no other motive
than sport run the terrible risks which she knew they were
constantly doing. Their nationality, once they had set foot in France,
would be no safeguard to them. Anyone found harboring or assisting
suspected Royalists would be ruthlessly condemned and summarily
executed, whatever his nationality might be. And this band of young
Englishmen had, to her own knowledge, bearded the implacable and
bloodthirsty tribunal of the Revolution within the very walls of Paris
itself and had snatched away condemned victims almost from the very
foot of the guillotine. With a shudder, she recalled the events of the
last few days, her escape from Paris with her two children, all
three of them bidden beneath the hood of a rickety cart and lying
amidst a heap of turnips and cabbages, not daring to breathe, while
the mob howled "A la lanterne les aristos!" at that awful West
Barricade.
  It had all occurred in such a miraculous way. She and her husband
had understood that they had been placed on the list of "suspected
persons," which meant that their trial and death was but a matter of
days- of hours, perhaps.
  Then came the hope of salvation: the mysterious epistle signed
with the enigmatical scarlet device; the clear, peremptory directions;
the parting from the Comte de Tournay, which had torn the poor
wife's heart in two; the hope of reunion; the flight with her two
children; the covered cart; that awful hag driving it, who looked like
some horrible evil demon, with the ghastly trophy on her whip handle!
  The Comtesse looked round at the quaint, old-fashioned English
inn, the peace of this land of civil and religious liberty, and she
closed her eyes to shut out the haunting vision of that West Barricade
and of the mob retreating panic-stricken when the old hag spoke of the
plague.
  Every moment under that cart she expected recognition, arrest,
herself and her children tried and condemned; and these young
Englishmen, under the guidance of their brave and mysterious leader,
had risked their lives to save them all, as they had already saved
scores of other innocent people.
  And all only for sport? Impossible! Suzanne's eyes as she sought
those of Sir Andrew plainly told him that she thought that he, at
any rate, rescued his fellow men from terrible and unmerited death
through a higher and nobler motive than his friend would have her
believe. "How many are there in your brave league, Monsieur?" she
asked timidly.
  "Twenty all told, Mademoiselle," he replied. "One to command and
nineteen to obey. All of us Englishmen and all pledged to the same
cause- to obey our leader and to rescue the innocent."
  "May God protect you all, Messieurs," said the Comtesse fervently.
  "He has done that so far, Madame."
  "It is wonderful to me- wonderful!- that you should all be so brave,
so devoted to your fellow men. Yet you are English! And in France
treachery is rife- all in the name of liberty and fraternity."
  "The women even, in France, have been more bitter against us
aristocrats than the men," said the Vicomte with a sigh.
  "Ah, yes," added the Comtesse, while a look of haughty disdain and
intense bitterness shot through her melancholy eyes. "There was that
woman Marguerite St. just, for instance. She denounced the Marquis
de St. Cyr and all his family to the awful tribunal of the Terror."
  "Marguerite St. Just?" said Lord Antony as he shot a quick and
apprehensive glance across at Sir Andrew. "Marguerite St. Just?
Surely..."
  "Yes!" replied the Comtesse. "Surely you know her. She was a leading
actress of the Comedie Francaise, and she married an Englishman
lately. You must know her-"
  "Know her?" said Lord Antony. "Know Lady Blakeney- the most
fashionable woman in London- the wife of the richest man in England?
Of course, we all know Lady Blakeney."
  "She was a schoolfellow of mine at the convent in Paris," interposed
Suzanne, "and we came over to England together to learn your language.
I was very fond of Marguerite, and I cannot believe that she ever
did anything so wicked."
  "It certainly seems incredible," said Sir Andrew. "You say that
she actually denounced the Marquis de St. Cyr? Why should she have
done such a thing? Surely there must be some mistake-"
  "No mistake is possible, Monsieur," rejoined the Comtesse coldly.
"Marguerite St. Just's brother is a noted Republican. There was some
talk of a family feud between him and my cousin, the Marquis de St.
Cyr. The St. Justs are quite plebeian, and the republican government
employs many spies. I assure you there is no mistake. You had not
heard this story?"
  "Faith, Madame, I did hear some vague rumors of it, but in England
no one would credit it. Sir Percy Blakeney, her husband, is a very
wealthy man, of high social position, the intimate friend of the
Prince of Wales... and Lady Blakeney leads both fashion and society in
London."
  "That may be, Monsieur, and we shall, of course, lead a very quiet
life in England, but I pray God that while I remain in this
beautiful country, I may never meet Marguerite St. Just."
  The proverbial wet blanket seemed to have fallen over the merry
little company gathered round the table. Suzanne looked sad and
silent; Sir Andrew fidgeted uneasily with his fork; while the
Comtesse, encased in the plate armor of her aristocratic prejudices,
sat, rigid and unbending, in her straight-backed chair. As for Lord
Antony, he looked extremely uncomfortable and glanced once or twice
apprehensively toward Jellyband, who looked just as uncomfortable as
himself.
  "At what time do you expect Sir Percy and Lady Blakeney?" he
contrived to whisper unobserved to mine host.
  "Any moment, my lord," whispered Jellyband in reply.
  Even as he spoke, a distant clatter was heard of an approaching
coach: louder and louder it grew, one or two shouts became
distinguishable, then the rattle of horses' hoofs on the uneven
cobblestones, and the next moment a stableboy had thrown open the
coffeeroom door and rushed in excitedly. "Sir Percy Blakeney and my
lady!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "They're just arriving."
  And with more shouting, jingling of harness, and iron hoofs upon the
stones, a magnificent coach, drawn by four superb bays, had halted
outside the porch of The Fisherman's Rest.
                             5
                         Marguerite

  IN A MOMENT the pleasant oak-raftered coffeeroom of the inn became
the scene of hopeless confusion and discomfort. At the first
announcement made by the stableboy, Lord Antony, with a fashionable
oath, had jumped up from his seat and was now giving many and confused
directions to poor bewildered Jellyband, who seemed at his wit's end
what to do.
  "For goodness' sake, man," admonished his lordship, "try to keep
Lady Blakeney talking outside for a moment while the ladies
withdraw. Zounds!" he added with another, more emphatic oath. "This is
most unfortunate."
  "Quick, Sally! The candles!" shouted Jellyband as, hopping about
from one leg to another, he ran hither and thither, adding to the
general discomfort of everybody.
  The Comtesse, too, had risen to her feet, rigid and erect, trying to
hide her excitement beneath more becoming sang-froid, she repeated
mechanically, "I will not see her! I will not see her!"
  Outside, the excitement attendant upon the arrival of very important
guests grew apace.
  "Good day, Sir Percy!- Good day to your ladyship! Your servant,
Sir Percy!"- was heard in one long, continued chorus, with
alternate, more feeble tones of, "Remember the poor blind man of
your charity, lady and gentleman!"
  Then suddenly a singularly sweet voice was heard through all the
din. "Let the poor man be- and give him some supper at my expense."
  The voice was low and musical with a slight singsong in it and a
faint soupcon of foreign intonation in the pronunciation of the
consonants.
  Everyone in the coffeeroom heard it and paused, instinctively
listening to it for a moment. Sally was holding the candles by the
opposite door, which led to the bedrooms upstairs, and the Comtesse
was in the act of beating a hasty retreat before that enemy who
owned such a sweet musical voice; Suzanne reluctantly was preparing to
follow her mother, while casting regretful glances toward the door,
where she hoped still to see her dearly beloved erstwhile
schoolfellow.
  Then Jellyband threw open the door, still stupidly and blindly
hoping to avert the catastrophe which he felt was in the air, and
the same low, musical voice said, with a merry laugh and mock
consternation, "B-r-r-r-r! I am as wet as a herring! Dieu! Has
anyone ever seen such a contemptible climate?"
  "Suzanne, come with me at once- I wish it," said the Comtesse
peremptorily.
  "Oh! Mama!" pleaded Suzanne.
  "My lady... er... hm!... my lady!" came in feeble accents from
Jellyband, who stood clumsily trying to bar the way.
  "Pardieu, my good man," said Lady Blakeney with some impatience,
"what are you standing in my way for, dancing about like a turkey with
a sore foot? Let me get to the fire- I am perished with the cold." And
the next moment Lady Blakeney, gently pushing mine host on one side,
had swept into the coffeeroom.
  There are many portraits and miniatures extant of Marguerite St.
Just- Lady Blakeney as she was then- but it is doubtful if any of
these really do her singular beauty justice. Tall above the average,
with magnificent presence and regal figure, it is small wonder that
even the Comtesse paused for a moment in involuntary admiration before
turning her back on so fascinating on apparition.
  Marguerite Blakeney was then scarcely five-and-twenty, and her
beauty was at its most dazzling stage. The large hat, with its
undulating and waving plumes, threw a soft shadow across the classic
brow with the aureole of auburn hair- free at the moment from any
powder; the sweet, almost childlike mouth, the straight chiseled nose,
round chin, and delicate throat- all seemed set off by the picturesque
costume of the period. The rich blue velvet robe molded in its every
line the graceful contour of the figure, while one tiny hand held,
with a dignity all its own, the tall stick adorned with a large
bunch of ribbons which fashionable ladies of the period had taken to
carrying recently.
  With a quick glance all round the room, Marguerite Blakeney had
taken stock of everyone there. She nodded pleasantly to Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes while extending a hand to Lord Antony. "Hello, my Lord
Tony! Why- what are you doing here in Dover?" she said merrily.
  Then without waiting for a reply, she turned and faced the
Comtesse and Suzanne. Her whole face lighted up with additional
brightness as she stretched out both arms toward the young girl. "Why,
if that isn't my little Suzanne over there. Pardieu, little
Citizeness, how came you to be in England? And Madame too!"
  She went up effusively to them both, with not a single touch of
embarrassment in her manner or in her smile. Lord Tony and Sir
Andrew watched the little scene with eager apprehension. English
though they were, they had often been in France and had mixed
sufficiently with the French to realize the unbending hauteur, the
bitter hatred with which the old noblesse of France viewed all those
who had helped to contribute to their downfall.
  Armand St. Just, the brother of beautiful Lady Blakeney- though
known to hold moderate and conciliatory views- was an ardent
Republican. His feud with the ancient family of St. Cyr- the rights
and wrongs of which no outsider ever knew- had culminated in the
downfall the almost total extinction, of the latter. In France, St.
Just and his party had triumphed, and here in England, face to face
with these three refugees driven from their country, flying for
their lives, bereft of all which centuries of luxury had given them,
there stood a fair scion of those same republican families which had
hurled down a throne and uprooted an aristocracy whose origin was lost
in the dim and distant vista of bygone centuries.
  She stood there before them in all the unconscious insolence of
beauty and stretched out her dainty hand to them as if she would, by
that one act, bridge over the conflict and bloodshed of the past
decade.
  "Suzanne, I forbid you to speak to that woman," said the Comtesse
sternly, as she placed a restraining hand upon her daughter's arm.
  She had spoken in English so that all might hear and understand- the
two young English gentlemen as well as the common innkeeper and his
daughter. The latter literally gasped with horror at this foreign
insolence, this impudence before her ladyship- who was English, now
that she was Sir Percy's wife, and a friend of the Prince of Wales
to boot.
  As for Lord Antony and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, their very hearts seemed
to stand still with horror at this gratuitous insult. One of them
uttered an exclamation of appeal, the other one of warning, and
instinctively both glanced hurriedly toward the door, whence a slow,
drawly, not unpleasant voice had already been heard.
  Alone among those present, Marguerite Blakeney and the Comtesse de
Tournay had remained seemingly unmoved. The latter, rigid, erect,
and defiant, with one hand still upon her daughter's arm, seemed the
very personification of unbending pride. For the moment,
Marguerite's sweet face had become as white as the soft fichu which
swathed her throat, and a very keen observer might have noted that the
hand which held the tall, beribboned stick was clenched and trembled
somewhat.
  But this was only momentary; the next instant, the delicate eyebrows
were raised slightly, the lips curved sarcastically upward, the
clear blue eyes looked straight at the rigid Comtesse, and with a
slight shrug of the shoulders, "Hoity-toity, Citizeness," she said
gaily, "What fly stings you, pray?"
  "We are in England now, Madame," rejoined the Comtesse coldly,
"and I am at liberty to forbid my daughter to touch your hand in
friendship. Come, Suzanne." She beckoned to her daughter, and
without another look at Marguerite Blakeney, but with a deep,
old-fashioned curtsy to the two young men, she sailed majestically out
of the room.
  There was silence in the old inn parlor for a moment as the rustle
of the Comtesse's skirts died away down the passage. Marguerite, rigid
as a statue, followed with hard, set eyes the upright figure as it
disappeared through the doorway; but as little Suzanne, humble and
obedient, was about to follow her mother, the hard, set expression
suddenly vanished, and a wistful, almost pathetic and childlike look
stole into Lady Blakeney's eyes.
  Little Suzanne caught that look; the child's sweet nature went out
to the beautiful woman, scarce older than herself; filial obedience
vanished before girlish sympathy; at the door she turned, ran back
to Marguerite, and, putting her arms around her, kissed her
effusively. Then only did she follow her mother, Sally bringing up the
rear, with a pleasant smile on her dimpled face and with a final
curtsy to my lady.
  Suzanne's sweet and dainty impulse had relieved the unpleasant
tension. Sir Andrew's eyes followed the pretty little figure until
it had quite disappeared, then they met Lady Blakeney's with unassumed
merriment.
  Marguerite, with dainty affectation, had kissed her hand to the
ladies as they disappeared through the door, then a humorous smile
began hovering round the corners of her mouth. "So that's it, is
it?" she said gaily. "La! Sir Andrew, did you ever see such an
unpleasant person? I hope when I grow old I shan't look like that."
  She gathered up her skirts, and assuming a majestic gait, stalked
toward the fireplace. "Suzanne," she said, mimicking the Comtesse's
voice, "I forbid you to speak to that woman!"
  The laugh which accompanied this sally sounded perhaps a trifle
forced and hard, but neither Sir Andrew nor Lord Tony were very keen
observers. The mimicry was so perfect, the tone of the voice so
accurately reproduced, that both the young men joined in a hearty,
cheerful, "Bravo!"
  "Ah, Lady Blakeney," added Lord Tony, "how they must miss you at the
Comedie Francaise, and how the Parisians must hate Sir Percy for
having taken you away."
  "Lud, man," rejoined Marguerite with a shrug of her graceful
shoulders, "'tis impossible to hate Sir Percy for anything; his
witty sallies would disarm even Madame la Comtesse herself."
  The young Vicomte, who had not elected to follow his mother in her
dignified exit, now made a step forward, ready to champion the
Comtesse should Lady Blakeney aim any further shafts at her. But
before he could utter a preliminary word of protest, a pleasant,
though distinctly inane, laugh was heard from outside, and the next
moment an unusually tall and very richly dressed figure appeared in
the doorway.
                             6
                     An Exquisite of '92

  SIR PERCY BLAKENEY, as the chronicles of the time inform us, was
in this year of grace 1792 still a year or two on the right side of
thirty. Tall above the average even for an Englishman,
broad-shouldered, and massively built, he would have been called
unusually good-looking but for a certain lazy expression in his
deep-set blue eyes and that perpetual inane laugh which seemed to
disfigure his strong, clearly cut mouth.
  It was nearly a year ago now that Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet, one
of the richest men in England, leader of all the fashions, and
intimate friend of the Prince of Wales, had astonished fashionable
society in London and Bath by bringing home from one of his journeys
abroad a beautiful, fascinating, clever French wife. He, the
sleepiest, dullest, most British Britisher that had ever set a
pretty woman yawning, had secured a brilliant matrimonial prize for
which, as all chroniclers aver, there had been many competitors.
  Marguerite St. Just had first made her debut in artistic Parisian
circles at the very moment when the greatest social upheaval the world
has ever known was taking place within its very walls. Scarcely
eighteen, lavishly gifted with beauty and talent, chaperoned only by a
young and devoted brother, she had soon gathered round her in her
charming apartment in the Rue Richelieu a coterie which was as
brilliant as it was exclusive- exclusive, that is to say, only from
one point of view. Marguerite St. Just was from principle and by
conviction a Republican- equality of birth was her motto; inequality
of fortune was in her eyes a mere untoward accident, but the only
inequality she admitted was that of talent. "Money and titles may be
hereditary," she would say, "but brains are not," and thus her
charming salon was reserved for originality and intellect, for
brilliance and wit, for clever men and talented women, and the
entrance into it was soon looked upon in the world of intellect- which
even in those days and in those troublous times found its pivot in
Paris- as the seal to an artistic career.
  Clever men, distinguished men, and even men of exalted station
formed a perpetual and brilliant court round the fascinating young
actress of the Comedie Francaise, and she glided through republican,
revolutionary, bloodthirsty Paris like a shining comet with a trail
behind her of all that was most distinguished, most interesting in
intellectual Europe.
  Then the climax came. Some smiled indulgently and called it an
artistic eccentricity; others looked upon it as a wise provision, in
view of the many events which were crowding thick and fast in Paris
just then; but to all, the real motive of that climax remained a
puzzle and a mystery. Anyway, Marguerite St. Just married Sir Percy
Blakeney one fine day, just like that, without any warning to her
friends, without a soiree de contrat or diner de fiancailles or
other appurtenances of a fashionable French wedding.
  How that stupid, dull Englishman ever came to be admitted within the
intellectual circle which revolved round "the cleverest woman in
Europe," as her friends unanimously called her, no one ventured to
guess. A golden key is said to open every door, asserted the more
malignantly inclined.
  Enough, she married him, and the "cleverest woman in Europe" had
linked her fate to that "demmed idiot" Blakeney, and not even her most
intimate friends could assign to this strange step any other motive
than that of supreme eccentricity. Those friends who knew laughed to
scorn the idea that Marguerite St. Just had married a fool for the
sake of the worldly advantages with which he might endow her. They
knew, as a matter of fact, that Marguerite St. Just cared nothing
about money and still less about a title; moreover, there were at
least half a dozen other men in the cosmopolitan world equally
wellborn, if not so wealthy as Blakeney, who would have been only
too happy to give Marguerite St. Just any position she might choose to
covet.
  As for Sir Percy himself, he was universally voted to be totally
unqualified for the onerous post he had taken upon himself. His
chief qualifications for it seemed to consist in his blind adoration
for her, his great wealth, and the high favor in which he stood at the
English court; but London society thought that, taking into
consideration his own intellectual limitations, it would have been
wiser on his part had he bestowed those worldly advantages upon a less
brilliant and witty wife.
  Although lately he had been so prominent a figure in fashionable
English society, he had spent most of his early life abroad. His
father, the late Sir Algernon Blakeney, had had the terrible
misfortune of seeing an idolized young wife become hopelessly insane
after two years of happy married life. Percy had just been born when
the late Lady Blakeney fell a prey to the terrible malady which in
those days was looked upon as hopelessly incurable and nothing short
of a curse of God upon the entire family. Sir Algernon took his
afflicted young wife abroad, and there presumably Percy was
educated, and grew up between an imbecile mother and a distracted
father, until he attained his majority. The death of his parents,
following close upon one another, left him a free man, and as Sir
Algernon had led a forcibly simple and retired life, the large
Blakeney fortune had increased tenfold.
  Sir Percy Blakeney had traveled a great deal abroad before he
brought home his beautiful young French wife. The fashionable
circles of the time were ready to receive them both with open arms.
Sir Percy was rich, his wife was accomplished. The Prince of Wales
took a very great liking to them both. Within six months they were the
acknowledged leaders of fashion and of style. Sir Percy's coats were
the talk of the town, his inanities were quoted, his foolish laugh
copied by the gilded youth at Almack's or the Mall. Everyone knew that
he was hopelessly stupid, but then that was scarcely to be wondered
at, seeing that all the Blakeneys for generations had been notoriously
dull and that his mother had died an imbecile.
  Thus society accepted him, petted him, made much of him, since his
horses were the finest in the country, his fetes and wines the most
sought after. As for his marriage with "the cleverest woman in
Europe"- well!- the inevitable came with sure and rapid footsteps.
No one pitied him, since his fate was of his own making. There were
plenty of young ladies in England of high birth and good looks who
would have been quite willing to help him to spend the Blakeney
fortune, while smiling indulgently at his inanities and his
good-humored foolishness. Moreover, Sir Percy got no pity, because
he seemed to require none- he seemed very proud of his clever wife and
to care little that she took no pains to disguise that good-natured
contempt which she evidently felt for him and that she even amused
herself by sharpening her ready wits at his expense.
  But then Blakeney was really too stupid to notice the ridicule
with which his clever wife covered him, and if his matrimonial
relations with the fascinating Parisienne had not turned out all
that his hopes and his doglike devotion for her had pictured,
society could never do more than vaguely guess at it.
  In his beautiful house at Richmond he played second fiddle to his
clever wife with imperturbable bonhomie; he lavished jewels and
luxuries of all kinds upon her, which she took with inimitable
grace, dispensing the hospitality of his superb mansion with the
same graciousness with which she had welcomed the intellectual coterie
of Paris.
  Physically, Sir Percy Blakeney was undeniably handsome- always
excepting the lazy, bored look which was habitual to him. He was
always irreproachably dressed and wore the exaggerated "incroyable"
fashions which had just crept across from Paris to England with the
perfect good taste innate in an English gentleman. On this special
afternoon in September, in spite of the long journey by coach, in
spite of rain and mud, his coat set irreproachably across his fine
shoulders, his hands looked almost femininely white as they emerged
through billowy frills of finest Mechlin lace; the extravagantly
short-waisted satin coat, wide-lapeled waistcoat, and tight-fitting
striped breeches set off his massive figure to perfection, and in
repose one might have admired so fine a specimen of English manhood-
until the foppish ways, the affected movements, the perpetual inane
laugh brought one's admiration of Sir Percy Blakeney to an abrupt
close.
  He had lolled into the old-fashioned inn parlor, shaking the wet off
his fine overcoat; then, putting up a gold-rimmed eyeglass to his lazy
blue eye, he surveyed the company, upon whom an embarrassed silence
had suddenly fallen. "How do, Tony? How do, Ffoulkes?" he said,
recognizing the two young men and shaking them by the hand. "Zounds,
my dear fellow," he added, smothering a slight yawn, "did you ever see
such a beastly day? Demmed climate this."
  With a quaint little laugh, half of embarrassment and half of
sarcasm, Marguerite had turned toward her husband and was surveying
him from head to foot, with an amused little twinkle in her merry blue
eyes.
  "La!" said Sir Percy, after a moment or two's silence, as no one
offered any comment. "How sheepish you all look... What's up?"
  "Oh, nothing, Sir Percy," replied Marguerite with a certain amount
of gaiety, which, however, sounded somewhat forced, "nothing to
disturb your equanimity- only an insult to your wife."
  The laugh which accompanied this remark was evidently intended to
reassure Sir Percy as to the gravity of the incident. It apparently
succeeded in that, for, echoing the laugh, he rejoined placidly,
"La, m'dear! You don't say so. Begad! Who was the bold man who dared
to tackle you, eh?"
  Lord Tony tried to interpose, but had no time to do so, for the
young Vicomte had already quickly stepped forward. "Monsieur," he
said, prefixing his little speech with an elaborate bow and speaking
in broken English, "my mother, the Comtesse de Tournay de Basserive,
has offensed Madame, who, I see, is your wife. I cannot ask your
pardon for my mother; what she does is right in my eyes. But I am
ready to offer you the usual reparation between men of honor."
  The young man drew up his slim stature to its full height and looked
very enthusiastic, very proud, and very hot as he gazed at six foot
odd of gorgeousness, as represented by Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart.
  "Lud, Sir Andrew," said Marguerite with one of her merry, infectious
laughs, "look on that pretty picture- the English turkey and the
French bantam."
  The simile was quite perfect, and the English turkey looked down
with complete bewilderment upon the dainty little French bantam, which
hovered quite threateningly around him.
  "La, sir," said Sir Percy at last, putting up his eyeglass and
surveying the young Frenchman with undisguised wonderment, "where in
the cuckoo's name did you learn to speak English?"
  "Monsieur!" protested the Vicomte, somewhat abashed at the way his
warlike attitude had been taken by the ponderous-looking Englishman.
  "I protest 'tis marvelous!" continued Sir Percy imperturbably.
"Demmed marvelous! Don't you think so, Tony, eh? I vow I can't speak
the French lingo like that. What?"
  "Nay, I'll vouch for that!" rejoined Marguerite. "Sir Percy has a
British accent you could cut with a knife."
  "Monsieur," interposed the Vicomte earnestly and in still more
broken English, "I fear you have not understand. I offer you the
only posseeble reparation among gentlemen."
  "What the devil is that?" asked Sir Percy blandly.
  "My sword, Monsieur," replied the Vicomte, who, though still
bewildered, was beginning to lose his temper.
  "You are a sportsman, Lord Tony," said Marguerite merrily. "Ten to
one on the little bantam."
  But Sir Percy was staring sleepily at the Vicomte for a moment or
two through his partly closed heavy lids, then he smothered another
yawn, stretched his long limbs, and turned leisurely away. "Lud love
you, sir," he muttered good-humoredly. "Demmit, young man, what's
the good of your sword to me?"
  What the Vicomte thought and felt at that moment, when that
long-limbed Englishman treated him with such marked insolence, might
fill volumes of sound reflections. What he said resolved itself into a
single articulate word, for all the others were choked in his throat
by his surging wrath. "A duel, Monsieur," he stammered.
  Once more Blakeney turned and from his high altitude looked down
on the choleric little man before him; but not even for a second did
he seem to lose his own imperturbable good humor. He laughed his own
pleasant and inane laugh, and, burying his slender, long hands into
the capacious pockets of his overcoat, he said leisurely, "A duel? La!
is that what he meant? Odds fish! You are a bloodthirsty young
ruffian. Do you want to make a hole in a law-abiding man?... As for
me, sir, I never fight duels," he added as he placidly sat down and
stretched his long, lazy legs out before him. "Demmed uncomfortable
things, duels, ain't they, Tony?"
  Now, the Vicomte had no doubt vaguely heard that in England the
fashion of dueling amongst gentlemen had been suppressed by the law
with a very stern hand; still to him, a Frenchman, whose notions of
bravery and honor were based upon a code that had centuries of
tradition to back it, the spectacle of a gentleman actually refusing
to fight a duel was little short of an enormity. In his mind he
vaguely pondered whether he should strike that long-legged
Englishman in the face and call him a coward or whether such conduct
in a lady's presence might be deemed ungentlemanly, when Marguerite
happily interposed.
  "I pray you, Lord Tony," she said in that gentle, sweet, musical
voice of hers, "I pray you play the peacemaker. The child is
bursting with rage- and," she added with a soupcon of dry sarcasm,
"might do Sir Percy an injury." She laughed a mocking little laugh,
which, however, did not in the least disturb her husbands placid
equanimity. "The British turkey has had the day," she said. "Sir Percy
would provoke all the saints in the calendar and keep his temper the
while."
  But already Blakeney, good-humored as ever, had joined in the
laugh against himself. "Demmed smart that now, wasn't it?" he said,
turning pleasantly to the Vicomte. "Clever woman my wife, sir. You
will find that out if you live long enough in England."
  "Sir Percy is in the right, Vicomte," here interposed Lord Antony,
laying a friendly hand on the young Frenchman's shoulder. "It would
hardly be fitting that you should commence your career in England by
provoking him to duel."
  For a moment longer the Vicomte hesitated, then with a slight
shrug of the shoulders directed against the extraordinary code of
honor prevailing in this fog-ridden island, he said with becoming
dignity, "Ah, well! If Monsieur is satisfied, I have no griefs. You,
mi'lor', are our protector. If I have done wrong, I withdraw myself."
  "Aye, do!" rejoined Blakeney with a long sigh of satisfaction.
"Withdraw yourself over there. Demmed excitable little puppy," he
added under his breath. "Faith, Ffoulkes, if that's a specimen of
the goods you and your friends bring over from France, my advice to
you is, drop 'em mid-Channel, my friend, or I shall have to see old
Pitt about it, get him to clap on a prohibitive tariff, and put you in
the stocks an you smuggle."
  "La, Sir Percy, your chivalry misguides you," said Marguerite
coquettishly. "You forget that you yourself have imported one bundle
of goods from France."
  Blakeney slowly rose to his feet, and, making a deep and elaborate
bow before his wife, he said with consummate gallantry, "I had the
pick of the market, Madame, and my taste is unerring."
  "More so than your chivalry, I fear," she retorted sarcastically.
  "Odds life, m'dear! Be reasonable! Do you think I am going to
allow my body to be made a pincushion of by every little frog-eater
who don't like the shape of your nose?"
  "Lud, Sir Percy!" laughed Lady Blakeney as she bobbed him a quaint
and pretty curtsy. "You need not be afraid! 'Tis not the men who
dislike the shape of my nose."
  "Afraid be damned! Do you impugn my bravery, Madame? I don't
patronize the ring for nothing, do I, Tony? I've put up the fists with
Red Sam before now, and he didn't get it all his own way either-"
  "S'faith, Sir Percy," said Marguerite with a long and merry laugh
that went echoing along the old oak rafters of the parlor, "I would
I had seen you then... ha! ha! ha! ha! You must have looked a pretty
picture... and... and to be afraid of a little French boy... ha!
ha!... ha! ha!"
  "Ha! ha! ha! he! he! he!" echoed Sir Percy good-humoredly. "La,
Madame, you honor me! Zooks! Ffoulkes, mark ye that! I have made my
wife laugh! The cleverest woman in Europe!... Odd's fish, we must have
a bowl on that!" And he tapped vigorously on the table near him. "Hey!
Jelly! Quick, man! Here, Jelly!"
  Harmony was once more restored. Mr. Jellyband, with a mighty effort,
recovered himself from the many emotions he had experienced within the
last half hour.
  "A bowl of punch, Jelly, hot and strong, eh?" said Sir Percy. "The
wits that have just made a clever woman laugh must be whetted! Ha! ha!
ha! Hasten, my good Jelly!"
  "Nay, there is no time, Sir Percy," interposed Marguerite. "The
skipper will be here directly, and my brother must get on board or the
Day Dream will miss the tide."
  "Time, m'dear? There is plenty of time for any gentleman to get
drunk and get on board before the turn of the tide."
  "I think, your ladyship," said Jellyband respectfully, "that the
young gentleman is coming along now with Sir Percy's skipper."
  "That's right," said Blakeney, "then Armand can join us in the merry
bowl. Think you, Tony," he added, turning toward the Vicomte, "that
that jackanapes of yours will join us in glass? Tell him that we drink
in token of reconciliation."
  "In fact, you are all such merry company," said Marguerite, "that
I trust you will forgive me if I bid my brother good-by in another
room."
  It would have been bad form to protest. Both Lord Antony and Sir
Andrew felt that Lady Blakeney could not altogether be in tune with
them at that moment. Her love for her brother, Armand St. Just, was
deep and touching in the extreme. He had just spent a few weeks with
her in her English home and was going back to serve his country at a
moment when death was the usual reward for the most enduring devotion.
  Sir Percy also made no attempt to detain his wife. With that
perfect, somewhat affected gallantry which characterized his every
movement, he opened the coffeeroom door for her and made her the
most approved and elaborate bow, which the fashion of the time
dictated, as she sailed out of the room without bestowing on him
more than a passing, slightly contemptuous glance. Only Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, whose every thought since he had met Suzanne de Tournay
seemed keener, more gentle, more innately sympathetic, noted the
curious look of intense longing, of deep and hopeless passion with
which the inane and flippant Sir Percy followed the retreating
figure of his brilliant wife.
                             7
                     The Secret Orchard

  ONCE OUTSIDE the noisy coffeeroom, alone in the dimly lighted
passage, Marguerite Blakeney seemed to breathe more freely. She heaved
a deep sigh, like one who had long been oppressed with the heavy
weight of constant self-control and she allowed a few tears to fall
unheeded down her cheeks.
  Outside, the rain had ceased, and through the swiftly passing
clouds, the pale rays of an after-storm sun shone upon the beautiful
white coast of Kent and the quaint, irregular houses that clustered
round the Admiralty Pier. Marguerite Blakeney stepped onto the porch
and looked out to sea. Silhouetted against the ever-changing sky, a
graceful schooner, with white sails set, was gently dancing in the
breeze. The Day Dream it was, Sir Percy Blakeney's yacht, which was
ready to take Armand St. Just back to France into the very midst of
that seething, bloody revolution which was overthrowing a monarchy,
attacking a religion, destroying a society in order to try and rebuild
upon the ashes of tradition a new Utopia, of which a few men
dreamed, but which none had the power to establish.
  In the distance two figures were approaching The Fisherman's Rest-
one, an oldish man with a curious fringe of gray hairs round a
rotund and massive chin and who walked with that peculiar rolling gait
which invariably betrays the sea-faring man, the other, a young,
slight figure, neatly and becomingly dressed in a dark, many-caped
overcoat; he was clean-shaved, and his dark hair was taken well back
over a clear and noble forehead.
  "Armand!" said Marguerite Blakeney, as soon as she saw him
approaching from the distance, and a happy smile shone on her sweet
face, even through the tears.
  A minute or two later brother and sister were locked in each other's
arms, while the old skipper stood respectfully on one side.
  "How much time have we got, Briggs," asked Lady Blakeney, "before
Monsieur St. Just need go on board?"
  "We ought to weigh anchor before half an hour, your ladyship,"
replied the old man, pulling at his gray forelock.
  Linking her arm in his, Marguerite led her brother toward the
cliffs. "Half an hour," she said, looking wistfully out to sea,
"half an hour more and you'll be far from me, Armand! Oh! I can't
believe that you are going, dear! These last few days- while Percy has
been away and I've had you all to myself- have slipped by like a
dream."
  "I am not going far, sweet one," said the young man gently. "A
narrow channel to cross, a few miles of road- I can soon come back."
  "Nay, 'tis not the distance, Armand- but that awful Paris... just
now..."
  They had reached the edge of the cliff. The gentle sea breeze blew
Marguerite's hair about her face and sent the ends of her soft lace
fichu waving round her like a white and supple snake. She tried to
pierce the distance far away, beyond which lay the shores of France:
that relentless and stern France which was exacting her pound of
flesh, the blood tax from the noblest of her sons.
  "Our own beautiful country, Marguerite," said Armand, who seemed
to have divined her thoughts.
  "They are going too far, Armand," she said vehemently. "You are a
Republican, so am I... we have the same thoughts, the same
enthusiasm for liberty and equality... but even you must think that
they are going too far..."
  "Hush!" said Armand instinctively, as he threw a quick, apprehensive
glance around him.
  "Ah, you see! You don't think yourself that it is safe even to speak
of these things- here in England!" She clung to him suddenly with
strong, almost motherly, passion. "Don't go, Armand!" she begged.
"Don't go back! What should I do if... if... if..." Her voice was
choked in sobs, her eyes, tender, blue, and loving, gazed
appealingly at the young man, who in his turn looked steadfastly
into hers.
  "You would in any case be my own brave sister," he said gently, "who
would remember that, when France is in peril, it is not for her sons
to turn their backs on her."
  Even as he spoke, that sweet, childlike smile crept back into her
face, pathetic in the extreme, for it seemed drowned in tears. "Oh,
Armand!" she said quaintly. "I sometimes wish you had not so many
lofty virtues. I assure you, little sins are far less dangerous and
uncomfortable. But you will be prudent?" she added earnestly.
  "As far as possible... I promise you."
  "Remember, dear, I have only you... to... to care for me..."
  "Nay, sweet one, you have other interests now. Percy cares for
you..."
  A look of strange wistfulness crept into her eyes as she murmured,
"He did... once..."
  "But surely..."
  "There, there, dear, don't distress yourself on my account. Percy is
very good..."
  "Nay!" he interrupted energetically. "I will distress myself on your
account, my Margot. Listen, dear, I have not spoken of these things to
you before; something always seemed to stop me when I wished to
question you. But, somehow, I feel as if I could not go away and leave
you now without asking you one question... You need not answer it if
you do not wish," he added, as he noted a sudden hard look, almost
of apprehension, darting through her eyes.
  "What is it?" she asked simply.
  "Does Sir Percy Blakeney know that... I mean, does he know the
part you played in the arrest of the Marquis de St. Cyr?"
  She laughed- a mirthless, bitter, contemptuous laugh, which was like
a jarring chord in the music of her voice. "That I denounced the
Marquis de St. Cyr, you mean, to the tribunal that ultimately sent him
and all his family to the guillotine? Yes, he does know... I told
him after I married him."
  "You told him all the circumstances- which so completely
exonerated you from any blame?"
  "It was too late to talk of 'circumstances'; he heard the story from
other sources; my confession came too tardily, it seems. I could no
longer plead extenuating circumstances. I could not demean myself by
trying to explain-"
  "And?"
  "And now I have the satisfaction, Armand, of knowing that the
biggest fool in England has the most complete contempt for his wife."
  She spoke with vehement bitterness this time, and Armand St. Just,
who loved her so dearly, felt that he had placed a somewhat clumsy
finger upon an aching wound. "But Sir Percy loved you, Margot," he
repeated gently.
  "Loved me? Well, Armand, I thought at one time that he did, or I
should not have married him. I dare say," she added, speaking very
rapidly, as if she were glad at last to lay down a heavy burden
which had oppressed her for months, "I dare say that even you thought-
as everybody else did- that I married Sir Percy because of his wealth-
but I assure you, dear, that it was not so. He seemed to worship me
with a curious intensity of concentrated passion which went straight
to my heart. I had never loved any one before, as you know, and I
was four-and-twenty then- so I naturally thought that it was not in my
nature to love. But it has always seemed to me that it must be
heavenly to be loved blindly, passionately, wholly... worshiped, in
fact- and the very fact that Percy was slow and stupid was an
attraction for me, as I thought he would love me all the more. A
clever man would naturally have other interests, an ambitious man
other hopes... I thought that a fool would worship and think of
nothing else. And I was ready to respond, Armand; I would have allowed
myself to be worshiped and given infinite tenderness in return..."
  She sighed- and there was a world of disillusionment in that sigh.
Armand St. Just had allowed her to speak on without interruption; he
listened to her, while allowing his own thoughts to run riot. It was
terrible to see a young and beautiful woman- a girl in all but name-
still standing almost at the threshold of her life, yet bereft of
hope, bereft of illusions, bereft of those golden and fantastic dreams
which should have made her youth one long, perpetual holiday.
  Yet perhaps- though he loved his sister dearly- perhaps he
understood; he had studied men in many countries, men of all ages, men
of every grade of social and intellectual status, and inwardly he
understood what Marguerite had left unsaid. Granted that Percy
Blakeney was dull-witted, but in his slow-going mind, there would
still be room for that ineradicable pride of a descendant of a long
line of English gentlemen. A Blakeney had died on Bosworth Field,
another had sacrificed life and fortune for the sake of a
treacherous Stuart; and that same pride- foolish and prejudiced as the
republican Armand would call it- must have been stung to the quick
on hearing of the sin which lay at Lady Blakeney's door. She had
been young, misguided, ill-advised perhaps. Armand knew that- and
those who took advantage of Marguerite's youth, her impulses and
imprudence, knew it still better. But Blakeney was slow-witted; he
would not listen to 'circumstances,' he only clung to facts- and these
had shown him lady Blakeney denouncing a fellow man to a tribunal that
knew no pardon. And the contempt he would feel for the deed she had
done, however unwittingly, would kill that same love in him, in
which sympathy and intellectuality could never have had a part.
  Yet even now, his own sister puzzled him. Life and love have such
strange vagaries. Could it be that with the waning of her husband's
love, Marguerite's heart had awakened with love for him? Strange
extremes meet in love's pathway: this woman who had had half
intellectual Europe at her feet might perhaps have set her
affections on a fool. Marguerite was gazing out toward the sunset.
Armand could not see her face, but presently it seemed to him that
something which glittered for a moment in the golden evening light
fell from her eyes onto her dainty fichu of lace.
  But he could not broach that subject with her. He knew her
strange, passionate nature so well and knew that reserve which
lurked behind her frank, open ways.
  They had always been together, these two, for their parents had died
when Armand was still a youth and Marguerite but a child. He, some
eight years her senior, had watched over her until her marriage, had
chaperoned her during those brilliant years spent in the flat of the
Rue de Richelieu, and had seen her enter upon this new life of hers,
here in England, with much sorrow and some foreboding.
  This was his first visit to England since her marriage, and the
few months of separation had already seemed to have built up a slight,
thin partition between brother and sister; the same deep, intense love
was still there, on both sides, but each now seemed to have a secret
orchard into which the other dared not penetrate.
  There was much Armand St. Just could not tell his sister; the
political aspect of the Revolution in France was changing almost every
day; she might not understand how his own views and sympathies might
become modified, even as the excesses, committed by those who had been
his friends, grew in horror and in intensity. And Marguerite could not
speak to her brother about the secrets of her heart; she hardly
understood them herself; she only knew that, in the midst of luxury,
she felt lonely and unhappy.
  And now Armand was going away; she feared for his safety, she longed
for his presence. She would not spoil these last few sadly sweet
moments by speaking about herself. She led him gently along the
cliffs, then down to the beach; their arms linked in one another's,
they had still so much to say that lay just outside that secret
orchard of theirs.
                             8
                    The Accredited Agent

  THE AFTERNOON WAS rapidly drawing to a close, and a long, chilly
English summer's evening was throwing a misty pall over the green
Kentish landscape.
  The Day Dream had set sail, and Marguerite Blakeney stood alone on
the edge of the cliff for over an hour, watching those white sails
which bore so swiftly away from her the only being who really cared
for her, whom she dared to love, whom she knew she could trust.
  Some little distance away to her left, the lights from the
coffeeroom of The Fisherman's Rest glittered yellow in the gathering
mist; from time to time, it seemed to her aching nerves as if she
could catch from thence the sound of merrymaking and of jovial talk or
even that perpetual, senseless laugh of her husband's, which grated
continually upon her sensitive ears.
  Sir Percy had had the delicacy to leave her severely alone. She
supposed that, in his own stupid, good-natured way, he may have
understood that she would wish to remain alone while those white sails
disappeared into the vague horizon, so many miles away. He, whose
notions of propriety and decorum were super-sensitive, had not
suggested even that an attendant should remain within call. Marguerite
was grateful to her husband for all this; she always tried to be
grateful to him for his thoughtfulness, which was constant, and for
his generosity, which really was boundless. She tried even at times to
curb the sarcastic, bitter thoughts of him, which made her- in spite
of herself- say cruel, insulting things, which she vaguely hoped would
wound him.
  Yes! She often wished to wound him, to make him feel that she too
held him in contempt, that she too had forgotten that once she had
almost loved him. Loved that inane fop- whose thoughts seemed unable
to soar beyond the tying of a cravat or the new cut of a coat! Bah!
And yet... vague memories that were sweet and ardent and attuned to
this calm summer's evening came wafted back to her memory on the
invisible wings of the light sea breeze: the time when first he
worshiped her; he seemed so devoted- a very slave- and there was a
certain latent intensity in that love which had fascinated her.
  Then suddenly that love, that devotion, which throughout his
courtship she had looked upon as the slavish fidelity of a dog, seemed
to vanish completely. Twenty-four hours after the simple little
ceremony at old St. Roch, she had told him the story of how,
inadvertently, she had spoken of certain matters connected with the
Marquis de St. Cyr before some men- her friends- who had used this
information against the unfortunate Marquis and sent him and his
family to the guillotine.
  She hated the Marquis. Years ago, Armand, her dear brother, had
loved Angele de St. Cyr, but St. Just was a plebeian and the Marquis
full of the pride and arrogant prejudices of his caste. One day
Armand, the respectful, timid lover, ventured on sending a small poem-
enthusiastic, ardent, passionate- to the idol of his dreams. The
next night he was waylaid just outside Paris by the valets of the
Marquis de St. Cyr and ignominiously thrashed- thrashed like a dog
within an inch of his life because he had dared to raise his eyes to
the daughter of the aristocrat. The incident was one which, in those
days, some two years before the great Revolution, was of almost
daily occurrence in France; incidents of that type, in fact, led to
the bloody reprisals, which a few years later sent most of those
haughty heads to the guillotine.
  Marguerite remembered it all: what her brother must have suffered in
his manhood and his pride must have been appalling; what she
suffered through him and with him she never attempted even to analyze.
  Then the day of retribution came. St. Cyr and his kind had found
their masters in those same plebeians whom they had despised. Armand
and Marguerite, both intellectual, thinking beings, adopted with the
enthusiasm of their years the Utopian doctrines of the Revolution,
while the Marquis de St. Cyr and his family fought inch by inch for
the retention of those privileges which had placed them socially above
their fellow men. Marguerite, impulsive, thoughtless, not
calculating the purport of her words, still smarting under the
terrible insult her brother had suffered at the Marquis' hands,
happened to hear- amongst her own coterie- that the St. Cyrs were in
treasonable correspondence with Austria, hoping to obtain the
Emperor's support to quell the growing revolution in their own
country.
  In those days one denunciation was sufficient: Marguerite's few
thoughtless words anent the Marquis de St. Cyr bore fruit within
twenty-four hours. He was arrested. His papers were searched;
letters from the Austrian emperor, promising to send troops against
the Paris populace, were found in his desk. He was arraigned for
treason against the nation and sent to the guillotine, while his
family, his wife and his sons, shared this awful fate.
  Marguerite, horrified at the terrible consequences of her own
thoughtlessness, was powerless to save the Marquis. Her own coterie,
the leaders of the revolutionary movement, all proclaimed her as a
heroine, and when she married Sir Percy Blakeney, she did not
perhaps altogether realize how severely he would look upon the sin
which she had so inadvertently committed and which still lay heavily
upon her soul. She made full confession of it to her husband, trusting
to his blind love for her, her boundless power over him, to soon
make him forget what might have sounded unpleasant to an English ear.
  Certainly at the moment he seemed to take it very quietly; hardly,
in fact, did he appear to understand the meaning of all she said.
But what was more certain, still, was that never after that could
she detect the slightest sign of that love which she once believed had
been wholly hers. Now they had drifted quite apart, and Sir Percy
seemed to have laid aside his love for her as he would an
ill-fitting glove. She tried to rouse him by sharpening her ready
wit against his dull intellect; endeavored to excite his jealousy,
if she could not rouse his love; tried to goad him to
self-assertion, but all in vain. He remained the same, always passive,
drawling, sleepy, always courteous, invariably a gentleman: she had
all that the world and a wealthy husband can give to a pretty woman,
yet on this beautiful summer's evening, with the white sails of the
Day Dream finally bidden by the evening shadows, she felt more
lonely than that poor tramp who plodded his way wearily along the
rugged cliffs.
  With another heavy sigh, Marguerite Blakeney turned her back upon
the sea and cliffs and walked slowly back toward The Fisherman's Rest.
As she drew near, the sound of revelry, of gay, jovial laughter,
grew louder and more distinct. She could distinguish Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes's pleasant voice, Lord Tony's boisterous guffaws, her
husband's occasional drawly, sleepy comments; then realizing the
loneliness of the road and the fast-gathering gloom round her, she
quickened her steps. The next moment, she perceived a stranger
coming rapidly toward her. Marguerite did not look up; she was not the
least nervous, and The Fisherman's Rest was now well within call.
  The stranger paused when he saw Marguerite coming quickly toward
him, and just as she was about to slip past him, he said very quietly,
"Citoyenne St. Just."
  Marguerite uttered a little cry of astonishment at thus hearing
her own familiar maiden name uttered so close to her. She looked up at
the stranger, and this time, with a cry of unfeigned pleasure, she put
out both her hands effusively toward him. "Chauvelin!" she exclaimed.
  "Himself, Citoyenne, at your service," said the stranger,
gallantly kissing the tips of her fingers.
  Marguerite said nothing for a moment or two as she surveyed with
obvious delight the not very prepossessing little figure before her.
Chauvelin was then nearer forty than thirty- a clever,
shrewd-looking personality, with a curious foxlike expression in the
deep, sunken eyes. He was the same stranger who an hour or two
previously had joined Mr. Jellyband in a friendly glass of wine.
  "Chauvelin... my friend," said Marguerite, with a pretty little sigh
of satisfaction. "I am mightily pleased to see you."
  No doubt poor Marguerite St. Just, lonely in the midst of her
grandeur and of her starchy friends, was happy to see a face that
brought back memories of that happy time in Paris when she reigned-
a queen- over the intellectual coterie of the Rue de Richelieu. She
did not notice the sarcastic little smile, however, that hovered round
the thin lips of Chauvelin.
  "But tell me," she added merrily, "what in the world, or whom in the
world, are you doing here in England?"
  She had resumed her walk toward the inn, and Chauvelin turned and
walked beside her. "I might return the subtle compliment, fair
lady," he said. "What of yourself?"
  "Oh, I?" she said with a shrug of the shoulders. "Je m'ennuie, mon
ami, that is all."
  They had reached the porch of The Fisherman's Rest, but Marguerite
seemed loath to go within. The evening air was lovely after the storm,
and she had found a friend who exhaled the breath of Paris, who knew
Armand well, who could talk of all the merry, brilliant friends whom
she had left behind. So she lingered on under the pretty porch,
while through the gaily lighted dormer window of the coffeeroom came
sounds of laughter, of calls for Sally and for beer, of tapping of
mugs and clinking of dice mingled with Sir Percy Blakeney's inane
and mirthless laugh.
  Chauvelin stood beside her, his shrewd, pale, yellow eyes fixed on
the pretty face, which looked so sweet and childlike in this soft
English summer twilight. "You surprise me, Citoyenne," he said
quietly, as he took a pinch of snuff.
  "Do I now?" she retorted gaily. "Faith, my little Chauvelin, I
should have thought that, with your penetration, you would have
guessed that an atmosphere composed of fogs and virtues would never
suit Marguerite St. Just."
  "Dear me! Is it as bad as that?" he asked in mock consternation.
  "Quite," she retorted, "and worse."
  "Strange! Now, I thought that a pretty woman would have found
English country life peculiarly attractive."
  "Yes, so did I," she said with a sigh. "Pretty women," she added
meditatively, "ought to have a good time in England, since all the
pleasant things are forbidden them- the very things they do every
day."
  "Quite so!"
  "You'll hardly believe it, my little Chauvelin," she said earnestly,
"but I often pass a whole day- a whole day- without encountering a
single temptation."
  "No wonder," retorted Chauvelin gallantly, "that the cleverest woman
in Europe is troubled with ennui."
  She laughed one of her melodious, rippling, childlike laughs. "It
must be pretty bad, mustn't it?" she said archly. "Or I should not
have been so pleased to see you."
  "And this within a year of a romantic love match!"
  "Yes... a year of a romantic love match... that's just the
difficulty."
  "Ah! That idyllic folly," said Chauvelin with quiet sarcasm, "did
not then survive the lapse of... weeks?"
  "Idyllic follies never last, my little Chauvelin. They come upon
us like the measles... and are as easily cured."
  Chauvelin took another pinch of snuff: he seemed very much
addicted to that pernicious habit, so prevalent in those days;
perhaps, too, he found the taking of snuff a convenient veil for
disguising the quick, shrewd glances with which he strove to read
the very souls of those with whom he came in contact. "No wonder,"
he repeated with the same gallantry, "that the most active brain in
Europe is troubled with ennui."
  "I was in hopes that you had a prescription against the malady, my
little Chauvelin."
  "How can I hope to succeed in that which Sir Percy Blakeney has
failed to accomplish?"
  "Shall we leave Sir Percy out of the question for the present, my
dear friend?" she said drily.
  "Ah, my dear lady, pardon me, but that is just what we cannot very
well do," said Chauvelin, while once again his eyes, keen as those
of a fox on the alert, darted a quick glance at Marguerite. "I have
a most perfect prescription against the worst form of ennui, which I
would have been happy to submit to you, but-"
  "But what?"
  "There is Sir Percy."
  "What has he to do with it?"
  "Quite a good deal, I am afraid. The prescription I would offer,
fair lady, is called by a very plebeian name: work!"
  "Work?"
  Chauvelin looked at Marguerite long and scrutinizingly. It seemed as
if those keen, pale eyes of his were reading every one of her
thoughts. They were alone together; the evening air was quite still,
and their soft whispers were drowned in the noise which came from
the coffeeroom. Still, Chauvelin took a step or two from under the
porch, looked quickly and keenly all round him, then, seeing that
indeed no one was within earshot, he once more came back close to
Marguerite. "Will you render France a small service, Citoyenne?" he
asked with a sudden change of manner which lent his thin, foxlike face
singular earnestness.
  "La, man!" she replied flippantly. "How serious you look all of a
sudden. Indeed, I do not know if I would render France a small
service- at any rate, it depends upon the kind of service she- or you-
want."
  "Have you ever heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Citoyenne St.
Just?" asked Chauvelin abruptly.
  "Heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel?" she retorted with a long and merry
laugh. "Faith, man! We talk of nothing else. We have hats a la Scarlet
Pimpernel'; our horses are called 'Scarlet Pimpernel'; at the Prince
of Wales's supper party the other night we had a 'souffle a la Scarlet
Pimpernel.' Lud," she added gaily, "the other day I ordered at my
milliner's a blue dress trimmed with green, and bless me if she did
not call that a la Scarlet Pimpernel.'"
  Chauvelin had not moved while she prattled merrily along; he did not
even attempt to stop her when her musical voice and her childlike
laugh went echoing through the still evening air. But he remained
serious and earnest while she laughed, and his voice, clear, incisive,
and hard, was not raised above his breath as he said, "Then, as you
have heard of that enigmatical personage, Citoyenne, you must also
have guessed, and known, that the man who bides his identity under
that strange pseudonym is the most bitter enemy of our Republic, of
France... of men like Armand St. Just."
  "La," she said with a quaint little sigh, "I dare swear he is.
France has many bitter enemies these days."
  "But you, Citoyenne, are a daughter of France and should be ready to
help her in a moment of deadly peril."
  "My brother Armand devotes his life to France," she retorted
proudly. "As for me, I can do nothing... here in England..."
  "Yes, you..." he urged still more earnestly, while his thin
foxlike face seemed suddenly to have grown impressive and fun of
dignity, "here in England, Citoyenne... you alone can help us. Listen!
I have been sent over here by the republican government as its
representative. I present my credentials to Mr. Pitt in London
tomorrow. One of my duties here is to find out all about this League
of the Scarlet Pimpernel, which has become a standing menace to
France, since it is pledged to help our cursed aristocrats- traitors
to their country and enemies of the people- to escape from the just
punishment which they deserve. You know as well as I do, Citoyenne,
that once they are over here, those French emigres try to rouse public
feeling against the Republic. They are ready to join issue with any
enemy bold enough to attack France. Now, within the last month, scores
of these emigres, some only suspected of treason, others actually
condemned by the Tribunal of Public Safety, have succeeded in crossing
the Channel.
  "Their escape in each instance was planned, organized, and
effected by this society of young English jackanapes, headed by a
man whose brain seems as resourceful as his identity is mysterious.
All the most strenuous efforts on the part of my spies have failed
to discover who he is; while the others are the hands, he is the head,
who, beneath this strange anonymity, calmly works at the destruction
of France. I mean to strike at that head, and for this I want your
help- through him afterward I can reach the rest of the gang. He is
a young buck in English society, of that I feel sure. Find that man
for me, Citoyenne!" he urged. "Find him for France!"
  Marguerite had listened to Chauvelin's impassioned speech without
uttering a word, scarce making a movement, hardly daring to breathe.
She had told him before that this mysterious hero of romance was the
talk of the smart set to which she belonged; already, before this, her
heart and her imagination had been stirred by the thought of the brave
man, who, unknown to fame, had rescued hundreds of lives from a
terrible, often an unmerciful fate. She had but little real sympathy
with those haughty French aristocrats, insolent in their pride of
caste, of whom the Comtesse de Tournay de Basserive was so typical
an example; but, republican and liberal-minded though she was from
principle, she hated and loathed the methods which the young
Republic had chosen for establishing itself. She had not been in Paris
for some months; the horrors and bloodshed of the Reign of Terror,
culminating in the September massacres, had only come across the
Channel to her as a faint echo. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, she had
not known in their new guise of bloody justiciaries, merciless
wielders of the guillotine. Her very soul recoiled in horror from
these excesses, to which she feared her brother Armand- moderate
Republican as he was- might become one day the holocaust.
  Then, when first she heard of this band of young English
enthusiasts, who, for sheer love of their fellow men, dragged women
and children, old and young men from a horrible death, her heart had
glowed with pride for them; and now, as Chauvelin spoke, her very soul
went out to the gallant and mysterious leader of the reckless little
band, who risked his life daily, who gave it freely and without
ostentation, for the sake of humanity.
  Her eyes were moist when Chauvelin had finished speaking, the lace
at her bosom rose and fell with her quick, excited breathing; she no
longer heard the noise of drinking from the inn, she did not heed
her husband's voice or his inane laugh, her thoughts had gone
wandering in search of the mysterious hero. Ah, there was a man she
might have loved had he come her way: everything in him appealed to
her romantic imagination; his personality, his strength, his
bravery, the loyalty of those who served under him in the same noble
cause, and, above all, that anonymity which crowned him, as if with
a halo of romantic glory.
  "Find him for France, Citoyenne!"
  Chauvelin's voice close to her ear roused her from her dreams. The
mysterious hero had vanished, and, not twenty yards away from her, a
man was drinking and laughing to whom she had sworn faith and loyalty.
  "La, man," she said with a return of her assumed flippancy, "you are
astonishing. Where in the world am I to look for him?"
  "You go everywhere, Citoyenne," whispered Chauvelin insinuatingly.
"Lady Blakeney is the pivot of social London, so I am told... you
see everything, you hear everything."
  "Easy, my friend," retorted Marguerite, drawing herself up to her
full height and looking down with a slight thought of contempt on
the small thin figure before her. "Easy! You seem to forget that there
are six feet of Sir Percy Blakeney and a long line of ancestors to
stand between Lady Blakeney and such a thing as you propose."
  "For the sake of France, Citoyenne!" reiterated Chauvelin earnestly.
  "Tush, man, you talk nonsense anyway; for even if you did know who
this Scarlet Pimpernel is, you could do nothing to him- an
Englishman!"
  "I'd take my chance of that," said Chauvelin with a dry, rasping
little laugh. "At any rate we could send him to the guillotine first
to cool his ardor; then, when there is a diplomatic fuss about it,
we can apologize- humbly- to the British government, and, if
necessary, pay compensation to the bereaved family."
  "What you propose is horrible, Chauvelin," she said, drawing away
from him as from some noisome insect. "Whoever the man may be, he is
brave and noble, and never- do you hear me?- never would I lend a hand
to such villainy."
  "You prefer to be insulted by every French aristocrat who comes to
this country?"
  Chauvelin had taken sure aim when he shot this tiny shaft.
Marguerite's fresh young cheeks became a thought more pale and she bit
her underlip, for she would not let him see that the shaft had
struck home. "That is beside the question," she said at last with
indifference. "I can defend myself, but I refuse to do any dirty
work for you- or for France. You have other means at your disposal;
you must use them, my friend."
  And without another look at Chauvelin, Marguerite Blakeney turned
her back on him and walked straight into the inn.
  "That is not your last word, Citoyenne," said Chauvelin as a flood
of light from the passage illumined her elegant, richly clad figure.
"We meet in London, I hope!"
  "We meet in London," she said, speaking over her shoulder at him,
"but that is my last word."
  She threw open the coffeeroom door and disappeared from his view,
but he remained under the porch for a moment or two, taking a pinch of
snuff. He had received a rebuke and a snub, but his shrewd, foxlike
face looked neither abashed nor disappointed; on the contrary, a
curious smile, half sarcastic and wholly satisfied, played around
the corners of his thin lips.
                             9
                        The Outrage

  A BEAUTIFUL starlit night had followed on the day of incessant rain:
a cool, balmy, late summer's night, essentially English in its
suggestion of moisture and scent of wet earth and dripping leaves.
  The magnificent coach, drawn by four of the finest thoroughbreds
in England, had driven off along the London road, with Sir Percy
Blakeney on the box, holding the reins in his slender feminine
hands, and beside him Lady Blakeney wrapped in costly furs. A
fifty-mile drive on a starlit summer's night! Marguerite had hailed
the notion of it with delight. Sir Percy was an enthusiastic whip; his
four thoroughbreds, which had been sent down to Dover a couple of days
before, were just sufficiently fresh and restive to add zest to the
expedition, and Marguerite reveled in anticipation of the few hours of
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 honor the
ancient hostelry and stay the night.
  For the moment these two young gallants were comfortably installed
in the coffeeroom 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
dare say 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 while 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 wrapped
in sleep, save the two young men drinking in silence beside the
hearth.
  For a while no sound was heard even in the coffeeroom, save the
ticking of the old grandfather 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 traveling 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, while 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, Mademoiselle 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, 'A
bas les aristos!' But the market cart got through along with some
others, and the Scarlet Pimpernel, in shawl, petticoat, and hood,
yelled, 'A 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 second 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 chateau, 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 pocketbook
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 wrapped 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 snakelike, 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 onto 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
toward 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,
snakelike figure in the gloom had jumped up and burled 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 bounds 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 for 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 coffeeroom 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,
foxlike 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's
pocketbook, 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."
                            10
                      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. Gluck's
Orpheus made a strong appeal to the more intellectual portions of
the house, while 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 favorite 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 spellbound 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 tonight'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
emigres 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 round, scanned every face,
scrutinized 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 apropos. 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 theater, all safe and in peace, while 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 honor to bring Monsieur 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 tonight."
  "I wish I could... but your ladyship must remember that in serving
our country we must put prejudices aside. Monsieur Chauvelin is the
accredited agent of his government."
  "Odd's fish, man!" she retorted. "You don't call those blood-thirsty
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 toward 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 Monsieur Chauvelin had sat all through this
entr'acte, with his eternal snuffbox 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 crossover fichu and broad-lapeled overdress 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 leaned 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 jeweled 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
tonight. 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, feted, petted, cherished. Two days ago the Day Dream
had returned from Calais, bringing her news that her idolized
brother had safely landed, that he thought of her and would be prudent
for her sake.
  What wonder for the moment, and listening to Gluck's impassioned
strains, that she forgot her disillusionments, forgot her vanished
love dreams, forgot even the lazy, good-humored non-entity 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 doree of London, and had just dismissed
them all, wishing to be alone with Gluck 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 Gluck 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 feted, 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 tonight after
the opera. So are you, probably. Ill 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
paralyzed, 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 faro" 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 honor 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 organized
by that archmeddler, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Some of the threads,
too, of this mysterious organization 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 coffeeroom 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 his 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 cognizance 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 realize 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 characterized 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 tonight, 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 pocketbook 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 an 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 tonight."
  "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 tonight,
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
tonight 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 tonight. 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 signaled 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- womanlike- she still hoped to temporize. 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 tonight, Citoyenne," he
replied with a sarcastic smile, "I will give you that letter...
tomorrow."
  "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 imperiling 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, ferretlike head.
  A discreet rap at the door roused Marguerite from her thoughts. It
was Sir Percy Blakeney, tall sleepy, good-humored, 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 toward 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.
                            11
                   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 cardrooms 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 toward 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 emigres, 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 emigres who were feted 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-colored 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 Monsieur Chauvelin, the accredited agent of the French
government?"
  Chauvelin, immediately the Prince entered, had stepped forward,
expecting this introduction. He bowed very low, while 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 odors, 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 honors 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 this 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 curtsy.
  "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 honor 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, "rumor 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 worshiping 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, sphinxlike 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.
                            12
                     The Scrap of Paper

  MARGUERITE SUFFERED INTENSELY. Though she laughed and chatted,
though she was more admired, more surrounded, more feted 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-humored 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 couplet 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 cardroom and engaged him in a long game of hazard.
  Sir Percy, whose chief interest in most social gatherings seemed
to center round the card table, usually allowed his wife to flirt,
dance, amuse, or bore herself as much as she liked. And tonight,
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 demeanor 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 ballroom, 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 highborn English gentlemen,
among whom, rumor 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 tete-a-tete 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 toward 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 toward 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 toward 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 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 ballroom, 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
ballroom 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 jeweled fingers- that talisman which perhaps would save her
brother Armand's life. Sir Andrew was staring at her, too dazed for
the moment to realize 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 ballroom is fascinating and
soothing."
  She was prattling on in the most unconcerned and pleasant way, while
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 conge 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 toward 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 backward 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; while
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
while 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-a-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?"
                            13
                        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 tomorrow..." 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 willfully 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, while 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 Comedie Francaise; 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 agonizing 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 realized 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
billets-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 tomorrow."
  "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, Madame, that this life
would be but a dreary desert without your smiles and his sallies."
                            14
                   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," 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, foxlike eyes would terrify her at once
and incline the balance of her decision toward Armand. While 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 tete-a-tete. 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, foxlike
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 cardroom? 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 tomorrow,'" 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 Gluck'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 Mademoiselle 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 figures 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 tomorrow. One of these will be the Scarlet Pimpernel."
  "Yes, and?"
  "I also, fair lady, will leave for France tomorrow. The papers found
at Dover upon the person of Sir Andrew Ffoulkes speak of the
neighborhood of Calais, of an inn which I know well, called Le Chat
Gris, of a lonely place somewhere on the coast- the Pere Blanchard's
hut- which I must endeavor 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
tomorrow. 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 has 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 catlike 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 toward 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, which recalled pleasant, animated discussions over
the latest scandals; there were chairs straight up in a row, which
looked starchy, critical, acid, like antiquated dowagers; there were a
few isolated, single chairs, close to the table, which spoke of
gourmands intent on the most recherche dishes, and others overturned
on the floor, which 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 gray cardboard, dull
and colorless 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 flunky had retired in order to join his friends in the hall
below. All was silence in the dimly lighted room, while 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 marvelous 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 appareled, 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!
                            15
                           Doubt

  MARGUERITE BLAKENEY HAD watched the slight sable-clad figure of
Chauvelin as he worked his way through the ballroom. 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
nought 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 recognize 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.
  Womanlike, 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 honor me with the contredanse until your coach
is ready?" asked Lord Fancourt.
  "No, I thank you, my lord, but- an you will forgive me- I really
am too tired, and the heat in the ballroom 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, Monsieur 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 story
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
willingly 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-by to the queen of beauty
and fashion, while 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.
  "Monsieur 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 tonight...
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 today-"
  "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 today."
  "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, foxlike 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 kissed 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 doree,
eagerly attentive to Lady Blakeney's every movement, hid the keen,
foxlike face from her view.
                            16
                         Richmond

  A FEW MINUTES later she was sitting, wrapped in cozy 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 toward 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.
  Tonight 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, heartbroken 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 toward the
faults, the delinquencies, of others.
  How thoroughly a human being can be buffeted and over-mastered 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 realized 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 sundial, 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, while he gave a few orders to one of
his men. She skirted the house and stepped onto 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 toward 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, toward 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 toward 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 his 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 lovesick 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 gray 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
rumor 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."
  "No 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 worshiped, 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 rumor 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
gray 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-humored 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, womanlike, 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 lackeys- that brother whom I loved better than all the
world! And his offense? 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 realized 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 rumors.
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 prove that love, you demanded that I should forfeit mine
honor," he said, while 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, while 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... Tomorrow, 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
in 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 moment 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 honor 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, while 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, Monsieur 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 sympathize 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 nought for her.
  The gray 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 onto 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 footstep 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.
                            17
                         Farewell

  WHEN MARGUERITE REACHED her room, she found her maid terrible
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 dare say 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 realized 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, willful, 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 fool? Was it love that she had felt for him a year ago when she
married him? Was it love she felt for him now that she realized that
he still loved her but that he would not become her slave, her
passionate, ardent lover once again? Nay! Marguerite herself could not
have told that. Not at this moment at any rate; her pride had sealed
her mind against a better understanding of her own heart. But this she
did know: she meant to capture that obstinate heart back again. That
she would conquer once more... and then, that she would never lose
him... She would keep him, keep his love, deserve it, and cherish
it; for this much was certain: there was no longer any happiness
possible for her without that one man's love.
  Thus the most contradictory thoughts and emotions rushed madly
through her mind. Absorbed in them, she had allowed time to slip by;
perhaps, tired out with long excitement, she had actually closed her
eyes and sank into a troubled sleep, wherein quickly fleeting dreams
seemed but the continuation of her anxious thoughts- when suddenly she
was roused, from dream or meditation, by the noise of footsteps
outside her door.
  Nervously she jumped up and listened. The house itself was as
still as ever; the footsteps had retreated. Through her wide-open
windows the brilliant rays of the morning sun were flooding her own
room with light She looked up at the clock; it was half-past six-
too early for any of the household to be already astir.
  She certainly must have dropped asleep, quite unconsciously. The
noise of the footsteps, also of hushed, subdued voices had awakened
her- what could they be?
  Gently, on tiptoe, she crossed the room and opened the door to
listen; not a sound- that peculiar stillness of the early morning when
sleep with all mankind is at its heaviest. But the noise had made
her nervous, and when, suddenly, at her feet, on the very doorstep,
she saw something white lying there- a letter evidently- she hardly
dared touch it. It seemed so ghostlike. It certainly was not there
when she came upstairs; had Louise dropped it? Or was some tantalizing
spook at play, showing her fairy letters where none existed?
  At last she stooped to pick it up, and, amazed, puzzled beyond
measure, she saw that the letter was addressed to herself in her
husband's large, businesslike-looking hand. What could he have to
say to her, in the middle of the night, which could not be put off
until the morning?
  She tore open the envelope and read:

  "'A most unforeseen circumstance forces me to leave for the North
immediately, so I beg your ladyship's pardon if I do not avail
myself of the honor of bidding you good-by. My business may keep me
employed for about a week, so I shall not have the privilege of
being present at your ladyship's water party on Wednesday. I remain
your ladyship's most humble and most obedient servant, PERCY
BLAKENEY."

  Marguerite must suddenly have been imbued with her husband's
slowness of intellect, for she had perforce to read the few simple
lines over and over again before she could fully grasp their meaning.
  She stood on the landing, turning over and over in her hand this
curt and mysterious epistle, her mind a blank, her nerves strained
with agitation and a presentiment she could not very well have
explained.
  Sir Percy owned considerable property in the North, certainly, and
he had often before gone there alone and stayed away a week at a time;
but it seemed so very strange that circumstances should have arisen
between five and six o'clock in the morning that compelled him to
start in this extreme hurry.
  Vainly she tried to shake off an unaccustomed feeling of
nervousness; she was trembling from head to foot. A wild,
unconquerable desire seized her to see her husband again, at once,
if only he had not already started.
  Forgetting the fact that she was only very lightly clad in a morning
wrap and that her hair lay loosely about her shoulders, she flew
down the stairs, right through the hall toward the front door.
  It was as usual barred and bolted, for the indoor servants were
not yet up; but her keen ears had detected the sound of voices and the
pawing of a horse's hoof against the flagstones.
  With nervous, trembling fingers Marguerite undid the bolts one by
one, bruising her hands, hurting her nails, for the locks were heavy
and stiff. But she did not care; her whole frame shook with anxiety at
the very thought that she might be too late, that he might have gone
without her seeing him and bidding him Godspeed.
  At last, she had turned the key and thrown open the door. Her ears
had not deceived her. A groom was standing close by holding a couple
of horses; one of these was Sultan, Sir Percy's favorite and
swiftest horse, saddled, ready for a journey.
  The next moment Sir Percy himself appeared round the further
corner of the house and came quickly toward the horses. He had changed
his gorgeous ball costume, but was as usual irreproachably and
richly appareled in a suit of fine cloth, with lace jabot and ruffles,
high-top boots, and riding breeches.
  Marguerite went forward a few steps. He looked up and saw her. A
slight frown appeared between his eyes.
  "You are going?" she said quickly and feverishly. "Whither?"
  "As I have had the honor of informing your ladyship, urgent, most
unexpected business calls me to the North this morning," he said in
his usual cold, drawly manner.
  "But... your guests tomorrow..."
  "I have prayed your ladyship to offer my humble excuses to His Royal
Highness. You are such a perfect hostess, I do not think that I
shall be missed."
  "But surely you might have waited for your journey... until after
our water party," she said, still speaking quickly and nervously.
"Surely the business is not so urgent... and you said nothing about
it- just now."
  "My business, as I had the honor to tell you, Madame, is as
unexpected as it is urgent. May I therefore crave your permission to
go. Can I do aught for you in town... on my way back?"
  "No... no... thanks... nothing... But you will be back soon?"
  "Very soon."
  "Before the end of the week?"
  "I cannot say."
  He was evidently trying to get away, while she was straining every
nerve to keep him back for a moment or two.
  "Percy," she said, "will you not tell me why you go today? Surely I,
as your wife, have the right to know. You have not been called away to
the North. I know it. There were no letters, no couriers from there
before we left for the opera last night, and nothing was waiting for
you when we returned from the ball. You are not going to the North,
I feel convinced. There is some mystery... and..."
  "Nay, there is no mystery, Madame," he replied, with a slight tone
of impatience. "My business has to do with Armand. There! Now, have
I your leave to depart?"
  "With Armand?... But you will run no danger?"
  "Danger? I? Nay, Madame, your solicitude does me honor. As you
say, I have some influence; my intention is to exert it before it be
too late."
  "Will you allow me to thank you at least?"
  "Nay, Madame," he said coldly, "there is no need for that. My life
is at your service, and I am already more than repaid."
  "And mine will be at yours, Sir Percy, if you will but accept it, in
exchange for what you do for Armand," she said as, impulsively, she
stretched out both her hands to him. "There! I will not detain
you... my thoughts go with you... Farewell!"
  How lovely she looked in this morning sunlight, with her ardent hair
streaming around her shoulders. He bowed very low and kissed her hand;
she felt the burning kiss and her heart thrilled with joy and hope.
  "You will come back?" she said tenderly.
  "Very soon!" he replied, looking longingly into her blue eyes.
  "And... you will remember?" she asked as her eyes, in response to
his look, gave him an infinity of promise.
  "I will always remember, Madame, that you have honored me by
commanding my services."
  The words were cold and formal, but they did not chill her this
time. Her woman's heart had read his, beneath the impassive mask his
pride still forced him to wear.
  He bowed to her again, then begged her leave to depart. She stood on
one side while he jumped onto Sultan's back, then, as he galloped
out of the gates, she waved him a final adieu.
  A bend in the road soon hid him from view; his confidential groom
had some difficulty in keeping pace with him, for Sultan flew along in
response to his master's excited mood. Marguerite, with a sigh that
was almost a happy one, turned and went within. She went back to her
room, for suddenly, like a tired child, she felt quite sleepy.
  Her heart seemed all at once to be in complete peace, and, though it
still ached with undefined longing, a vague and delicious hope soothed
it as with a balm.
  She felt no longer anxious about Armand. The man who had just ridden
away, bent on helping her brother, inspired her with complete
confidence in his strength and in his power. She marveled at herself
for having ever looked upon him as an inane fool; of course, that
was a mask worn to hide the bitter wound she had dealt to his faith
and to his love. His passion would have overmastered him, and he would
not let her see how much he still cared and how deeply he suffered.
  But now all would be well: she would crush her own pride, humble
it before him, tell him everything, trust him in everything; and those
happy days would come back, when they used to wander off together in
the forests of Fontainebleau, when they spoke little- for he was
always a silent man- but when she felt that against that strong
heart she would always find rest and happiness.
  The more she thought of the events of the past night, the less
fear had she of Chauvelin and his schemes. He had failed to discover
the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, of that she felt sure. Both
Lord Fancourt and Chauvelin himself had assured her that no one had
been in the dining room at one o'clock except the Frenchman himself
and Percy- yes, Percy!- she might have asked him, had she thought of
it! Anyway, she had no fears that the unknown and grave hero would
fall in Chauvelin's trap; his death, at any rate, would not be at
her door.
  Armand certainly was still in danger, but Percy had pledged his word
that Armand would be safe, and, somehow, as Marguerite had seen him
riding away, the possibility that he could fail in whatever he
undertook never even remotely crossed her mind. When Armand was safely
over in England, she would not allow him to go back to France.
  She felt almost happy now, and, drawing the curtains closely
together again to shut out the piercing sun, she went to bed at
last, laid her head upon the pillow, and, like a wearied child, soon
fell into a peaceful and dreamless sleep.
                            18
                   The Mysterious Device

  THE DAY WAS well advanced when Marguerite woke, refreshed by her
long sleep. Louise had brought her some fresh milk and a dish of
fruit, and she partook of this frugal breakfast with hearty appetite.
  Thoughts crowded thick and fast in her mind as she munched her
grapes; most of them went galloping away after the tall, erect
figure of her husband, whom she had watched riding out of sight more
than five hours ago.
  In answer to her eager inquiries, Louise brought back the news
that the groom had come home with Sultan, having left Sir Percy in
London. The groom thought that his master was about to get on board
his schooner, which was lying off just below London Bridge. Sir
Percy had ridden thus far, had then met Briggs, the skipper of the Day
Dream, and had sent the groom back to Richmond with Sultan and the
empty saddle.
  This news puzzled Marguerite more than ever. Where could Sir Percy
be going just now in the Day Dream? On Armand's behalf, he had said.
Well! Sir Percy had influential friends everywhere. Perhaps he was
going to Greenwich or... But Marguerite ceased to conjecture; all
would be explained anon. He said that he would come back and that he
would remember.
  A long, idle day lay before Marguerite. She was expecting the
visit of her old schoolfellow, little Suzanne de Tournay. With all the
merry mischief at her command, she had tendered her request for
Suzanne's company to the Comtesse in the presence of the Prince of
Wales last night. His Royal Highness had loudly applauded the notion
and declared that he would give himself the pleasure of calling on the
two ladies in the course of the afternoon. The Comtesse had not
dared to refuse and then and there was entrapped into a promise to
send little Suzanne to spend a long and happy day at Richmond with her
friend.
  Marguerite expected her eagerly; she longed for a chat about old
school days with the child; she felt that she would prefer Suzanne's
company to that of anyone else, and together they would roam through
the fine old garden and rich deer park or stroll along the river.
  But Suzanne had not come yet, and Marguerite being dressed, prepared
to go downstairs. She looked quite a girl this morning in her simple
muslin frock, with a broad blue sash round her slim waist and the
dainty crossover fichu into which, at her bosom, she had fastened a
few late crimson roses.
  She crossed the landing outside her own suite of apartments and
stood still for a moment at the head of the fine oak staircase,
which led to the lower floor. On her left were her husband's
apartments, a suite of rooms which she practically never entered.
  They consisted of bedroom, dressing and reception room, and, at
the extreme end of the landing, of a small study, which, when Sir
Percy did not use it, was always kept locked. His own special and
confidential valet, Frank, had charge of this room. No one was ever
allowed to go inside. My lady had never cared to do so, and the
other servants had, of course, not dared to break this hard-and-fast
rule.
  Marguerite had often, with that good-natured contempt which she
had recently adopted toward her husband, chaffed him about this
secrecy which surrounded his private study. Laughingly she had
always declared that he strictly excluded all prying eyes from his
sanctum for fear they should detect how very little "study" went on
within its four walls- a comfortable armchair for Sir Percy's sweet
slumbers was, no doubt, its most conspicuous piece of furniture.
  Marguerite thought of all this on this bright October morning as she
glanced along the corridor. Frank was evidently busy with his master's
rooms, for most of the doors stood open, that of the study amongst the
others.
  A sudden burning, childish curiosity seized her to have a peep at
Sir Percy's sanctum. The restriction, of course, did not apply to her,
and Frank would, of course, not dare to oppose her. Still, she hoped
that the valet would be busy in one of the other rooms, that she might
have that one quick peep in secret and unmolested.
  Gently, on tiptoe, she crossed the landing and, like Bluebeard's
wife, trembling half with excitement and wonder, she paused a moment
on the threshold, strangely perturbed and irresolute.
  The door was ajar, and she could not see anything within. She pushed
it open tentatively. There was no sound. Frank was evidently not
there, and she walked boldly in.
  At once she was struck by the severe simplicity of everything around
her: the dark and heavy hangings, the massive oak furniture, the one
or two maps on the wall in no way recalled to her mind the lazy man
about town, the lover of racecourses, the dandified leader of
fashion that was the outward representation of Sir Percy Blakeney.
  There was no sign here, at any rate, of hurried departure.
Everything was in its place, not a scrap of paper littered the
floor, not a cupboard or drawer was left open. The curtains were drawn
aside, and through the open window the fresh morning air was streaming
in.
  Facing the window, and well into the center of the room, stood a
ponderous businesslike desk which looked as if it had seen much
service. On the wall to the left of the desk, reaching almost from
floor to ceiling, was a large full-length portrait of a woman,
magnificently framed, exquisitely painted, and signed with the name of
Boucher. It was Percy's mother.
  Marguerite knew very little about her, except that she had died
abroad, ailing in body as well as in mind, when Percy was still a lad.
She must have been a very beautiful woman once, when Boucher painted
her, and as Marguerite looked at the portrait, she could not but be
struck by the extraordinary resemblance which must have existed
between mother and son. There was the same low, square forehead,
crowned with thick, fair hair, smooth and heavy; the same deep-set,
somewhat lazy blue eyes beneath firmly marked, straight brows; and
in those eyes there was the same intensity behind that apparent
laziness, the same latent passion which used to light up Percy's
face in the olden days before his marriage and which Marguerite had
again noted, last night at dawn, when she had come quite close to
him and had allowed a note of tenderness to creep into her voice.
  Marguerite studied the portrait, for it interested her; after
that, she turned and looked again at the ponderous desk. It was
covered with a mass of papers, all neatly tied and docketed, which
looked like accounts and receipts arrayed with perfect method. It
had never before struck Marguerite- nor had she, alas, found it
worth while to inquire- as to how Sir Percy, whom all the world had
credited with a total lack of brains, administered the vast fortune
which his father had left him.
  Since she had entered this neat, orderly room, she had been taken so
much by surprise that this obvious proof of her husband's strong
business capacities did not cause her more than a passing thought of
wonder. But it also strengthened her in the now certain knowledge that
with his worldly inanities, his foppish ways, and foolish talk, he was
not only wearing a mask, but was playing a deliberate and studied
part.
  Marguerite wondered again. Why should he take all this trouble?
Why should he- who was obviously a serious, earnest man- wish to
appear before his fellow men as an empty-headed nincompoop?
  He may have wished to hide his love for a wife who held him in
contempt... but surely such an object could have been gained at less
sacrifice and with far less trouble than constant incessant acting
of an unnatural part.
  She looked round her quite aimlessly now; she was horribly
puzzled, and a nameless dread, before all this strange,
unaccountable mystery, had begun to seize upon her. She felt cold
and uncomfortable suddenly in this severe and dark room. There were no
pictures on the wall save the fine Boucher portrait, only a couple
of maps- both of parts of France- one of the north coast and the other
of the environs of Paris. What did Sir Percy want with those? she
wondered.
  Her head began to ache; she turned away from this strange
Bluebeard's chamber which she had entered and which she did not
understand. She did not wish Frank to find her here, and with a last
look round, she once more turned to the door. As she did so, her
foot knocked against a small object which had apparently been lying
close to the desk, on the carpet, and which now went rolling right
across the room.
  She stooped to pick it up. It was a solid gold ring, with a flat
shield on which was engraved a small device.
  Marguerite turned it over in her fingers and then studied the
engraving on the shield. It represented a small star-shaped flower, of
a shape she had seen so distinctly twice before: once at the opera and
once at Lord Grenville's ball.
                            19
                    The Scarlet Pimpernel

  AT WHAT PARTICULAR moment the strange doubt first crept into
Marguerite's mind, she could not herself afterward have said. With the
ring tightly clutched in her hand, she had run out of the room, down
the stairs, and out into the garden, where, in complete seclusion,
alone with the flowers and the river and the birds, she could look
again at the ring and study that device more closely.
  Stupidly, senselessly now, sitting beneath the shade of an
overhanging sycamore, she was looking at the plain gold shield with
the star-shaped little flower engraved upon it.
  Bah! It was ridiculous! She was dreaming! Her nerves were
overwrought, and she saw signs and mysteries in the most trivial
coincidences. Had not everybody about town recently made a point of
affecting the device of that mysterious and heroic Scarlet Pimpernel?
  Did she not herself wear it embroidered on her gowns, set in gems
and enamel in her hair? What was there strange in the fact that Sir
Percy should have chosen to use the device as a seal ring? He might
easily have done that... yes... quite easily... and... besides... what
connection could there be between her exquisite dandy of a husband,
with his fine clothes and refined, lazy ways, and the daring plotter
who rescued French victims from beneath the very eyes of the leaders
of a bloodthirsty revolution?
  Her thoughts were in a whirl- her mind a blank... She did not see
anything that was going on around her and was quite startled when a
fresh young voice called to her across the garden.
  "Cherie! Cherie! Where are you?" And little Suzanne, fresh as a
rosebud, with eyes dancing with glee and brown curls fluttering in the
soft morning breeze, came running across the lawn. "They told me you
were in the garden," she went on prattling merrily and throwing
herself with pretty, girlish impulse into Marguerite's arms, "so I ran
out to give you a surprise. You did not expect me quite so soon, did
you, my darling little Margot cherie?"
  Marguerite, who had hastily concealed the ring in the folds of her
kerchief, tried to respond gaily and unconcernedly to the young girl's
impulsiveness. "Indeed, sweet one," she said with a smile, "it is
delightful to have you all to myself- and for a nice whole long day.
You won't be bored?"
  "Oh, bored! Margot, how can you say such a wicked thing. Why, when
we were in the dear old convent together, we were always happy when we
were allowed to be alone together."
  "And to talk secrets."
  The two young girls had linked their arms in one another's and began
wandering round the garden.
  "Oh, how lovely your home is, Margot, darling," said little
Suzanne enthusiastically, "and how happy you must be!"
  "Aye, indeed! I ought to be happy- oughtn't I, sweet one?" said
Marguerite with a wistful little sigh.
  "How sadly you say it, cherie... Ah, well, I suppose now that you
are a married woman you won't care to talk secrets with me any longer.
Oh, what lots and lots of secrets we used to have at school! Do you
remember? Some we did not even confide to Sister Theresa of the Holy
Angels- though she was such a dear."
  "And now you have one all-important secret, eh, little one," said
Marguerite merrily, "which you are forthwith going to confide to me?
Nay, you need not blush, cherie," she added as she saw Suzanne's
pretty little face crimson with blushes. "Faith, there's nought to
be ashamed of! He is a noble and a true man and one to be proud of
as a lover and... as a husband."
  "Indeed, cherie, I am not ashamed," rejoined Suzanne softly. "And it
makes me very, very proud to hear you speak so well of him. I think
Maman will consent," she added thoughtfully, "and I shall be- oh, so
happy! But, of course, nothing is to be thought of until Papa is
safe."
  Marguerite started. Suzanne's father, the Comte de Tournay!- one
of those whose life would be jeopardized if Chauvelin succeeded in
establishing the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
  She had understood all along from the Comtesse, and also from one or
two of the members of the league, that their mysterious leader had
pledged his honor to bring the fugitive Comte de Tournay safely out of
France. While little Suzanne- unconscious of all save her own
all-important little secret- went prattling on, Marguerite's
thoughts went back to the events of the past night.
  Armand's peril, Chauvelin's threat, his cruel "either-or," which she
had accepted. And then her own work in the matter, which should have
culminated at one o'clock in Lord Grenville's dining room, when the
relentless agent of the French government would finally learn who
was this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, who so openly defied an army of
spies and placed himself so boldly, and for mere sport, on the side of
the enemies of France.
  Since then she had heard nothing from Chauvelin. She had concluded
that he had failed, and yet she had not felt anxious about Armand,
because her husband had promised her that Armand would be safe.
  But now, suddenly, as Suzanne prattled merrily along, an awful
horror came upon her for what she had done. Chauvelin had told her
nothing, it is true; but she remembered how sarcastic and evil he
looked when she took final leave of him after the ball. Had he
discovered something then? Had he already laid his plans for
catching the daring plotter redhanded in France and sending him to the
guillotine without compunction or delay? Marguerite turned sick with
horror, and her hand convulsively clutched the ring in her dress.
  "You are not listening, cherie," said Suzanne reproachfully, as
she paused in her long, highly interesting narrative.
  "Yes, yes, darling- indeed I am," said Marguerite with an effort,
forcing herself to smile. "I love to hear you talking... and your
happiness makes me so very glad... Have no fear, we will manage to
propitiate Maman. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes is a noble English gentleman. He
has money and position; the Comtesse will not refuse her consent.
But... now, little one... tell me... what is the latest news about
your father?"
  "Oh," said Suzanne with mad glee, "the best we could possibly
hear! My Lord Hastings came to see Maman early this morning. He said
that all is now well with dear Papa, and we may safely expect him here
in England in less than four days."
  "Yes," said Marguerite, whose glowing eyes were fastened on
Suzanne's lips as she continued merrily:
  "Oh, we have no fear now! You don't know, cherie, that that great
and noble Scarlet Pimpernel himself has gone to save Papa. He has
gone, cherie... actually gone," added Suzanne excitedly. "He was in
London this morning; he will be in Calais, perhaps, tomorrow...
where he will meet Papa... and then... and then..."
  The blow had fallen. She had expected it all along, though she had
tried for the last half hour to delude herself and to cheat her fears.
He had gone to Calais, had been in London this morning... he... the
Scarlet Pimpernel... Percy Blakeney... her husband... whom she had
betrayed last night to Chauvelin.
  Percy... Percy... her husband... the Scarlet Pimpernel. Oh! How
could she have been so blind? She understood it now- all at once- that
part he played, the mask he wore... in order to throw dust in
everybody's eyes.
  And all for sheer sport and devilry of course! Saving men, women,
and children from death as other men destroy and kill animals for
the excitement, the love of the thing. The idle rich man wanted some
aim in life- he and the few young bucks he enrolled under his banner
had amused themselves for months in risking their lives for the sake
of an innocent few.
  Perhaps he had meant to tell her when they were first married; and
then the story of the Marquis de St. Cyr had come to his ears, and
he had suddenly turned from her, thinking, no doubt, that she might
some day betray him and his comrades, who had sworn to follow him. And
so he had tricked her as he tricked all others, while hundreds now
owed their lives to him and many families owed him both life and
happiness.
  The mask of the inane fop had been a good one, and the part
consummately well played. No wonder that Chauvelin's spies had
failed to detect, in the apparently brainless nincompoop, the man
whose reckless daring and resourceful ingenuity had baffled the
keenest French spies, both in France and in England. Even last night
when Chauvelin went to Lord Grenville's dining room to seek that
daring Scarlet Pimpernel, he only saw that inane Sir Percy Blakeney
fast asleep in a corner of the sofa.
  Had his astute mind guessed the secret, then? Here lay the whole
awful, horrible, amazing puzzle. In betraying a nameless stranger to
his fate in order to save her brother, had Marguerite Blakeney sent
her husband to his death?
  No, no, no, a thousand times no! Surely fate could not deal a blow
like that. Nature itself would rise in revolt. Her hand, when it
held that tiny scrap of paper last night, would surely have been
struck numb ere it committed a deed so appalling and so terrible.
  "But what is it, cherie?" said little Suzanne, now genuinely
alarmed, for Marguerites color had become dull and ashen. "Are you
ill, Marguerite? What is it?"
  "Nothing, nothing, child," she murmured as in a dream. "Wait a
moment... let me think... think! You said... the Scarlet Pimpernel had
gone today?"
  "Marguerite, cherie, what is it? You frighten me."
  "It is nothing, child, I tell you... nothing. I must be alone a
minute- and- dear one... I may have to curtail our time together
today. I may have to go away- you'll understand?"
  "I understand that something has happened, cherie, and that you want
to be alone. I won't be a hindrance to you. Don't think of me. My
maid, Lucile, has not yet gone. We will go back together... don't
think of me." She threw her arms impulsively round Marguerite. Child
as she was, she felt the poignancy of her friend's grief, and with the
infinite tact of her girlish tenderness, she did not try to pry into
but was ready to efface herself.
  She kissed Marguerite again and again, then walked sadly back across
the lawn. Marguerite did not move; she remained there, thinking...
wondering what was to be done.
  Just as little Suzanne was about to mount the terrace steps, a groom
came running round the house toward his mistress. He carried a
sealed letter in his hand. Suzanne instinctively turned back; her
heart told her that here perhaps was further ill news for her
friend, and she felt that her poor Margot was not in a fit state to
bear any more.
  The groom stood respectfully beside his mistress, then he handed her
the sealed letter.
  "What is that?" asked Marguerite.
  "Just come by runner, my lady."
  Marguerite took the letter mechanically and turned it over in her
trembling fingers.
  "Who sent it?" she said.
  "The runner said, my lady," replied the groom, "that his orders were
to deliver this and that your ladyship would understand from whom it
came."
  Marguerite tore open the envelope. Already her instinct had told her
what it contained, and her eyes only glanced at it mechanically. It
was a letter written by Armand St. Just to Sir Andrew Ffoulkes- the
letter which Chauvelin's spies had stolen at The Fisherman's Rest
and which Chauvelin had held as a rod over her to enforce her
obedience.
  Now he had kept his word- he had sent her back St. Just's
compromising letter... for he was on the track of the Scarlet
Pimpernel.
  Marguerite's senses reeled, her very soul seemed to be leaving her
body; she tottered and would have fallen but for Suzanne's arm round
her waist. With superhuman effort she regained control over herself-
there was yet much to be done.
  "Bring that runner here to me," she said to the servant, with much
calm. "He has not gone?"
  "No, my lady."
  The groom went and Marguerite turned to Suzanne. "And you, child,
run within. Tell Lucile to get ready. I fear I must send you home,
child. And- stay, tell one of the maids to prepare a traveling dress
and cloak for me."
  Suzanne made no reply. She kissed Marguerite tenderly and obeyed
without a word; the child was overawed by the terrible, nameless
misery in her friend's face.
  A minute later the groom returned, followed by the runner who had
brought the letter.
  "Who gave you this packet?" asked Marguerite.
  "A gentleman, my lady," replied the man, "at the Rose and Thistle
inn opposite Charing Cross. He said you would understand."
  "At the Rose and Thistle? What was he doing?"
  "He was waiting for the coach, your ladyship, which he had ordered."
  "The coach?"
  "Yes, my lady. A special coach he had ordered. I understood from his
man that he was posting straight to Dover."
  "That's enough. You may go." Then she turned to the groom. "My coach
and the four swiftest horses in the stables, to be ready at once."
  The groom and runner both went quickly off to obey. Marguerite
remained standing for a moment on the lawn quite alone. Her graceful
figure was as rigid as a statue, her eyes were fixed, her hands were
tightly clasped across her breast. Her lips moved as they murmured
with pathetic, heart-breaking persistence, "What's to be done?
What's to be done? Where to find him? Oh, God grant me light!"
  But this was not the moment for remorse and despair. She had done-
unwittingly- an awful and terrible thing- the very worst crime, in her
eyes, that woman ever committed. She saw it in all its horror. Her
very blindness in not having guessed her husband's secret seemed now
to her another deadly sin. She ought to have known! She ought to
have known!
  How could she imagine that a man who could love with so much
intensity as Percy Blakeney had loved her from the first- how could
such a man be the brainless idiot he chose to appear? She, at least,
ought to have known that he was wearing a mask, and having found
that out, she should have torn it from his face whenever they were
alone together.
  Her love for him had been paltry and weak, easily crushed by her own
pride; and she too had worn a mask in assuming a contempt for him,
while, as a matter of fact, she completely misunderstood him.
  But there was no time now to go over the past. By her own
blindness she had sinned; now she must repay, not by empty remorse,
but by prompt and useful action.
  Percy had started for Calais, utterly unconscious of the fact that
his most relentless enemy was on his heels. He had set sail early that
morning from London Bridge. Provided he had a favorable wind, he would
no doubt be in France within twenty-four hours; no doubt he had
reckoned on the wind and chosen this route.
  Chauvelin, on the other hand, would post to Dover, charter a
vessel there, and undoubtedly reach Calais much about the same time.
Once in Calais, Percy would meet all those who were eagerly waiting
for the noble and brave Scarlet Pimpernel, who had come to rescue them
from horrible and unmerited death. With Chauvelin's eyes now fixed
upon his every movement, Percy would thus not only be endangering
his own life, but that of Suzanne's father, the old Comte de
Tournay, and of those other fugitives who were waiting for him and
trusting in him. There was also Armand, who had gone to meet de
Tournay, secure in the knowledge that the Scarlet Pimpernel was
watching over his safety.
  All these lives and that of her husband lay in Marguerite's hands;
these she must save, if human pluck and ingenuity were equal to the
task.
  Unfortunately, she could not do all this quite alone. Once in Calais
she would not know where to find her husband, while Chauvelin, in
stealing the papers at Dover, had obtained the whole itinerary.
Above everything, she wished to warn Percy.
  She knew enough about him by now to understand that he would never
abandon those who trusted in him, that he would not turn back from
danger and leave the Comte de Tournay to fall into the bloodthirsty
hands that knew of no mercy. But if he were warned, he might form
new plans, be more wary, more prudent. Unconsciously, he might fall
into a cunning trap; but once warned, he might yet succeed.
  And if he failed- if indeed fate and Chauvelin, with all the
resources at his command, proved too strong for the daring plotter
after all- then at least she would be there by his side, to comfort,
love, and cherish, to cheat death perhaps at the last by making it
seem sweet, if they died together, locked in each other's arms, with
the supreme happiness of knowing that passion had responded to passion
and that all misunderstandings were at an end.
  Her whole body stiffened as with a great and firm resolution. This
she meant to do, if God gave her wits and strength. Her eyes lost
their fixed look; they glowed with inward fire at the thought of
meeting him again so soon, in the very midst of most deadly perils;
they sparkled with the joy of sharing these dangers with him- of
helping him perhaps, of being with him at the last if she failed.
  The childlike sweet face had become hard and set, the curved mouth
was closed tightly over her clenched teeth. She meant to do or die,
with him and for his sake. A frown, which spoke of an iron will and
unbending resolution, appeared between the two straight brows; already
her plans were formed. She would go and find Sir Andrew Ffoulkes
first; he was Percy's best friend, and Marguerite remembered with a
thrill with what blind enthusiasm the young man always spoke of his
mysterious leader.
  He would help her where she needed help; her coach was ready. A
change of raiment, and a farewell to little Suzanne, and she could
be on her way.
  Without haste, but without hesitation, she walked quietly into the
house.
                            20
                        The Friend

  LESS THAN HALF an hour later, Marguerite, buried in thoughts, sat
inside her coach, which was bearing her swiftly to London.
  She had taken an affectionate farewell of little Suzanne and seen
the child safely started with her maid and in her own coach back to
town. She had sent one courier with a respectful letter of excuse to
His Royal Highness, begging for a postponement of the august visit
on account of pressing and urgent business, and another on ahead to
bespeak a fresh relay of horses at Faversham.
  Then she had changed her muslin frock for a dark traveling costume
and mantle, had provided herself with money- which her husband's
lavishness always placed fully at her disposal- and had started on her
way.
  She did not attempt to delude herself with any vain and futile
hopes; the safety of her brother Armand was to have been conditional
on the imminent capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel. As Chauvelin had
sent her back Armand's compromising letter, there was no doubt that he
was quite satisfied in his own mind that Percy Blakeney was the man
whose death he had sworn to bring about.
  No, there was no room for any fond delusions! Percy, the husband
whom she loved with all the ardor which her admiration for his bravery
had kindled, was in immediate, deadly peril through her hand. She
had betrayed him to his enemy- unwittingly, 'tis true- but she had
betrayed him, and if Chauvelin succeeded in trapping him, who so far
was unaware of his danger, then his death would be at her door. His
death! When with her very heart's blood, she would have defended him
and given willingly her life for his.
  She had ordered her coach to drive her to the Crown inn; once there,
she told her coachman to give the horses food and rest. Then she
ordered a chair and had herself carried to the house in Pall Mall
where Sir Andrew Ffoulkes lived.
  Among all Percy's friends who were enrolled under his daring banner,
she felt that she would prefer to confide in Sir Andrew Ffoulkes. He
had always been her friend, and now his love for little Suzanne had
brought him closer to her still. Had he been away from home, gone on
the mad errand with Percy, perhaps, then she would have called on Lord
Hastings or Lord Tony- for she wanted the help of one of these young
men, or she would be indeed powerless to save her husband.
  Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, however, was at home, and his servant
introduced her ladyship immediately. She went upstairs to the young
man's comfortable bachelor's chambers and was shown into a small,
though luxuriously furnished, dining room. A moment or two later Sir
Andrew himself appeared.
  He had evidently been much startled when he heard who his lady
visitor was, for he looked anxiously- even suspiciously- at Marguerite
while performing the elaborate bows before her which the rigid
etiquette of the time demanded.
  Marguerite had laid aside every vestige of nervousness; she was
perfectly calm, and having returned the young man's elaborate
salute, she began very calmly. "Sir Andrew, I have no desire to
waste valuable time in much talk. You must take certain things I am
going to tell you for granted. These will be of no importance. What is
important is that your leader and comrade, the Scarlet Pimpernel... my
husband... Percy Blakeney... is in deadly peril."
  Had she had the remotest doubt of the correctness of her deductions,
she would have had them confirmed now, for Sir Andrew, completely
taken by surprise, had grown very pale and was quite incapable of
making the slightest attempt at clever parrying.
  "No matter how I know this, Sir Andrew," she continued quietly,
"thank God that I do and that perhaps it is not too late to save
him. Unfortunately, I cannot do this quite alone and therefore have
come to you for help."
  "Lady Blakeney," said the young man, trying to recover himself,
"I..."
  "Will you hear me first?" she interrupted. "This is how the matter
stands. When the agent of the French government stole your papers that
night in Dover, he found amongst them certain plans which you or
your leader meant to carry out for the rescue of the Comte de
Tournay and others. The Scarlet Pimpernel- Percy, my husband- has gone
on this errand himself today. Chauvelin knows that the Scarlet
Pimpernel and Percy Blakeney are one and the same person. He will
follow him to Calais and there will lay hands on him. You know as well
as I do the fate that awaits him at the hands of the revolutionary
government of France. No interference from England- from King George
himself- would save him. Robespierre and his gang would see to it that
the interference came too late. But not only that, the much-trusted
leader will also have been unconsciously the means of revealing the
hiding place of the Comte de Tournay and of all those who, even now,
are placing their hopes in him."
  She had spoken quietly, dispassionately, and with firm, unbending
resolution. Her purpose was to make that young man trust and help her,
for she could do nothing without him.
  "I do not understand," he repeated, trying to gain time, to think
what was best to be done.
  "Aye, but I think you do, Sir Andrew. You must know that I am
speaking the truth. Look these facts straight in the face. Percy has
sailed for Calais- I presume for some lonely part of the coast- and
Chauvelin is on his track. He has posted for Dover and will cross
the Channel probably tonight. What do you think will happen?"
  The young man was silent.
  "Percy will arrive at his destination; unconscious of being
followed, he will seek out de Tournay and the others- among these is
Armand St. Just, my brother. He will seek them out, one after another,
probably, not knowing that the sharpest eyes in the world are watching
his every movement. When he has thus unconsciously betrayed those
who blindly trust in him, when nothing can be gained from him and he
is ready to come back to England with those whom he has gone so
bravely to save, the doors of the trap will close upon him, and he
will be sent to end his noble life upon the guillotine."
  Still Sir Andrew was silent.
  "You do not trust me," she said passionately. "Oh, God! Cannot you
see that I am in deadly earnest? Man, man," she added, while, with her
tiny hands she seized the young man suddenly by the shoulders, forcing
him to look straight at her, "tell me, do I look like that vilest
thing on earth- a woman who would betray her own husband?"
  "God forbid, Lady Blakeney," said the young man at last, "that I
should attribute such evil motives to you but..."
  "But what?... Tell me... Quick, man!... The very seconds are
precious!"
  "Will you tell me," he asked resolutely and looking searchingly into
her blue eyes, "whose hand helped to guide Monsieur Chauvelin to the
knowledge which you say he possesses?"
  "Mine," she said quietly. "I own it- I will not lie to you, for I
wish you to trust me absolutely. But I had no idea- how could I have?-
of the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel... and my brother's safety
was to be my prize if I succeeded."
  "In helping Chauvelin to track the Scarlet Pimpernel?"
  She nodded. "It is no use telling you how he forced my hand.
Armand is more than a brother to me, and... and... how could I
guess?... But we waste time, Sir Andrew... every second is precious.
In the name of God, my husband is in peril! Your friend- your comrade!
Help me to save him."
  Sir Andrew felt his position to be a very awkward one. The oath he
had taken before his leader and comrade was one of obedience and
secrecy, and yet the beautiful woman who was asking him to trust her
was undoubtedly in earnest; his friend and leader was equally
undoubtedly in imminent danger and... "Lady Blakeney," he said at
last, "God knows you have perplexed me so that I do not know which way
my duty lies. Tell me what you wish me to do. There are nineteen of us
ready to lay down our lives for the Scarlet Pimpernel if he is in
danger."
  "There is no need for lives just now, my friend," she said drily.
"My wits and four swift horses will serve the necessary purpose. But I
must know where to find him. See," she added, while her eyes filled
with tears, "I have humbled myself before you, I have owned my fault
to you. Shall I also confess my weakness? My husband and I have been
estranged because he did not trust me and because I was too blind to
understand. You must confess that the bandage which he put over my
eyes was a very thick one. Is it small wonder that I did not see
through it? But last night, after I led him unwittingly into such
deadly peril, it suddenly fell from my eyes. If you will not help
me, Sir Andrew, I would still strive to save my husband, I would still
exert every faculty I possess for his sake; but I might be
powerless, for I might arrive too late, and nothing would be left
for you but lifelong remorse- and... and... for me, a broken heart."
  "But, Lady Blakeney," said the young man, touched by the gentle
earnestness of this exquisitely beautiful woman, "do you know that
what you propose doing is man's work? You cannot possibly journey to
Calais alone. You would be running the greatest possible risks to
yourself, and your chances of finding your husband now- were I to
direct you ever so carefully- are infinitely remote."
  "Oh, I hope there are risks!" she murmured softly. "I hope there are
dangers too! I have so much to atone for. But I fear you are mistaken.
Chauvelin's eyes are fixed upon you all; he will scarce notice me.
Quick, Sir Andrew! The coach is ready, and there is not a moment to be
lost. I must get to him! I must," she repeated with almost savage
energy, "to warn him that that man is on his track! Can't you see-
can't you see that I must get to him... even... even if it be too late
to save him... at least... to be by his side... at the last."
  "Faith, Madame, you must command me. Gladly would I or any of my
comrades lay down our lives for your husband. If you will go
yourself..."
  "Nay, friend, do you not see that I would go mad if I let you go
without me." She stretched out her hand to him. "You will trust me?"
  "I await your orders," he said simply.
  "Listen, then. My coach is ready to take me to Dover. You follow
me as swiftly as horses will take you. We meet at nightfall at The
Fisherman's Rest. Chauvelin would avoid it, as he is known there,
and I think it would be the safest. I will gladly accept your escort
to Calais. As you say, I might miss Sir Percy were you to direct me
ever so carefully. We'll charter a schooner at Dover and cross over
during the night. Disguised, if you will agree to it, as my lackey,
you will, I think, escape detection."
  "I am entirely at your service, Madame," rejoined the young man
earnestly. "I trust to God that you will sight the Day Dream before we
reach Calais. With Chauvelin at his heels, every step the Scarlet
Pimpernel takes on French soil is fraught with danger."
  "God grant it, Sir Andrew. But now, farewell. We meet tonight at
Dover! It will be a race between Chauvelin and me across the Channel
tonight, and the prize- the life of the Scarlet Pimpernel."
  He kissed her hand and then escorted her to her chair. A quarter
of an hour later she was back at the Crown inn, where her coach and
horses were ready and waiting for her. The next moment they
thundered along the London streets and then straight on to the Dover
road at maddening speed.
  She had no time for despair now. She was up and doing and had no
leisure to think. With Sir Andrew Ffoulkes as her companion and
ally, hope had once again revived in her heart.
  God would be merciful. He would not allow so appalling a crime to be
committed as the death of a brave man through the hand of a woman
who loved him and worshiped him and who would gladly have died for his
sake.
  Marguerite's thoughts flew back to him, the mysterious hero, whom
she had always unconsciously loved when his identity was still unknown
to her. Laughingly, in the olden days, she used to call him the
shadowy king of her heart, and now she had suddenly found that this
enigmatic personality whom she had worshiped and the man who loved her
so passionately were one and the same. What wonder that one or two
happier visions began to force their way before her mind? She
vaguely wondered what she would say to him when first they would stand
face to face.
  She had had so many anxieties, so much excitement, during the past
few hours that she allowed herself the luxury of nursing these few
more hopeful brighter thoughts. Gradually the rumble of the coach
wheels, with its incessant monotony, acted soothingly on her nerves;
her eyes, aching with fatigue and many shed and unshed tears, closed
involuntarily, and she fell into a troubled sleep.
                            21
                         Suspense

  IT WAS LATE into the night when she at last reached The
Fisherman's Rest. She had done the whole journey in less than eight
hours, thanks to innumerable changes of horses at the various coaching
stations, for which she always paid lavishly, thus obtaining the
very best and swiftest that could be had.
  Her coachman, too, had been indefatigable; the promise of special
and rich reward had no doubt helped to keep him up, and he had
literally burned the ground beneath his mistress's coach wheels.
  The arrival of Lady Blakeney in the middle of the night caused a
considerable flutter at The Fisherman's Rest. Sally jumped hastily out
of bed, and Mr. Jellyband was at great pains how to make his important
guest comfortable.
  Both these good folk were far too well drilled in the manners
appertaining to innkeepers to exhibit the slightest surprise at Lady
Blakeney's arrival, alone, at this extraordinary hour. No doubt they
thought all the more, but Marguerite was far too absorbed in the
importance- the deadly earnestness- of her journey to stop and
ponder over trifles of that sort.
  The coffeeroom- the scene lately of the dastardly outrage on two
English gentlemen- was quite deserted. Mr. Jellyband hastily relit the
lamp, rekindled a cheerful bit of fire in the great hearth, and then
wheeled a comfortable chair by it, into which Marguerite gratefully
sank.
  "Will your ladyship stay the night?" asked pretty Miss Sally, who
was already busy laying a snow-white cloth on the table, preparatory
to providing a simple supper for her ladyship.
  "No, not the whole night," replied Marguerite. "At any rate, I shall
not want any room but this, if I can have it to myself for an hour
or two."
  "It is at your ladyship's service," said honest Jellyband, whose
rubicund face was set in its tightest folds, lest it should betray
before "the quality" that boundless astonishment which the worthy
fellow had begun to feel.
  "I shall be crossing over at the first turn of the tide," said
Marguerite, "and in the first schooner I can get. But my coachman
and men will stay the night, and probably several days longer, so I
hope you will make them comfortable."
  "Yes, my lady; I'll look after them. Shall Sally bring your ladyship
some supper?"
  "Yes, please. Put something cold on the table, and as soon as Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes comes, show him in here."
  "Yes, my lady."
  Honest Jellyband's face now expressed distress in spite of
himself. He had great regard for Sir Percy Blakeney and did not like
to see his lady running away with young Sir Andrew. Of course, it
was no business of his, and Mr. Jellyband was no gossip. Still, in his
heart, he recollected that her ladyship was after all only one of them
"furriners"; what wonder that she was immoral like the rest of them?
  "Don't sit up, honest Jellyband," continued Marguerite kindly,
"nor you either, Mistress Sally. Sir Andrew may be late."
  Jellyband was only too willing that Sally should go to bed. He was
beginning not to like these goings on at all. Still, Lady Blakeney
would pay handsomely for the accommodation, and it certainly was no
business of his.
  Sally arranged a simple supper of cold meat, wine, and fruit on
the table, then with a respectful curtsy, she retired, wondering in
her little mind why her ladyship looked so serious, when she was about
to elope with her gallant.
  Then commenced a period of weary waiting for Marguerite. She knew
that Sir Andrew- who would have to provide himself with clothes
befitting a lackey- could not possibly reach Dover for at least a
couple of hours. He was a splendid horseman of course and would make
light in such an emergency of the seventy-odd miles between London and
Dover. He would, too, literally burn the ground beneath his horse's
hoofs, but he might not always get very good remounts, and in any
case, he could not have started from London until at least an hour
after she did.
  She had seen nothing of Chauvelin on the road. Her coachman, whom
she questioned, had not seen anyone answering the description his
mistress gave him of the wizened figure of the little Frenchman.
  Evidently, therefore, he had been ahead of her all the time. She had
not dared to question the people at the various inns where they had
stopped to change horses. She feared that Chauvelin had spies all
along the route, who might overhear her questions, then outdistance
her and warn her enemy of her approach.
  Now she wondered at what inn he might be stopping or whether he
had had the good luck of chartering a vessel already and was now
himself on the way to France. That thought gripped her at the heart as
with an iron vise. If indeed she should be too late already!
  The loneliness of the room overwhelmed her; everything within was so
horribly still; the ticking of the grandfather clock- dreadfully
slow and measured- was the only sound which broke this awful
loneliness.
  Marguerite had need of all her energy, all her steadfastness of
purpose, to keep up her courage through this weary midnight waiting.
  Everyone else in the house but herself must have been asleep. She
had heard Sally go upstairs. Mr. Jellyband had gone to see to her
coachman and men and then had returned and taken up a position under
the porch outside, just where Marguerite had first met Chauvelin about
a week ago. He evidently meant to wait up for Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, but
was soon overcome by sweet slumbers, for presently- in addition to the
slow ticking of the clock- Marguerite could hear the monotonous and
dulcet tones of the worthy fellow's breathing.
  For some time now, she had realized that the beautiful warm
October's day, so happily begun, had turned into a rough and cold
night. She had felt very chilly and was glad of the cheerful blaze
in the hearth; but gradually, as time wore on, the weather became more
rough, and the sound of the great breakers against the Admiralty Pier,
though some distance from the inn, came to her as the noise of muffled
thunder.
  The wind was becoming boisterous, rattling the leaded windows and
the massive doors of the old-fashioned house; it shook the trees
outside and roared down the vast chimney. Marguerite wondered if the
wind would be favorable for her journey. She had no fear of the
storm and would have braved worse risks sooner than delay the crossing
by an hour.
  A sudden commotion outside roused her from her meditations.
Evidently it was Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, just arrived in mad haste, for
she heard his horse's hoofs thundering on the flagstones outside, then
Mr. Jellyband's sleepy yet cheerful tones bidding him welcome.
  For a moment, then, the awkwardness of her position struck
Marguerite; alone at this hour, in a place where she was well known,
and having made an assignation with a young cavalier equally well
known and who arrives in disguise! What food for gossip to those
mischievously inclined.
  The idea struck Marguerite chiefly from its humorous side: there was
such quaint contrast between the seriousness of her errand and the
construction which would naturally be put on her actions by honest Mr.
Jellyband that, for the first time since many hours, a little smile
began playing round the corners of her childlike mouth; and when,
presently, Sir Andrew, almost unrecognizable in his lackeylike garb,
entered the coffeeroom, she was able to greet him with quite a merry
laugh.
  "Faith! Monsieur my lackey," she said, "I am satisfied with your
appearance!"
  Mr. Jellyband had followed Sir Andrew, looking strangely
perplexed. The young gallant's disguise had confirmed his worst
suspicions. Without a smile upon his jovial face, he drew the cork
from the bottle of wine, set the chairs ready, and prepared to wait.
  "Thanks, honest friend," said Marguerite, who was still smiling at
the thought of what the worthy fellow must be thinking at that very
moment, "we shall require nothing more, and here's for all the trouble
you have been put to on our account."
  She handed two or three gold pieces to Jellyband, who took them
respectfully and with becoming gratitude.
  "Stay, Lady Blakeney," interposed Sir Andrew, as Jellyband was about
to retire, "I am afraid we shall require something more of my friend
Jelly's hospitality. I am sorry to say we cannot cross over tonight."
  "Not cross over tonight?" she repeated in amazement. "But we must,
Sir Andrew, we must! There can be no question of cannot, and
whatever it may cost, we must get a vessel tonight."
  But the young man shook his head sadly. "I am afraid it is not a
question of cost, Lady Blakeney. There is a nasty storm blowing from
France- the wind is dead against us; we cannot possibly sail until
it has changed."
  Marguerite became deadly pale. She had not foreseen this. Nature
herself was playing her a horrible, cruel trick. Percy was in
danger- and she could not go to him because the wind happened to
blow from the coast of France. "But we must go, we must!" she repeated
with strange, persistent energy. "You know we must go- can't you
find a way?"
  "I have been down to the shore already," he said, "and had a talk to
one or two skippers. It is quite impossible to set sail tonight, so
every sailor assured me. No one," he added, looking significantly at
Marguerite, "no one could possibly put out of Dover tonight."
  Marguerite at once understood what he meant. No one included
Chauvelin as well as herself. She nodded pleasantly to Jellyband.
"Well, then, I must resign myself," she said to him. "Have you a
room for me?"
  "Oh, yes, your ladyship. A nice, bright, airy room. Ill see to it at
once... And there is another one for Sir Andrew- both quite ready."
  "That's brave now, mine honest Jelly," said Sir Andrew gaily and
clapping his worthy host vigorously on the back. "You unlock both
those rooms and leave our candles here on the dresser. I vow you are
dead with sleep, and her ladyship must have some supper before she
retires. There, have no fear, friend of the rueful countenance. Her
ladyship's visit, though at this unusual hour, is a great honor to thy
house, and Sir Percy Blakeney will reward thee doubly if thou seest
well to her privacy and comfort."
  Sir Andrew had no doubt guessed the many conflicting doubts and
fears which raged in honest Jellyband's head; and, as he was a gallant
gentleman, he tried by this brave hint to allay some of the worthy
innkeeper's suspicions. He had the satisfaction of seeing that he
had partially succeeded. Jellyband's rubicund countenance brightened
somewhat at mention of Sir Percy's name.
  "I'll go and see to it at once, sir," he said with alacrity and with
less frigidity in his manner. "Has her ladyship everything she wants
for supper?"
  "Everything, thanks, honest friend, and as I am famished and dead
with fatigue, I pray you see to the rooms."
  "Now tell me," she said eagerly, as soon as Jellyband had gone
from the room, "tell me all your news."
  "There is nothing else much to tell you, Lady Blakeney," replied the
young man. "The storm makes it quite impossible for any vessel to
put out of Dover this tide. But, what seemed to you at first a
terrible calamity is really a blessing in disguise. If we cannot cross
over to France tonight, Chauvelin is in the same quandary."
  "He may have left before the storm broke out."
  "God grant he may," said Sir Andrew merrily, "for very likely then
he'll have been driven out of his course! Who knows? He may now even
be lying at the bottom of the sea, for there is a furious storm
raging, and it will fare ill with all small craft which happen to be
out. But I fear me we cannot build our hopes upon the shipwreck of
that cunning devil and of all his murderous plans. The sailors I spoke
to all assured me that no schooner had put out of Dover for several
hours; on the other hand, I ascertained that a stranger had arrived by
coach this afternoon, and had, like myself, made some inquiries
about crossing over to France."
  "Then Chauvelin is still in Dover?"
  "Undoubtedly. Shall I go waylay him and run my sword through him?
That were indeed the quickest way out of the difficulty."
  "Nay! Sir Andrew, do not jest! Alas! I have often since last night
caught myself wishing for that fiend's death. But what you suggest
is impossible! The laws of this country do not permit of murder! It is
only in our beautiful France that wholesale slaughter is done
lawfully, in the name of liberty and of brotherly love."
  Sir Andrew had persuaded her to sit down to the table to partake
of some supper and to drink a little wine. This enforced rest of at
least twelve hours, until the next tide, was sure to be terribly
difficult to bear in the state of intense excitement in which she was.
Obedient in these small matters, like a child, Marguerite tried to eat
and drink.
  Sir Andrew, with that profound sympathy born in all those who are in
love, made her almost happy by talking to her about her husband. He
recounted to her some of the daring escapes the brave Scarlet
Pimpernel had contrived for the poor French fugitives whom a
relentless and bloody revolution was driving out of the country. He
made her eyes glow with enthusiasm by telling her of his bravery,
his ingenuity, his resourcefulness, when it meant snatching the
lives of men, women, and even children from beneath the very edge of
that murderous, ever-ready guillotine.
  He even made her smile quite merrily by telling her of the Scarlet
Pimpernel's quaint and many disguises, through which he had baffled
the strictest watch set against him at the barricades of Paris. This
last time, the escape of the Comtesse de Tournay and her children
had been a veritable masterpiece- Blakeney, disguised as a hideous old
market woman, in filthy cap and straggling gray locks, was a sight fit
to make the gods laugh.
  Marguerite laughed heartily as Sir Andrew tried to describe
Blakeney's appearance, whose gravest difficulty always consisted in
his great height, which in France made disguise doubly difficult.
  Thus an hour wore on. There were many more to spend in enforced
inactivity in Dover. Marguerite rose from the table with an
impatient sigh. She looked forward with dread to the night in the
bed upstairs, with terribly anxious thoughts to keep her company and
the howling of the storm to help chase sleep away.
  She wondered where Percy was now. The Day Dream was a strong,
well-built, seagoing yacht. Sir Andrew had expressed the opinion
that no doubt she had got in the lee of the wind before the storm
broke out or else perhaps had not ventured into the open at all, but
was lying quietly at Gravesend.
  Briggs was an expert skipper, and Sir Percy handled a schooner as
well as any master mariner. There was no danger for them from the
storm.
  It was long past midnight when at last Marguerite retired to rest.
As she had feared, sleep sedulously avoided her eyes. Her thoughts
were of the blackest during these long, weary hours, while that
incessant storm raged which was keeping her away from Percy. The sound
of the distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was
in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves. It is
only when we are very happy that we can bear to gaze merrily upon
the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such
persistent, irritating monotony to the accompaniment of our
thoughts, whether grave or gay. When they are gay, the waves echo
their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it
rolls, seems to bring additional sadness and to speak to us of
hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.
                            22
                          Calais

  THE WEARIEST NIGHTS, the longest days sooner or later must
perforce come to an end.
  Marguerite had spent over fifteen hours in such acute mental torture
as well-nigh drove her crazy. After a sleepless night, she rose early,
wild with excitement, dying to start on her journey, terrified lest
further obstacles lay in her way. She rose before anyone else in the
house was astir, so frightened was she lest she should miss the one
golden opportunity of making a start.
  When she came downstairs, she found Sir Andrew Ffoulkes sitting in
the coffeeroom. He had been out half an hour earlier and had gone to
the Admiralty Pier, only to find that neither the French packet nor
any privately chartered vessel could put out of Dover yet. The storm
was then at its fullest, and the tide was on the turn. If the wind did
not abate or change, they would perforce have to wait another ten or
twelve hours, until the next tide, before a start could be made. And
the storm had not abated, the wind had not changed, and the tide was
rapidly drawing out.
  Marguerite felt the sickness of despair when she heard this
melancholy news. Only the most firm resolution kept her from totally
breaking down and thus adding to the young man's anxiety, which
evidently had become very keen.
  Though he tried to disguise it, Marguerite could see that Sir Andrew
was just as anxious as she was to reach his comrade and friend. This
enforced inactivity was terrible to them both.
  How they spent that wearisome day at Dover, Marguerite could never
afterward say. She was in terror of showing herself lest Chauvelin's
spies happened to be about, so she had a private sitting room, and she
and Sir Andrew sat there hour after hour, trying to take, at long
intervals, some perfunctory meals, which little Sally would bring
them, with nothing to do but to think, to conjecture, and only
occasionally to hope.
  The storm had abated just too late; the tide was by then too far out
to allow a vessel to put off to sea. The wind had changed and was
settling down to a comfortable northwesterly breeze- a veritable
godsend for a speedy passage across to France.
  And there those two waited, wondering if the hour would ever come
when they could finally make a start. There had been one happy
interval in this long weary day, and that was when Sir Andrew went
down once again to the pier and presently came back to tell Marguerite
that he had chartered a quick schooner, whose skipper was ready to put
to sea the moment the tide was favorable.
  From that moment the hours seemed less wearisome; there was less
hopelessness in the waiting; and at last, at five o'clock in the
afternoon, Marguerite, closely veiled and followed by Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, who, in the guise of her lackey, was carrying a number of
impedimenta, found her way down to the pier.
  Once on board, the keen, fresh sea air revived her; the breeze was
just strong enough to nicely swell the sails of the Foam Crest as
she cut her way merrily toward the open sea.
  The sunset was glorious after the storm, and Marguerite, as she
watched the white cliffs of Dover gradually disappearing from view,
felt more at peace and once more almost hopeful.
  Sir Andrew was full of kind attentions, and she felt how lucky she
had been to have him by her side in this, her great trouble.
  Gradually the gray coast of France began to emerge from the
fast-gathering evening mists. One or two lights could be seen
flickering and the spires of several churches to rise out of the
surrounding haze.
  Half an hour later Marguerite had landed upon French shore. She
was back in that country where at this very moment men slaughtered
their fellow creatures by the hundreds and sent innocent women and
children in thousands to the block.
  The very aspect of the country and its people, even in this remote
seacoast town, spoke of that seething revolution three hundred miles
away in beautiful Paris, now rendered hideous by the constant flow
of the blood of her noblest sons, by the wailing of the widows and the
cries of fatherless children.
  The men all wore red caps- in various stages of cleanliness, but all
with the tricolor cockade pinned on the left-hand side. Marguerite
noticed with a shudder that, instead of the laughing, merry
countenance habitual to her own countrymen, their faces now invariably
wore a look of sly distrust.
  Every man nowadays was a spy upon his fellows: the most innocent
word uttered in jest might at any time be brought up as a proof of
aristocratic tendencies or of treachery against the people. Even the
women went about with a curious look of fear and of hate lurking in
their brown eyes; and all watched Marguerite as she stepped on
shore, followed by Sir Andrew, and murmured as she passed along,
"Sacres aristos!" or else, "Sacres Anglais!"
  Otherwise their presence excited no further comment. Calais, even in
those days, was in constant business communication with England, and
English merchants were often to be seen on this coast. It was well
known that in view of the heavy duties in England, a vast deal of
French wines and brandies were smuggled across. This pleased the
French bourgeois immensely; he liked to see the English government and
the English king, both of whom he hated, cheated out of their
revenues; and an English smuggler was always a welcome guest at the
tumble-down taverns of Calais and Boulogne.
  So, perhaps, as Sir Andrew gradually directed Marguerite through the
tortuous streets of Calais, many of the population who turned with
an oath to look at the strangers clad in the English fashion thought
that they were bent on purchasing dutiable articles for their own
fog-ridden country and gave them no more than a passing thought.
  Marguerite, however, wondered how her husbands tall, massive
figure could have passed through Calais unobserved; she marveled
what disguise he assumed to do his noble work without exciting too
much attention.
  Without exchanging more than a few words, Sir Andrew was leading her
right across the town, to the other side from that where they had
landed, and on the way toward Cap Gris Nez. The streets were narrow,
tortuous, and mostly evil-smelling, with a mixture of stale fish and
damp cellar odors. There had been heavy rain here during the storm
last night, and sometimes Marguerite sank ankle-deep in the mud, for
the roads were not lighted save by the occasional glimmer from a
lamp inside a house. But she did not heed any of these petty
discomforts.
  "We may meet Blakeney at the Chat Gris," Sir Andrew had said when
they landed, and she was walking as if on a carpet of rose leaves, for
she was going to meet him almost at once.
  At last they reached their destination. Sir Andrew evidently knew
the road, for he had walked unerringly in the dark and had not asked
his way from anyone. It was too dark then for Marguerite to notice the
outside aspect of this house. The Chat Gris, as Sir Andrew had
called it, was evidently a small wayside inn on the outskirts of
Calais and on the way to Gris Nez. It lay some little distance from
the coast, for the sound of the sea seemed to come from afar.
  Sir Andrew knocked at the door with the knob of his cane, and from
within, Marguerite heard a sort of grunt and the muttering of a number
of oaths. Sir Andrew knocked again, this time more peremptorily;
more oaths were heard, and then shuffling steps seemed to draw near
the door. Presently this was thrown open, and Marguerite found herself
on the threshold of the most dilapidated, most squalid room she had
ever seen in all her life.
  The paper, such as it was, was hanging from the walls in strips;
there did not seem to be a single piece of furniture in the room
that could, by the wildest stretch of imagination, be called whole.
Most of the chairs had broken backs, others had no seats to them;
one corner of the table was propped up with a bundle of faggots, there
where the fourth leg had been broken.
  In one corner of the room there was a huge hearth, over which hung a
stockpot with a not altogether unpalatable odor of hot soup
emanating therefrom. On one side of the room, high up in the wall,
there was a species of loft, before which hung a tattered
blue-and-white checked curtain. A rickety set of steps led up to
this loft.
  On the great bare walls, with their colorless paper all stained with
varied filth, there were chalked up at intervals, in great bold
characters, the words Liberte- Egalite- Fraternite.
  The whole of this sordid abode was dimly lighted by an evil-smelling
oil lamp which hung from the rickety rafters of the ceiling. It all
looked so horribly squalid, so dirty and uninviting, that Marguerite
hardly dared to cross the threshold.
  Sir Andrew, however, had stepped unhesitatingly forward. "English
travelers, Citoyen!" he said boldly and speaking in French.
  The individual who had come to the door in response to Sir
Andrew's knock and who, presumably, was the owner of this squalid
abode was an elderly, heavily built peasant dressed in a dirty blue
blouse, heavy sabots, from which wisps of straw protruded all round,
shabby blue trousers, and the inevitable red cap with the tricolor
cockade that proclaimed his momentary political views. He carried a
short wooden pipe, from which the odor of rank tobacco emanated. He
looked with some suspicion and a great deal of contempt at the two
travelers, muttered, "Sacrrres Anglais," and spat upon the ground to
further show his independence of spirit; but, nevertheless, he stood
aside to let them enter, no doubt well aware that these same
sacrrres Anglais always had well-filled purses.
  "Oh, lud," said Marguerite as she advanced into the room, holding
her handkerchief to her dainty nose, "what a dreadful hole! Are you
sure this is the place?"
  "Aye, 'tis the place, sure enough," replied the young man as, with
his lace-edged, fashionable handkerchief, he dusted a chair for
Marguerite to sit on, "but I vow I never saw a more villainous hole."
  "Faith," she said, looking round with some curiosity and a great
deal of horror at the dilapidated walls, the broken chairs, the
rickety table, "it certainly does not look inviting."
  The landlord of the Chat Gris- by name, Brogard- had taken no
further notice of his guests; he concluded that presently they would
order supper, and in the meanwhile it was not for a free citizen to
show deference, or even courtesy, to anyone, however smartly they
might be dressed.
  By the hearth sat a huddled-up figure clad, seemingly, mostly in
rags; that figure was apparently a woman, although even that would
have been hard to distinguish, except for the cap, which had once been
white, and for what looked like the semblance of a petticoat. She
was sitting mumbling to herself and from time to time stirring the
brew in her stockpot.
  "Hey, my friend," said Sir Andrew at last, "we should like some
supper. The citoyenne there," he added, pointing to the huddled-up
bundle of rags by the hearth, "is concocting some delicious soup, I'll
warrant, and my mistress has not tasted food for several hours."
  It took Brogard some few moments to consider the question. A free
citizen does not respond too readily to the wishes of those who happen
to require something of him. "Sacrrres aristos!" he murmured and
once more spat upon the ground.
  Then he went very slowly up to a dresser which stood in a corner
of the room; from this he took an old pewter soup tureen and slowly,
and without a word, he handed it to his better half, who, in the
same silence, began filling the tureen with the soup out of her
stockpot.
  Marguerite had watched all these preparations with absolute
horror; were it not for the earnestness of her purpose, she would
incontinently have fled from this abode of dirt and evil smells.
  "Faith, our host and hostess are not cheerful people," said Sir
Andrew, seeing the look of horror on Marguerite's face. "I would I
could offer you a more hearty and more appetizing meal... but I
think you will find the soup eatable and the wine good; these people
wallow in dirt, but live well as a rule."
  "Nay, I pray you Sir Andrew," she said gently, "be not anxious about
me. My mind is scarce inclined to dwell on thoughts of supper."
  Brogard was slowly pursuing his gruesome preparations; he had placed
a couple of spoons, also two glasses, on the table, both of which
Sir Andrew took the precaution of wiping carefully.
  Brogard had also produced a bottle of wine and some bread, and
Marguerite made an effort to draw her chair to the table and to make
some pretense at eating. Sir Andrew, as befitting his role of
lackey, stood behind her chair.
  "Nay, Madame, I pray you," he said, seeing that Marguerite seemed
quite unable to eat, "I beg of you to try and swallow some food-
remember you have need of all your strength."
  The soup certainly was not bad; it smelled and tasted good.
Marguerite might have enjoyed it but for the horrible surroundings.
She broke the bread, however, and drank some of the wine. "Nay, Sir
Andrew," she said, "I do not like to see you standing. You have need
of food just as much as I have. This creature will only think that I
am an eccentric Englishwoman eloping with her lackey if you'll sit
down and partake of this semblance of supper beside me."
  Indeed, Brogard, having placed what was strictly necessary upon
the table, seemed not to trouble himself any further about his guests.
The Mere Brogard had quietly shuffled out of the room, and the man
stood and lounged about, smoking his evil-smelling pipe, sometimes
under Marguerites very nose, as any freeborn citizen who was anybody's
equal should do.
  "Confound the brute!" said Sir Andrew, with native British wrath, as
Brogard leaned up against the table, smoking and looking down
superciliously at these two sacrrres Anglais.
  "In heaven's name, man," admonished Marguerite hurriedly, seeing
that Sir Andrew, with British-born instinct, was ominously clenching
his fist, "remember that you are in France and that in this year of
grace this is the temper of the people."
  "I'd like to scrag the brute!" muttered Sir Andrew savagely.
  He had taken Marguerite's advice and sat next to her at table, and
they were both making noble efforts to deceive one another by
pretending to eat and drink.
  "I pray you," said Marguerite, "keep the creature in a good
temper, so that he may answer the questions we must put to him."
  "I'll do my best, but, begad, I'd sooner scrag him than question
him. Hey, my friend," he said pleasantly in French and tapping Brogard
lightly on the shoulder, "do you see many of our quality along these
parts? Many English travelers, I mean?"
  Brogard looked round at him, over his near shoulder, puffed away
at his pipe for a moment or two, as he was in no hurry, then muttered,
"Heu, sometimes."
  "Ah," said Sir Andrew, carelessly, "English travelers always know
where they can get good wine, eh, my friend? Now, tell me, my lady was
desiring to know if by any chance you happen to have seen a great
friend of hers, an English gentleman who often comes to Calais on
business; he is tall and recently was on his way to Paris- my lady
hoped to have met him in Calais."
  Marguerite tried not to look at Brogard lest she should betray
before him the burning anxiety with which she waited for his reply.
But a freeborn French citizen is never in any hurry to answer
questions. Brogard took his time, then he said very slowly, "Tall
Englishman? Today? Yes."
  "You have seen him?" asked Sir Andrew carelessly.
  "Yes, today," muttered Brogard sullenly. Then he quietly took Sir
Andrew's hat from a chair close by, put it on his own head, tugged
at his dirty blouse, and generally tried to express in pantomime
that the individual in question wore very fine clothes. "Sacrre
aristo," he muttered, "that tall Englishman."
  Marguerite could scarce repress a scream. "It's Sir Percy right
enough," she murmured, "and not even in disguise!"
  She smiled, in the midst of all her anxiety and through her
gathering tears, at thought of "the ruling passion strong in death,"
of Percy running into the wildest, maddest dangers with the latest-cut
coat upon his back and the laces of his jabot unruffled. "Oh, the
foolhardiness of it!" she sighed. "Quick, Sir Andrew! Ask the man when
he went."
  "Ah, yes, my friend," said Sir Andrew, addressing Brogard with the
same assumption of carelessness, "my lord always wears beautiful
clothes; the tall Englishman you saw was certainly my lady's friend.
And he has gone, you say?"
  "He went... yes... but he's coming back here- he ordered supper."
  Sir Andrew put his hand with a quick gesture of warning upon
Marguerite's arm; it came none too soon, for the next moment her wild,
mad joy would have betrayed her. He was safe and well, was coming back
here presently; she would see him in a few moments perhaps. Oh! The
wildness of her joy seemed almost more than she could bear.
  "Here!" she said to Brogard, who seemed suddenly to have been
transformed in her eyes into some heaven-born messenger of bliss.
"Here! Did you say the English gentleman was coming back here?"
  The heaven-born messenger of bliss spat upon the floor to express
his contempt for all and sundry aristos who chose to haunt the Chat
Gris.
  "Heu," he muttered, "he ordered supper- he will come back...
sacrre Anglais!" he added, by way of protest against all this fuss for
a mere Englishman.
  "But where is he now? Do you know?" she asked eagerly, placing her
dainty white hand upon the dirty sleeve of his blue blouse.
  "He went to get a horse and cart," said Brogard laconically, as,
with a surly gesture, he shook off from his arm that pretty hand which
princes had been proud to kiss.
  "At what time did he go?"
  But Brogard had evidently had enough of these questionings. He did
not think that it was fitting for a citizen- who was the equal of
anybody- to be thus catechized by these sacrres aristos even though
they were rich English ones. It was distinctly more fitting to his
newborn dignity to be as rude as possible; it was a sure sign of
servility to meekly reply to civil questions. "I don't know," he
said surlily. "I have said enough, voyons, les aristos!... He came
today. He ordered supper. He went out. He'll come back. Voila!"
  And with this parting assertion of his rights as a citizen and a
free man to be as rude as he well pleased, Brogard shuffled out of the
room, banging the door after him.
                            23
                           Hope

  "FAITH, MADAME," said Sir Andrew, seeing that Marguerite seemed
desirous to call her surly host back again, "I think we'd better leave
him alone. We shall not get anything more out of him, and we might
arouse his suspicions. One never knows what spies may be lurking
around these Godforsaken places."
  "What care I," she replied lightly, "now I know that my husband is
safe, and I shall see him almost directly!"
  "Hush!" he said in genuine alarm, for she had talked quite loudly in
the fullness of her glee. "The very walls have ears in France these
days."
  He rose quickly from the table and walked round the bare, squalid
room, listening attentively at the door, through which Brogard had
just disappeared and whence only muttered oaths and shuffling
footsteps could be heard. He also ran up the rickety steps that led to
the attic, to assure himself that there were no spies of Chauvelin's
about the place.
  "Are we alone, Monsieur?" said Marguerite gaily, as the young man
once more sat down beside her. "May we talk?"
  "As cautiously as possible!" he entreated.
  "Faith, man, but you wear a glum face! As for me, I could dance with
joy! Surely there is no longer any cause for fear. Our boat is on
the beach, the Foam Crest not two miles out at sea, and my husband
will be here, under this very roof, within the next half hour perhaps.
Sure there is nought to hinder us. Chauvelin and his gang have not yet
arrived."
  "Nay, Madame, that I fear we do not know."
  "What do you mean?"
  "He was at Dover at the same time that we were."
  "Held up by the same storm which kept us from starting."
  "Exactly. But- I did not speak of it before, for I feared to alarm
you- I saw him on the beach not five minutes before we embarked. At
least, I swore to myself at the time that it was himself; he was
disguised as a cure, so that Satan, his own guardian, would scarce
have known him. But I heard him then, bargaining for a vessel to
take him swiftly to Calais; and he must have set sail less than an
hour after we did."
  Marguerite's face had quickly lost its look of joy. The terrible
danger in which Percy stood, now that he was actually on French
soil, became suddenly and horribly clear to her. Chauvelin was close
upon his heels; here in Calais, the astute diplomatist was
all-powerful; a word from him and Percy could be tracked and
arrested and...
  Every drop of blood seemed to freeze in her veins; not even during
the moments of her wildest anguish in England had she so completely
realized the imminence of the peril in which her husband stood.
Chauvelin had sworn to bring the Scarlet Pimpernel to the
guillotine, and now the daring plotter, whose anonymity hitherto had
been his safeguard, stood revealed through her own hand to his most
bitter, most relentless enemy.
  Chauvelin- when he waylaid Lord Tony and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes in
the coffeeroom of The Fisherman's Rest- had obtained possession of all
the plans of this latest expedition. Armand St. Just, the Comte de
Tournay, and other fugitive Royalists were to have met the Scarlet
Pimpernel- or rather, as it had been originally arranged, two of his
emissaries- on this day, the second of October, at a place evidently
known to the league and vaguely alluded to as the "Pere Blanchard's
hut."
  Armand, whose connection with the Scarlet Pimpernel and disavowal of
the brutal policy of the Reign of Terror was still unknown to his
countrymen, had left England a little more than a week ago, carrying
with him the necessary instructions which would enable him to meet the
other fugitives and to convey them to this place of safety.
  This much Marguerite had fully understood from the first, and Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes had confirmed her surmises. She knew, too, that when
Sir Percy realized that his own plans and his directions to his
lieutenants had been stolen by Chauvelin, it was too late to
communicate with Armand or to send fresh instructions to the
fugitives.
  They would, of necessity, be at the appointed time and place, not
knowing how grave was the danger which now awaited their brave
rescuer.
  Blakeney, who as usual had planned and organized the whole
expedition, would not allow any of his younger comrades to run the
risk of almost certain capture. Hence his hurried note to them at Lord
Grenville's ball: "Start myself tomorrow- alone."
  And now with his identity known to his most bitter enemy, his
every step would be dogged the moment he set foot in France. He
would be tracked by Chauvelin's emissaries, followed until he
reached that mysterious hut where the fugitives were waiting for
him, and there the trap would be closed on him and on them.
  There was but one hour- the hour's start which Marguerite and Sir
Andrew had of their enemy- in which to warn Percy of the imminence
of his danger and to persuade him to give up the foolhardy expedition,
which could only end in his death.
  But there was that one hour.
  "Chauvelin knows of this inn, from the papers he stole," said Sir
Andrew earnestly, "and on landing will make straight for it."
  "He has not landed yet," she said, "we have an hour's start of
him, and Percy will be here directly. We shall be mid-Channel ere
Chauvelin has realized that we have slipped through his fingers."
  She spoke excitedly and eagerly, wishing to infuse into her young
friend some of that buoyant hope which still clung to her heart. But
he shook his head sadly.
  "Silent again, Sir Andrew?" she said with some impatience. "Why do
you shake your head and look so glum?"
  "Faith, Madame," he replied, "tis only because in making your
rose-colored plans, you are forgetting the most important factor."
  "What in the world do you mean? I am forgetting nothing. What factor
do you mean?" she added with more impatience.
  "It stands six-foot-odd high," replied Sir Andrew quietly, "and hath
name Percy Blakeney."
  "I don't understand," she murmured.
  "Do you think that Blakeney would leave Calais without having
accomplished what he set out to do?"
  "You mean...?"
  "There's the old Comte de Tournay..."
  "The Comte...?" she murmured.
  "And St. Just... and others..."
  "My brother!" she said with a heartbroken sob of anguish. "Heaven
help me, but I fear I had forgotten."
  "Fugitives as they are, these men at this moment await with
perfect confidence and unshaken faith the arrival of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, who has pledged his honor to take them safely across the
Channel."
  Indeed, she had forgotten! With the sublime selfishness of a woman
who loves with her whole heart, she had in the last twenty-four
hours had no thought save for him. His precious, noble life, his
danger- he, the loved one, the brave hero, he alone dwelt in her mind.
  "My brother!" she murmured, as one by one the heavy tears gathered
in her eyes, as memory came back to her of Armand, the companion and
darling of her childhood, the man for whom she had committed the
deadly sin which had so hopelessly imperiled her brave husband's life.
  "Sir Percy Blakeney would not be the trusted, honored leader of a
score of English gentlemen," said Sir Andrew proudly, "if he abandoned
those who placed their trust in him. As for breaking his word, the
very thought is preposterous!"
  There was silence for a moment or two. Marguerite had buried her
face in her hands and was letting the tears slowly trickle through her
trembling fingers. The young man said nothing; his heart ached for
this beautiful woman in her awful grief. All along he had felt the
terrible impasse in which her own rash act had plunged them all. He
knew his friend and leader so well, with his reckless daring, his
mad bravery, his worship of his own word of honor. Sir Andrew knew
that Blakeney would brave any danger, run the wildest risks sooner
than break it, and, with Chauvelin at his very heels, would make a
final attempt, however desperate, to rescue those who trusted in him.
  "Faith, Sir Andrew," said Marguerite at last, making brave efforts
to dry her tears, "you are right, and I would not now shame myself
by trying to dissuade him from doing his duty. As you say, I should
plead in vain. God grant him strength and ability," she added
fervently and resolutely, "to outwit his pursuers. He will not
refuse to take you with him, perhaps, when he starts on his noble
work; between you, you will have cunning as well as valor! God guard
you both! In the meanwhile I think we should lose no time. I still
believe that his safety depends upon his knowing that Chauvelin is
on his track."
  "Undoubtedly. He has wonderful resources at his command. As soon
as he is aware of his danger he will exercise more caution: his
ingenuity is a veritable miracle."
  "Then, what say you to a voyage of reconnaissance in the village
while I wait here against his coming. You might come across Percy's
track and thus save valuable time. If you find him, tell him to
beware! His bitterest enemy is on his heels!"
  "But this is such a villainous hole for you to wait in."
  "Nay, that I do not mind. But you might ask our surly host if he
could let me wait in another room, where I could be safer from the
prying eyes of any chance traveler. Offer him some ready money, so
that he should not fail to give me word the moment the tall Englishman
returns."
  She spoke quite calmly, even cheerfully now, thinking out her plans,
ready for the worst if need be; she would show no more weakness, she
would prove herself worthy of him, who was about to give his life
for the sake of his fellow men.
  Sir Andrew obeyed her without further comment. Instinctively he felt
that hers now was the stronger mind; he was willing to give himself
over to her guidance, to become the hand, while she was the
directing head.
  He went to the door of the inner room, through which Brogard and his
wife had disappeared before, and knocked; as usual, he was answered by
a salvo of muttered oaths.
  "Hey! Friend Brogard!" said the young man peremptorily. "My lady
would wish to rest here awhile. Could you give her the use of
another room? She would wish to be alone."
  He took some money out of his pocket and allowed it to jingle
significantly in his hand. Brogard had opened the door and listened,
with his usual surly apathy, to the young man's request. At the
sight of gold, however, his lazy attitude relaxed slightly; he took
his pipe from his mouth and shuffled into the room.
  He then pointed over his shoulder at the attic up in the wall.
"She can wait up there," he said with a grunt. "It's comfortable,
and I have no other room."
  "Nothing could be better," said Marguerite in English; she at once
realized the advantages such a position hidden from view would give
her. "Give him the money, Sir Andrew; I shall be quite happy up
there and can see everything without being seen."
  She nodded to Brogard, who condescended to go up to the attic and to
shake up the straw that lay on the floor.
  "May I entreat you, Madame, to do nothing rash," said Sir Andrew
as Marguerite prepared in her turn to ascend the rickety flight of
steps. "Remember this place is infested with spies. Do not, I beg of
you, reveal yourself to Sir Percy unless you are absolutely certain
that you are alone with him."
  Even as he spoke, he felt how unnecessary was this caution:
Marguerite was as calm, as clearheaded, as any man. There was no
fear of her doing anything that was rash.
  "Nay," she said, with a slight attempt at cheerfulness, "that can
I faithfully promise you. I would not jeopardize my husband's life,
nor yet his plans, by speaking to him before strangers. Have no
fear, I will watch my opportunity and serve him in the manner I
think he needs it most."
  Brogard had come down the steps again, and Marguerite was ready to
go up to her safe retreat.
  "I dare not kiss your hand, Madame," said Sir Andrew as she began to
mount the steps, "since I am your lackey, but I pray you be of good
cheer. If I do not come across Blakeney in half an hour, I shall
return, expecting to find him here."
  "Yes, that will be best. We can afford to wait for half an hour.
Chauvelin cannot possibly be here before that. God grant that either
you or I may have seen Percy by then. Good luck to you, friend. Have
no fear for me."
  Lightly she mounted the rickety wooden steps that led to the
attic. Brogard was taking no further heed of her. She could make
herself comfortable there or not as she chose. Sir Andrew watched
her until she had reached the loft and sat down upon the straw. She
pulled the tattered curtains across, and the young man noted that
she was singularly well placed there, for seeing and hearing, while
remaining unobserved.
  He had paid Brogard well; the surly old innkeeper would have no
object in betraying her. Then Sir Andrew prepared to go. At the door
he turned once again and looked up at the loft. Through the ragged
curtains Marguerite's sweet face was peeping down at him, and the
young man rejoiced to see that it looked serene and even gently
smiling. With a final nod of farewell to her, he walked out into the
night.
                            24
                       The Deathtrap

  THE NEXT QUARTER of an hour went by swiftly and noiselessly. In
the room downstairs, Brogard had for a while busied himself with
clearing the table and rearranging it for another guest.
  It was because she watched these preparations that Marguerite
found the time slipping by more pleasantly. It was for Percy that this
semblance of supper was being got ready. Evidently Brogard had a
certain amount of respect for the tall Englishman, as he seemed to
take some trouble in making the place look a trifle less uninviting
than it had been before.
  He even produced, from some hidden recess in the old dresser, what
actually looked like a tablecloth; and when he spread it out and saw
it was full of holes, he shook his head dubiously for a while, then
was at much pains so to spread it over the table as to hide most of
its blemishes.
  Then he got out a serviette, also old and ragged, but possessing
some measure of cleanliness, and with this he carefully wiped the
glasses, spoons, and plates, which he put on the table.
  Marguerite could not help smiling to herself as she watched all
these preparations, which Brogard accomplished to an accompaniment
of muttered oaths. Clearly the great height and bulk of the
Englishman, or perhaps the weight of his fist, had overawed this
freeborn citizen of France, or he would never have been at such
trouble for any sacrre aristo.
  When the table was set- such as it was- Brogard surveyed it with
evident satisfaction. He then dusted one of the chairs with the corner
of his blouse, gave a stir to the stockpot, threw a fresh bundle of
faggots onto the fire, and slouched out of the room.
  Marguerite was left alone with her reflections. She had spread her
traveling cloak over the straw and was sitting fairly comfortably,
as the straw was fresh, and the evil odors from below came up to her
only in a modified form.
  But, momentarily, she was almost happy; happy because, when she
peeped through the tattered curtains, she could see a rickety chair, a
torn tablecloth, a glass, a plate, and a spoon; that was all. But
those mute and ugly things seemed to say to her that they were waiting
for Percy, that soon, very soon, he would be here, that the squalid
room being still empty, they would be alone together.
  That thought was so heavenly that Marguerite closed her eyes in
order to shut out everything but that. In a few minutes she would be
alone with him; she would run down the ladder and let him see her;
then he would take her in his arms, and she would let him see that,
after that, she would gladly die for him and with him, for earth could
hold no greater happiness than that.
  And then what would happen? She could not even remotely
conjecture. She knew, of course, that Sir Andrew was right, that Percy
would do everything he had set out to accomplish, that she- now she
was here- could do nothing, beyond warning him to be cautious, since
Chauvelin himself was on his track. After having cautioned him, she
would perforce have to see him go off upon his terrible and daring
mission; she could not even with a word or look attempt to keep him
back. She would have to obey whatever he told her to do, even
perhaps have to efface herself and wait, in indescribable agony, while
he, perhaps, went to his death.
  But even that seemed less terrible to bear than the thought that
he should never know how much she loved him- that, at any rate,
would be spared her; the squalid room itself, which seemed to be
waiting for him, told her that he would be here soon.
  Suddenly her oversensitive ears caught the sound of distant
footsteps drawing near. Her heart gave a wild leap of joy. Was it
Percy at last? No, the step did not seem quite as long nor quite as
firm as his; she also thought that she could hear two distinct sets of
footsteps. Yes! That was it! Two men were coming this way. Two
strangers, perhaps, to get a drink or...
  But she had not time to conjecture, for presently there was a
peremptory call at the door, and the next moment it was violently
thrown open from the outside, while a rough, commanding voice shouted,
"Hey! Citoyen Brogard! Hola!"
  Marguerite could not see the newcomers, but, through a hole in one
of the curtains, she could observe one portion of the room below.
  She heard Brogard's shuffling footsteps as he came out of the
inner room muttering his usual string of oaths. On seeing the
strangers, however, he paused in the middle of the room, well within
range of Marguerite's vision, looked at them, with even more withering
contempt than he had bestowed upon his former guests, and muttered,
"Sacrrree soutane!"
  Marguerite's heart seemed all at once to stop beating; her eyes,
large and dilated, had fastened on one of the newcomers, who, at
this point, had taken a quick step forward toward Brogard. He was
dressed in the soutane, broad-brimmed hat, and buckled shoes
habitual to the French cure, but as he stood opposite the innkeeper,
he threw open his soutane for a moment, displaying the tricolor
scarf of officialism, which sight immediately had the effect of
transforming Brogard's attitude of contempt into one of cringing
obsequiousness.
  It was the sight of this French cure which seemed to freeze the very
blood in Marguerite's veins. She could not see his face, which was
shaded by his broad-brimmed hat, but she recognized the thin, bony
hands, the slight stoop, the whole gait of the man. It was Chauvelin!
  The horror of the situation struck her as with a physical blow;
the awful disappointment, the dread of what was to come made her
very senses reel, and she needed almost superhuman effort not to
fall senseless beneath it all.
  "A plate of soup and a bottle of wine," said Chauvelin imperiously
to Brogard, "then clear out of here- understand? I want to be alone."
  Silently, and without any muttering this time, Brogard obeyed.
Chauvelin sat down at the table which had been prepared for the tall
Englishman, and the innkeeper busied himself obsequiously round him,
dishing up the soup and pouring out the wine. The man who had
entered with Chauvelin and whom Marguerite could not see stood waiting
close by the door.
  At a brusque sign from Chauvelin, Brogard had hurried back to the
inner room, and the former now beckoned to the man who had accompanied
him.
  In him Marguerite at once recognized Desgas, Chauvelin's secretary
and confidential factotum, whom she had often seen in Paris in the
days gone by. He crossed the room and for a moment or two listened
attentively at the Brogards' door.
  "Not listening?" asked Chauvelin curtly.
  "No, Citoyen."
  For a second Marguerite dreaded lest Chauvelin should order Desgas
to search the place; what would happen if she were to be discovered
she hardly dared to imagine. Fortunately, however, Chauvelin seemed
more impatient to talk to his secretary than afraid of spies, for he
called Desgas quickly back to his side.
  "The English schooner?" he asked.
  "She was lost sight of at sundown, Citoyen," replied Desgas, "but
was then making west toward Cap Gris Nez."
  "Ah, good!" muttered Chauvelin. "And now, about Captain Jutley? What
did he say?"
  "He assured me that all the orders you sent him last week have
been implicitly obeyed. All the roads which converge to this place
have been patrolled night and day ever since, and the beach and cliffs
have been most rigorously searched and guarded."
  "Does he know where this Pere Blanchard's hut is?"
  "No, Citoyen, nobody seems to know of it by that name. There are any
amount of fishermen's huts all along the coast, of course... but..."
  "That'll do. Now about tonight?" interrupted Chauvelin impatiently.
  "The roads and the beach are patrolled as usual, Citoyen, and
Captain Jutley awaits further orders."
  "Go back to him at once, then. Tell him to send reinforcements to
the various patrols and especially to those along the beach- you
understand?"
  Chauvelin spoke curtly and to the point, and every word he uttered
struck at Marguerite's heart like the death knell of her fondest
hopes.
  "The men," he continued, "are to keep the sharpest possible
lookout for any stranger who may be walking, riding, or driving
along the road or the beach- more especially for a tall stranger, whom
I need not describe further, as probably he will be disguised; but
he cannot very well conceal his height except by stooping. You
understand?"
  "Perfectly, Citoyen," replied Desgas.
  "As soon as any of the men have sighted a stranger, two of them
are to keep him in view. The man who loses sight of the tall stranger,
after he is once seen, will pay for his negligence with his life;
but one man is to ride straight back here and report to me. Is that
clear?"
  "Absolutely clear, Citoyen."
  "Very well, then. Go and see Jutley at once. See the
reinforcements start off for the patrol duty, then ask the captain
to let you have half a dozen more men and bring them here with you.
You can be back in ten minutes. Go."
  Desgas saluted and went to the door.
  As Marguerite, sick with horror, listened to Chauvelin's
directions to his underling, the whole of the plan for the capture
of the Scarlet Pimpernel became appallingly clear to her. Chauvelin
wished that the fugitives should be left in false security, waiting in
their hidden retreat until Percy joined them. Then the daring
plotter was to be surrounded and caught red-handed in the very act
of aiding and abetting Royalists, who were traitors to the Republic.
Thus, if his capture were noised abroad, even the British government
could not legally protest in his favor; having plotted with the
enemies of the French government, France had the right to put him to
death.
  Escape for him and them would be impossible. All the roads patrolled
and watched, the trap well set, the net wide at present, but drawing
together tighter and tighter until it closed upon the daring
plotter, whose superhuman cunning, even, could not rescue him from its
meshes now.
  Desgas was about to go, but Chauvelin once more called him back.
Marguerite vaguely wondered what further devilish plans he could
have formed in order to entrap one brave man, alone, against two score
of others. She looked at him as he turned to speak to Desgas; she
could just see his face beneath the broad-brimmed cure's hat. There
was at that moment so much deadly hatred, such fiendish malice in
the thin face and pale, small eyes, that Marguerite's last hope died
in her heart, for she felt that from this man she could expect no
mercy.
  "I had forgotten," repeated Chauvelin with a weird chuckle, as he
rubbed his bony, talonlike hands one against the other with a
gesture of fiendish satisfaction. "The tall stranger may show fight.
In any case no shooting, remember, except as a last resort. I want
that tall stranger alive... if possible."
  He laughed, as Dante has told us that the devils laugh at sight of
the torture of the damned. Marguerite had thought that by now she
had lived through the whole gamut of horror and anguish that human
heart could bear; yet now, when Desgas left the house and she remained
alone in this lonely, squalid room, with that fiend for company, she
felt as if all that she had suffered was nothing compared with this.
He continued to laugh and chuckle to himself for a while, rubbing
his hands together in anticipation of his triumph.
  His plans were well laid, and he might well triumph! Not a
loophole was left through which the bravest, the most cunning man
might escape. Every road guarded, every corner watched, and in that
lonely hut somewhere on the coast, a small band of fugitives waiting
for their rescuer and leading him to his death- nay, to worse than
death. That fiend there, in a holy man's garb, was too much of a devil
to allow a brave man to die the quick, sudden death of a soldier at
the post of duty.
  He, above all, longed to have the cunning enemy, who had so long
baffled him, helpless in his power; he wished to gloat over him, to
enjoy his downfall, to inflict upon him what moral and mental
torture a deadly hatred alone can devise. The brave eagle, captured
and with noble wings clipped, was doomed to endure the gnawing of
the rat. And she, his wife, who loved him- and who had brought him
to this- could do nothing to help him.
  Nothing save to hope for death by his side and for one brief
moment in which to tell him that her love- whole, true, and
passionate- was entirely his.
  Chauvelin was now sitting close to the table; he had taken off his
hat, and Marguerite could just see the outline of his thin profile and
pointed chin as he bent over his meager supper. He was evidently quite
contented and awaited events with perfect calm; he even seemed to
enjoy Brogard's unsavory fare. Marguerite wondered how so much
hatred could lurk in one human being against another.
  Suddenly, as she watched Chauvelin, a sound caught her ear which
turned her very heart to stone. And yet that sound was not
calculated to inspire anyone with horror, for it was merely the
cheerful sound of a gay, fresh voice singing lustily "God Save the
King."
                            25
                   The Eagle and the Fox

  MARGUERITE'S BREATH stopped short; she seemed to feel her very
life standing still momentarily while she listened to that voice and
to that song. In the singer she had recognized her husband. Chauvelin,
too, had heard it, for he darted a quick glance toward the door,
then hurriedly took up his broad-brimmed hat and clapped it over his
head.
  The voice drew nearer; for one brief second the wild desire seized
Marguerite to rush down the steps and fly across the room to stop that
song at any cost, to beg the cheerful singer to fly- to fly for his
life before it be too late. She checked the impulse just in time.
Chauvelin would stop her before she reached the door, and, moreover,
she had no idea if he had any soldiers posted within his call. Her
impetuous act might prove the death signal of the man she would have
died to save.

                 "Long to reign over us,
                  God save the King!"

sang the voice more lustily than ever. The next moment the door was
thrown open and there was dead silence for a second or so.
  Marguerite could not see the door; she held her breath, trying to
imagine what was happening.
  Percy Blakeney on entering had, of course, at once caught sight of
the cure at the table; his hesitation lasted less than five seconds.
The next moment, Marguerite saw his tall figure crossing the room,
while he called in a loud cheerful voice, "Hello, there! No one about?
Where's that fool Brogard?"
  He wore the magnificent coat and riding suit which he had on when
Marguerite last saw him at Richmond so many hours ago. As usual, his
getup was absolutely irreproachable: the fine Mechlin lace at his neck
and wrists was immaculate in its gossamer daintiness, his hands looked
slender and white, his fair hair was carefully brushed, and he carried
his eyeglass with his usual affected gesture. In fact, at this moment,
Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., might have been on his way to a garden
party at the Prince of Wales's, instead of deliberately,
cold-bloodedly running his head in a trap set for him by his deadliest
enemy.
  He stood for a moment in the middle of the room, while Marguerite,
absolutely paralyzed with horror, seemed unable even to breathe.
  Every moment she expected that Chauvelin would give a signal, that
the place would fill with soldiers, that she would rush down and
help Percy to sell his life dearly. As he stood there, suavely
unconscious, she very nearly screamed out to him, "Fly, Percy! 'Tis
your deadly enemy! Fly before it be too late!"
  But she had not time even to do that, for the next moment Blakeney
quietly walked to the table, and, jovially clapping the cure on the
back, said in his own drawly, affected way, "Odd's fish... er...
Monsieur Chauvelin... I vow I never thought of meeting you here."
  Chauvelin, who had been in the very act of conveying soup to his
mouth, fairly choked. His thin face became absolutely purple, and a
violent fit of coughing saved this cunning representative of France
from betraying the most boundless surprise he had ever experienced.
There was no doubt that this bold move on the part of the enemy had
been wholly unexpected as far as he was concerned, and the daring
impudence of it completely nonplused him for the moment.
  Obviously he had not taken the precaution of having the inn
surrounded with soldiers. Blakeney had evidently guessed that much,
and no doubt his resourceful brain had already formed some plan by
which he could turn this unexpected interview to account.
  Marguerite up in the loft had not moved. She had made a solemn
promise to Sir Andrew not to speak to her husband before strangers,
and she had sufficient self-control not to throw herself unreasoningly
and impulsively across his plans. To sit still and watch these two men
together was a terrible trial of fortitude. Marguerite had heard
Chauvelin give the orders for the patrolling of all the roads. She
knew that if Percy now left the Chat Gris- in whichever direction he
happened to go- he could not go far without being sighted by some of
Captain Jutley's men on patrol. On the other hand, if he stayed,
then Desgas would have time to come back with the half-dozen men
Chauvelin had specially ordered.
  The trap was closing in, and Marguerite could do nothing but watch
and wonder. The two men looked such a strange contrast, and of the two
it was Chauvelin who exhibited a slight touch of fear. Marguerite knew
him well enough to guess what was passing in his mind. He had no
fear for his own person, although he certainly was alone in a lonely
inn with a man who was powerfully built and who was daring and
reckless beyond the bounds of probability. She knew that Chauvelin
would willingly have braved perilous encounters for the sake of the
cause he had at heart, but what he did fear was that this impudent
Englishman would, by knocking him down, double his own chances of
escape; his underlings might not succeed so well in capturing the
Scarlet Pimpernel when not directed by the cunning hand and the shrewd
brain which had deadly hate for an incentive.
  Evidently, however, the representative of the French government
had nothing to fear for the moment at the hands of his powerful
adversary. Blakeney, with his most inane laugh and pleasant good
nature, was solemnly patting him on the back. "I am so demmed
sorry..." he was saying cheerfully, "so very sorry... I seem to have
upset you... eating soup, too... Nasty, awkward thing, soup... er...
Begad! A friend of mine died once... er... choked... just like
you... with a spoonful of soup." And he smiled shyly, good-humoredly
down at Chauvelin.
  "Odd's life," he continued, as soon as the latter had somewhat
recovered himself, "beastly hole this... ain't it now? La, you don't
mind?" he added apologetically, as he sat down on a chair close to the
table and drew the soup tureen toward him. "That fool Brogard seems to
be asleep or something."
  There was a second plate on the table, and he calmly helped
himself to soup, then poured himself out a glass of wine.
  For a moment Marguerite wondered what Chauvelin would do. His
disguise was so good that perhaps he meant, on recovering himself,
to deny his identity; but Chauvelin was too astute to make such an
obviously false and childish move, and already he too had stretched
out his hand and said pleasantly, "I am indeed charmed to see you, Sir
Percy. You must excuse me- h'm- I thought you the other side of the
Channel. Sudden surprise almost took my breath away."
  "La," said Sir Percy with a good-humored grin, "it did that quite,
didn't it- er- Monsieur- er- Chaubertin?"
  "Pardon me,- Chauvelin."
  "I beg pardon- a thousand times. Yes- Chauvelin, of course...
Er... I never could cotton to foreign names." He was calmly eating his
soup, laughing with pleasant good humor, as if he had come all the way
to Calais for the express purpose of enjoying supper at this filthy
inn in the company of his archenemy.
  For the moment Marguerite wondered why Percy did not knock the
little Frenchman down then and there- and no doubt something of the
sort must have darted through his mind, for every now and then his
lazy eyes seemed to flash ominously as they rested on the slight
figure of Chauvelin, who had now quite recovered himself and was
also calmly eating his soup.
  But the keen brain which had planned and carried through so many
daring plots was too farseeing to take unnecessary risks. This
place, after all, might be infested with spies; the innkeeper might be
in Chauvelin's pay. One call on Chauvelin's part might bring twenty
men about Blakeney's ears for aught he knew, and he might be caught
and trapped before he could help or, at least, warn the fugitives.
This he would not risk; he meant to help the others, to get them
safely away; for he had pledged his word to them, and his word he
would keep. And while he ate and chatted, he thought and planned,
while, up in the loft, the poor, anxious woman racked her brain as
to what she should do, and endured agonies of longing to rush down
to him, yet not daring to move for fear of upsetting his plans.
  "I didn't know," Blakeney was saying jovially, "that you... er...
were in holy orders."
  "I... er... hem..." stammered Chauvelin. The calm impudence of his
antagonist had evidently thrown him off his usual balance.
  "But, la! I should have known you anywhere," continued Sir Percy
placidly, as he poured himself out another glass of wine, "although
the wig and hat have changed you a bit."
  "Do you think so?"
  "Lud, they alter a man so... but... begad, I hope you don't mind
my having made the remark?... Demmed bad form making remarks. I hope
you don't mind?"
  "No, no, not at all- hem! I hope Lady Blakeney is well," said
Chauvelin, hurriedly changing the topic of conversation.
  Blakeney, with much deliberation, finished his plate of soup,
drank his glass of wine, and, momentarily, it seemed to Marguerite
as if he glanced quickly all round the room. "Quite well, thank
you," he said at last, drily.
  There was a pause, during which Marguerite could watch these two
antagonists, who, evidently in their minds, were measuring
themselves against one another. She could see Percy almost full face
where he sat at the table not ten yards from where she herself was
crouching, puzzled, not knowing what to do or what she should think.
She had quite controlled her impulse by now of rushing down and
disclosing herself to her husband. A man capable of acting a part in
the way he was doing at the present moment did not need a woman's word
to warn him to be cautious.
  Marguerite indulged in the luxury, dear to every tender woman's
heart, of looking at the man she loved. She looked through the
tattered curtain across at the handsome face of her husband, in
whose lazy blue eyes and behind whose inane smile she could now so
plainly see the strength, energy, and resourcefulness which had caused
the Scarlet Pimpernel to be reverenced and trusted by his followers.
"There are nineteen of us ready to lay down our lives for your
husband, Lady Blakeney," Sir Andrew had said to her; and as she looked
at the forehead, low but square and broad, the eyes, blue yet deep-set
and intense, the whole aspect of the man of indomitable energy
hiding behind a perfectly acted comedy, his almost superhuman strength
of will and marvelous ingenuity, she understood the fascination
which he exercised over his followers for had he not also cast his
spells over her heart and her imagination?
  Chauvelin, who was trying to conceal his impatience beneath his
usual urbane manner, took a quick look at his watch. Desgas should not
be long, another two or three minutes and this impudent Englishman
would be secure in the keeping of half a dozen of Captain Jutley's
most trusted men. "You are on your way to Paris, Sir Percy?" he
asked carelessly.
  "Odd's life, no," replied Blakeney with a laugh. "Only as far as
Lille- not Paris for me... beastly uncomfortable place, Paris, just
now... eh, Monsieur Chaubertin... beg pardon- Chauvelin!"
  "Not for an English gentleman like yourself, Sir Percy," rejoined
Chauvelin sarcastically, "who takes no interest in the conflict that
is raging there."
  "La, you see it's no business of mine, and our demmed government
is all on your side of the business. Old Pitt daren't say boo to a
goose. You are in a hurry, sir," he added as Chauvelin once again took
out his watch; "an appointment, perhaps... I pray you take no heed
of me... My time's my own."
  He rose from the table and dragged a chair to the hearth. Once
more Marguerite was terribly tempted to go to him, for time was
getting on; Desgas might be back at any moment with his men. Percy did
not know that and... oh, how horrible it all was- and how helpless she
felt!
  "I am in no hurry," continued Percy pleasantly, "but, la, I don't
want to spend any more time than I can help in this Godforsaken
hole! But, begad, sir," he added as Chauvelin had surreptitiously
looked at his watch for the third time, "that watch of yours won't
go any faster for all the looking you give it. You are expecting a
friend, maybe?"
  "Aye, a friend."
  "Not a lady, I trust, Monsieur l'Abbe?" laughed Blakeney. "Surely
the holy church does not allow?... Eh, what? But, I say, come by the
fire... it's getting demmed cold."
  He kicked the fire with the heel of his boot, making the logs
blaze in the old hearth. He seemed in no hurry to go and apparently
was quite unconscious of his immediate danger. He dragged another
chair to the fire, and Chauvelin, whose impatience was by now quite
beyond control, sat down beside the hearth in such a way as to command
a view of the door. Desgas had been gone nearly a quarter of an
hour. It was quite plain to Marguerite's aching senses that as soon as
he arrived, Chauvelin would abandon all his other plans with regard to
the fugitives and capture this impudent Scarlet Pimpernel at once.
  "Hey, Monsieur Chauvelin," the latter was saying airily, tell me,
I pray you, is your friend pretty? Demmed smart these little French
women sometimes- what? But I protest I need not ask," he added as he
carelessly strode back toward the supper table. In matters of taste
the church has never been backward... eh?"
  But Chauvelin was not listening. His every faculty was now
concentrated on that door through which presently Desgas would
enter. Marguerite's thoughts, too, were centered there, for her ears
had suddenly caught, through the stillness of the night, the sound
of numerous and measured treads some distance away.
  It was Desgas and his men. Another three minutes and they would be
here! Another three minutes and the awful thing would have occurred:
the brave eagle will have fallen in the ferret's trap! She would
have moved now and screamed, but she dared not; for while she heard
the soldiers approaching, she was looking at Percy and watching his
every movement. He was standing by the table whereon the remnants of
the supper, plates, glasses, spoons, salt and pepper pots were
scattered pell-mell. His back was turned to Chauvelin and he was still
prattling along in his own affected and inane way, but from his pocket
he had taken his snuffbox, and quickly and suddenly he emptied the
contents of the pepper pot into it.
  Then he again turned with an inane laugh to Chauvelin. "Eh? Did
you speak, sir?"
  Chauvelin had been too intent on listening to the sound of those
approaching footsteps to notice what his cunning adversary had been
doing. He now pulled himself together, trying to look unconcerned in
the very midst of his anticipated triumph.
  "No," he said presently, "that is- as you were saying, Sir Percy-?"
  "I was saying," said Blakeney, going up to Chauvelin by the fire,
"that my man in Piccadilly has sold me better snuff this time than I
have ever tasted. Will you honor me, Monsieur l'Abbe?"
  He stood close to Chauvelin in his own careless, debonair way,
holding out his snuffbox to his archenemy.
  Chauvelin, who, as he told Marguerite once, had seen a trick or
two in his day, had never dreamed of this one. With one ear fixed on
those fast-approaching footsteps, one eye turned to the door where
Desgas and his men would presently appear, lulled into false
security by the impudent Englishman's airy manner, he never even
remotely guessed the trick which was being played upon him.
  He took a pinch of snuff.
  Only he who has ever by accident sniffed vigorously a dose of pepper
can have the faintest conception of the hopeless condition in which
such a sniff would reduce any human being.
  Chauvelin felt as if his head would burst- sneeze after sneeze
seemed nearly to choke him; he was blind, deaf, and dumb for the
moment, and during that moment, Blakeney quietly, without the
slightest haste, took up his hat, took some money out of his pocket,
which he left on the table, then calmly stalked out of the room.
                            26
                          The Jew

  IT TOOK MARGUERITE some time to collect her scattered senses; the
whole of this last short episode had taken place in less than a
minute, and Desgas and the soldiers were still about two hundred yards
away from the Chat Gris.
  When she realized what had happened, a curious mixture of joy and
wonder filled her heart. It all was so neat so ingenious. Chauvelin
was still absolutely helpless, far more so than he could even have
been under a blow from the fist, for now he could neither see, nor
hear, nor speak, while his cunning adversary had quietly slipped
through his fingers.
  Blakeney was gone, obviously to try and join the fugitives at the
Pere Blanchard's hut. For the moment, true, Chauvelin was helpless;
for the moment, the daring Scarlet Pimpernel had not been caught by
Desgas and his men. But all the roads and the beach were patrolled.
Every place was watched and every stranger kept in sight. How far
could Percy go, thus arrayed in his gorgeous clothes, without being
sighted and followed?
  Now she blamed herself terribly for not having gone down to him
sooner and given him that word of warning and of love which perhaps,
after all, he needed. He could not know of the orders which
Chauvelin had given for his capture, and even now, perhaps...
  But before all these horrible thoughts had taken concrete form in
her brain, she heard the grounding of arms outside, close to the door,
and Desgas' voice shouting, "Halt!" to his men.
  Chauvelin had partially recovered; his sneezing had become less
violent, and he had struggled to his feet. He managed to reach the
door just as Desgas' knock was heard on the outside.
  Chauvelin threw open the door, and before his secretary could say
a word, he had managed to stammer between two sneezes, "The tall
stranger- quick!- did any of you see him?"
  "Where, Citoyen?" asked Desgas in surprise.
  "Here, man! Through that door- not five minutes ago."
  "We saw nothing, Citoyen! The moon is not yet up and..."
  "And you are just five minutes too late, my friend," said
Chauvelin with concentrated fury.
  "Citoyen... I..."
  "You did what I ordered you to do," said Chauvelin with
impatience. "I know that, but you were a precious long time about
it. Fortunately, there's not much harm done or it had fared ill with
you, Citoyen Desgas."
  Desgas turned a little pale. There was so much rage and hatred in
his superior's whole attitude.
  "The tall stranger, Citoyen-" he stammered.
  "Was here, in this room, five minutes ago, having supper at that
table. Damn his impudence! For obvious reasons, I dared not tackle him
alone. Brogard is too big a fool, and that cursed Englishman appears
to have the strength of a bullock, and so he slipped away under your
very nose."
  "He cannot go far without being sighted, Citoyen."
  "Ah?"
  "Captain Jutley sent forty men as reinforcements for the patrol
duty- twenty went down to the beach. He again assured me that the
watch has been constant all day and that no stranger could possibly
get to the beach, or reach a boat, without being sighted."
  "That's good. Do the men know their work?"
  "They have had very clear orders, Citoyen, and I myself spoke to
those who were about to start. They are to shadow- as secretly as
possible- any stranger they may see, especially if he be tall or stoop
as if he would disguise his height."
  "In no case to detain such a person, of course," said Chauvelin
eagerly. "That impudent Scarlet Pimpernel would slip through clumsy
fingers. We must let him get to the Pere Blanchard's hut now; there,
surround and capture him."
  "The men understand that, Citoyen, and also that, as soon as a
tall stranger has been sighted, he must be shadowed, while one man
is to turn straight back and report to you."
  "That is right," said Chauvelin, rubbing his hands, well pleased.
  "I have further news for you Citoyen."
  "What is it?"
  "A tall Englishman had a long conversation about three-quarters of
an hour ago with a Jew, Reuben by name, who lives not ten paces from
here."
  "Yes- and?" queried Chauvelin impatiently.
  "The conversation was all about a horse and cart which the tall
Englishman wished to hire and which was to have been ready for him
by eleven o'clock."
  "It is past that now. Where does that Reuben live?"
  "A few minutes' walk from this door."
  "Send one of the men to find out if the stranger has driven off in
Reuben's cart."
  "Yes, Citoyen."
  Desgas went to give the necessary orders to one of the men. Not a
word of this conversation between him and Chauvelin had escaped
Marguerite, and every word they had spoken seemed to strike at her
heart with terrible hopelessness and dark foreboding.
  She had come all this way and with such high hopes and firm
determination to help her husband, and so far she had been able to
do nothing but to watch, with a heart breaking with anguish, the
meshes of the deadly net closing round the daring Scarlet Pimpernel.
  He could not now advance many steps without spying eyes to track and
denounce him. Her own helplessness struck her with the terrible
sense of utter disappointment. The possibility of being of the
slightest use to her husband had become almost nil, and her only
hope rested in being allowed to share his fate, whatever it might
ultimately be.
  For the moment, even her chance of ever seeing the man she loved
again had become a remote one. Still, she was determined to keep a
close watch over his enemy, and a vague hope filled her heart that
while she kept Chauvelin in sight, Percy's fate might still be hanging
in the balance.
  Desgas had left Chauvelin moodily pacing up and down the room, while
he himself waited outside for the return of the man whom he had sent
in search of Reuben. Thus several minutes went by. Chauvelin was
evidently devoured with impatience. Apparently he trusted no one: this
last trick played upon him by the daring Scarlet Pimpernel had made
him suddenly doubtful of success unless he himself was there to watch,
direct, and superintend the capture of this impudent Englishman.
  About five minutes later, Desgas returned, followed by an elderly
Jew in a dirty, threadbare gabardine, worn greasy across the
shoulders. His red hair, which he wore after the fashion of the Polish
Jews, with the corkscrew curls each side of his face, was
plentifully sprinkled with gray; a general coating of grime about
his cheeks and his chin gave him a peculiarly dirty appearance. He
walked behind Desgas with a stoop and a shuffling gait.
  Chauvelin, who had all the Frenchman's prejudice against the
despised race, motioned to the fellow to keep at a respectful
distance. The group of the three men were standing just underneath the
hanging oil lamp, and Marguerite had a clear view of them all.
  "Is this the man?" asked Chauvelin.
  "No, Citoyen," replied Desgas, "Reuben could not be found, so
presumably his cart has gone with the stranger; but this man here
seems to know something, which he is willing to sell for a
consideration."
  "Ah!" said Chauvelin.
  The Jew stood humbly on one side, leaning on a thick knotted
staff, his greasy, broad-brimmed hat casting a deep shadow over his
grimy face, waiting for the noble excellency to deign to put some
questions to him.
  "The citoyen tells me," said Chauvelin peremptorily to him, "that
you know something of my friend, the tall Englishman, whom I desire to
meet... Morbleu! Keep your distance, man," he added hurriedly, as
the Jew took a quick and eager step forward.
  "Yes, Your Excellency," replied the Jew. "I and Reuben Goldstein met
a tall Englishman on the road close by here this evening."
  "Did you speak to him?"
  "He spoke to us, Your Excellency. He wanted to know if he could hire
a horse and cart to go down along the St. Martin Road to a place he
wanted to reach tonight."
  "What did you say?"
  "I did not say anything," said the Jew in an injured tone. "Reuben
Goldstein, that accursed traitor, that son of Belial..."
  "Cut that short, man," interrupted Chauvelin roughly, "and go on
with your story."
  "He took the words out of my mouth, Your Excellency. When I was
about to offer the wealthy Englishman my horse and cart to take him
wheresoever he chose, Reuben had already spoken and offered his
half-starved nag and his broken-down cart."
  "And what did the Englishman do?"
  "He listened to Reuben Goldstein, Your Excellency, and put his
hand in his pocket then and there and took out a handful of gold,
which he showed to that descendant of Beelzebub, telling him that
all that would be his if the horse and cart were ready for him by
eleven o'clock."
  "And, of course, the horse and cart were ready?"
  "Well, they were ready in a manner, so to speak, Your Excellency.
Reuben's nag was lame as usual; she refused to budge at first. It
was only after a time and with plenty of kicks that she at last
could be made to move," said the Jew with a malicious chuckle.
  "Then they started?"
  "Yes, they started about five minutes ago. I was disgusted with that
stranger's folly. An Englishman too! He ought to have known Reuben's
nag was not fit to drive."
  "But if he had no choice?"
  "No choice, Your Excellency?" protested the Jew in a rasping
voice. "Did I not repeat to him a dozen times that my horse and cart
would take him quicker and more comfortably than Reuben's bag of
bones. He would not listen. Reuben is such a liar and has such
insinuating ways. The stranger was deceived. If he was in a hurry,
he would have had better value for his money by taking my cart."
  "You have a horse and cart too, then?" asked Chauvelin,
peremptorily.
  "Aye! That I have, Your Excellency, and if Your Excellency wants
to drive..."
  "Do you happen to know which way my friend went in Reuben
Goldstein's cart?"
  Thoughtfully the Jew rubbed his chin. Marguerite's heart was beating
well-nigh to bursting. She had heard the peremptory question; she
looked anxiously at the Jew, but could not read his face beneath the
shadow of his broad-brimmed hat. Vaguely she felt somehow as if he
held Percy's fate in his long, dirty hands.
  There was a long pause, while Chauvelin frowned impatiently at the
stooping figure before him. At last the Jew slowly put his hand in his
breast pocket and drew out from its capacious depths a number of
silver coins. He gazed at them thoughtfully, then remarked, in a quiet
tone of voice, "This is what the tall stranger gave me when he drove
away with Reuben- for holding my tongue about him and his doings."
  Chauvelin shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "How much is there
there?" he asked.
  "Twenty francs, Your Excellency," replied the Jew, "and I have
been an honest man all my life."
  Chauvelin without further comment took a few pieces of gold out of
his own pocket, and leaving them in the palm of his hand, he allowed
them to jingle as he held them out toward the Jew. "How many gold
pieces are there in the palm of my hand?" he asked quietly.
  Evidently he had no desire to terrorize the man, but to conciliate
him for his own purposes, for his manner was pleasant and suave. No
doubt he feared that threats of the guillotine and various other
persuasive methods of that type might addle the old man's brains and
that he would be more likely to be useful through greed of gain than
through terror of death.
  The eyes of the Jew shot a quick, keen glance at the gold in his
interlocutor's hand. "At least five, I should say, Your Excellency,"
he replied obsequiously.
  "Enough, do you think, to loosen that honest tongue of yours?"
  "What does Your Excellency wish to know?"
  "Whether your horse and cart can take me to where I can find my
friend, the tall stranger who has driven off in Reuben Goldstein's
cart."
  "My horse and cart can take Your Honor there, where you please."
  "To a place called the Pere Blanchard's hut?"
  "Your Honor has guessed?" said the Jew in astonishment.
  "You know the place?"
  "I know it, Your Honor."
  "Which road leads to it?"
  "The St. Martin Road, Your Honor, then a footpath from there to
the cliffs."
  "You know the road?" repeated Chauvelin roughly.
  "Every stone, every blade of grass, Your Honor," replied the Jew
quietly.
  Chauvelin without another word threw the five pieces of gold one
by one before the Jew, who knelt down and on his hands and knees
struggled to collect them. One rolled away, and he had some trouble to
get it, for it had lodged underneath the dresser. Chauvelin quietly
waited while the old man scrambled on the floor to find the piece of
gold.
  When the Jew was again on his feet, Chauvelin said, "How soon can
your horse and cart be ready?"
  "They are ready now, Your Honor."
  "Where?"
  "Not ten meters from this door. Will Your Excellency deign to look?"
  "I don't want to see it. How far can you drive me in it?"
  "As far as the Pere Blanchard's hut, Your Honor, and further than
Reuben's nag took your friend. I am sure that, not two leagues from
here, we shall come across that wily Reuben, his nag, his cart, and
the tall stranger- all in a heap in the middle of the road."
  "How far is the nearest village from here?"
  "On the road which the Englishman took, Miquelon is the nearest
village, not two leagues from here."
  "There he could get fresh conveyance if he wanted to go further?"
  "He could- if he ever got so far."
  "Can you?"
  "Will Your Excellency try?" said the Jew simply.
  "That is my intention," said Chauvelin very quietly, "but
remember, if you have deceived me, I shall tell off two of my most
stalwart soldiers to give you such a beating that your breath will
perhaps leave your ugly body forever. But if we find my friend, the
tall Englishman, either on the road or at the Pere Blanchard's hut,
there will be ten more gold pieces for you. Do you accept the
bargain?"
  The Jew again thoughtfully rubbed his chin. He looked at the money
in his hand, then at his stern interlocutor and at Desgas, who had
stood silently behind him all this while. After a moment's pause, he
said deliberately, "I accept."
  "Go and wait outside then," said Chauvelin, "and remember to stick
to your bargain or, by heaven, I will keep to mine."
  With a final, most abject and cringing bow, the old Jew shuffled out
of the room. Chauvelin seemed pleased with his interview, for he
rubbed his hands together with that usual gesture of his of
malignant satisfaction. "My coat and boots," he said to Desgas at
last.
  Desgas went to the door and apparently gave the necessary orders,
for presently a soldier entered, carrying Chauvelin's coat, boots, and
hat.
  He took off his soutane, beneath which he was wearing
close-fitting breeches and a cloth waistcoat, and began changing his
attire.
  "You, Citoyen, in the meanwhile," he said to Desgas, "go back to
Captain Jutley as fast as you can and tell him to let you have another
dozen men and bring them with you along the St. Martin Road, where I
dare say you will soon overtake the Jew's cart with myself in it.
There will be hot work presently, if I mistake not, in the Pere
Blanchard's hut. We shall corner our game there, I'll warrant, for
this impudent Scarlet Pimpernel has had the audacity- or the
stupidity, I hardly know which- to adhere to his original plans. He
has gone to meet de Tournay, St. Just, and the other traitors,
which, for the moment, I thought perhaps he did not intend to do. When
we find them, there will be a band of desperate men at bay. Some of
our men will I presume be put hors de combat. These Royalists are good
swordsmen, and the Englishman is devilish cunning and looks very
powerful. Still, we shall be five against one- at least. You can
follow the cart closely with your men, all along the St. Martin
Road, through Miquelon. The Englishman is ahead of us and not likely
to look behind him."
  While he gave these curt and concise orders, he had completed his
change of attire. The priest's costume had been laid aside, and he was
once more dressed in his usual dark, tight-fitting clothes. At last he
took up his hat.
  "I shall have an interesting prisoner to deliver into your hands,"
he said with a chuckle, as with unwonted familiarity he took Desgas'
arm and led him toward the door. "We won't kill him outright, eh,
friend Desgas? The Pere Blanchard's hut is- an I mistake not- a lonely
spot upon the beach, and our men will enjoy a bit of rough sport there
with the wounded fox. Choose your men well, friend Desgas... of the
sort who would enjoy that type of sport- eh? We must see that
Scarlet Pimpernel wither a bit- what?- shrink and tremble- eh?- before
we finally..." He made an expressive gesture, while he laughed a
low, evil laugh which filled Marguerite's soul with sickening horror.
  "Choose your men well, Citoyen Desgas," he said once more as he
led his secretary finally out of the room.
                            27
                        On the Track

  NEVER FOR A moment did Marguerite Blakeney hesitate. The last sounds
outside the Chat Gris had died away in the night. She had heard Desgas
giving orders to his men and then starting off toward the fort to
get a reinforcement of a dozen more men- six were not thought
sufficient to capture the cunning Englishman, whose resourceful
brain was even more dangerous than his valor and his strength.
  Then a few minutes later, she heard the Jew's husky voice again,
evidently shouting to his nag, then the rumble of wheels and noise
of a rickety cart bumping over the rough road.
  Inside the inn, everything was still. Brogard and his wife,
terrified of Chauvelin, had given no sign of life; they hoped to be
forgotten or, at any rate, to remain unperceived. Marguerite could not
even hear their usual volleys of muttered oaths.
  She waited a moment or two longer, then she quietly slipped down the
broken stairs, wrapped her dark cloak closely round her, and slipped
out of the inn.
  The night was fairly dark, sufficiently so, at any rate, to hide her
dark figure from view, while her keen ears kept count of the sound
of the cart going on ahead. She hoped by keeping well within the
shadow of the ditches which lined the road that she would not be
seen by Desgas' men, when they approached, or by the patrols, which
she concluded were still on duty.
  Thus she started to do this, the last stage of her weary journey,
alone, at night, and on foot. Nearly three leagues to Miquelon and
then on to the Pere Blanchard's hut, wherever that fatal spot might
be, probably over rough roads: she cared not.
  The Jew's nag could not get on very fast, and though she was weary
with mental fatigue and nerve strain, she knew that she could easily
keep up with it on a hilly road, where the poor beast, who was sure to
be half starved, would have to be allowed long and frequent rests. The
road lay some distance from the sea, bordered on either side by shrubs
and stunted trees, sparsely covered with meager foliage, all turning
away from the north, with their branches looking, in the semidarkness,
like stiff, ghostly hair blown by a perpetual wind.
  Fortunately, the moon showed no desire to peep between the clouds,
and Marguerite, hugging the edge of the road and keeping close to
the low line of shrubs, was fairly safe from view. Everything around
her was so still; only from far, very far away, there came, like a
long, soft moan, the sound of the distant sea.
  The air was keen and full of brine; after that enforced period of
inactivity inside the evil-smelling, squalid inn, Marguerite would
have enjoyed the sweet scent of this autumnal night and the distant
melancholy rumble of the waves; she would have reveled in the calm and
stillness of this lonely spot, a calm broken only at intervals by
the strident and mournful cry of some distant gull and by the creaking
of the wheels, some way down the road; she would have loved the cool
atmosphere, the peaceful immensity of nature in this lonely part of
the coast; but her heart was too full of cruel foreboding, of a
great ache and longing for a being who had become infinitely dear to
her.
  Her feet slipped on the grassy bank, for she thought it safest not
to walk near the center of the road, and she found it difficult to
keep up a sharp pace along the muddy incline. She even thought it best
not to keep too near to the cart; everything was so still that the
rumble of the wheels could not fail to be a safe guide.
  The loneliness was absolute. Already the few dim lights of Calais
lay far behind, and on this road there was not a sign of human
habitation, not even the hut of a fisherman or of a woodcutter
anywhere near; far away on her right was the edge of the cliff,
below it the rough beach, against which the incoming tide was
dashing itself with its constant, distant murmur. And ahead, the
nimble of the wheels, hearing an implacable enemy to his triumph.
  Marguerite wondered at what particular spot, on this lonely coast,
Percy could be at this moment. Not very far surely, for he had had
less than a quarter of an hour's start on Chauvelin. She wondered if
he knew that in this cool, ocean-scented bit of France, there lurked
many spies, all eager to sight his tall figure, to track him to
where his unsuspecting friends waited for him, and then to close the
net over him and them.
  Chauvelin, on ahead, jolted and jostled in the Jew's vehicle, was
nursing comfortable thoughts. He rubbed his hands together with
content as he thought of the web which he had woven and through
which that ubiquitous and daring Englishman could not hope to
escape. As the time went on and the old Jew drove him leisurely but
surely along the dark road, he felt more and more eager for the
grand finale of this exciting chase after the mysterious Scarlet
Pimpernel.
  The capture of the audacious plotter would be the finest leaf in
Citoyen Chauvelin's wreath of glory. Caught, red-handed, on the
spot, in the very act of aiding and abetting the traitors against
the Republic of France, the Englishman could claim no protection
from his own country. Chauvelin had, in any case, fully made up his
mind that all intervention should come too late.
  Never for a moment did the slightest remorse enter his heart as to
the terrible position in which he had placed the unfortunate wife
who had unconsciously betrayed her husband. As a matter of fact,
Chauvelin had ceased even to think of her; she had been a useful tool,
that was all.
  The Jew's lean nag did little more than walk. She was going along at
a slow jog trot, and her driver had to give her long and frequent
halts.
  "Are we a long way yet from Miquelon?" asked Chauvelin from time
to time.
  "Not very far, Your Honor," was the uniform placid reply.
  "We have not yet come across your friend and mine lying in a heap in
the roadway," was Chauvelin's sarcastic comment.
  "Patience, noble Excellency," rejoined the son of Moses, "they are
ahead of us. I can see the imprint of the cart wheels, driven by
that traitor, that son of the Amalekite."
  "You are sure of the road?"
  "As sure as I am of the presence of those ten gold pieces in the
noble excellency's pockets, which I trust will presently be mine."
  "As soon as I have shaken hands with my friend, the tall stranger,
they will certainly be yours."
  "Hark, what was that?" said the Jew suddenly.
  Through the stillness, which had been absolute, there could now be
heard distinctly the sound of horses' hoofs on the muddy road.
  "They are soldiers," he added in an awed whisper.
  "Stop a moment- I want to hear," said Chauvelin.
  Marguerite had also heard the sound of galloping hoofs coming toward
the cart and toward herself. For some time she had been on the
alert, thinking that Desgas and his squad would soon overtake them,
but these came from the opposite direction, presumably from
Miquelon. The darkness lent her sufficient cover. She had perceived
that the cart had stopped, and with utmost caution, treading
noiselessly on the soft road, she crept a little nearer.
  Her heart was beating fast, she was trembling in every limb; already
she had guessed what news these mounted men would bring: "Every
stranger on these roads or on the beach must be shadowed, especially
if he be tall or stoops as if he would disguise his height; when
sighted, a mounted messenger must at once ride back and report." Those
had been Chauvelin's orders. Had then the tall stranger been
sighted, and was this the mounted messenger, come to bring the great
news that the bunted hare had run its head into the noose at last?
  Marguerite, realizing that the cart had come to a standstill,
managed to slip nearer to it in the darkness; she crept close up,
hoping to get within earshot, to hear what the messenger had to say.
  She heard the quick words of challenge: "Liberte, fraternite,
egalite!"
  Then Chauvelin's quick query: "What news?"
  Two men on horseback had halted beside the vehicle.
  Marguerite could see them silhouetted against the midnight sky.
She could hear their voices and the snorting of their horses, and now,
behind her, some little distance off, the regular and measured tread
of a body of advancing men: Desgas and his soldiers.
  There had been a long pause, during which, no doubt, Chauvelin
satisfied the men as to his identity, for presently, questions and
answers followed each other in quick succession.
  "You have seen the stranger?" asked Chauvelin eagerly.
  "No, Citoyen, we have seen no tall stranger; we came by the edge
of the cliff."
  "Then?"
  "Less than a quarter of a league beyond Miquelon, we came across a
rough construction of wood which looked like the hut of a fisherman,
where he might keep his tools and nets. When we first sighted it, it
seemed to be empty, and, at first we thought that there was nothing
suspicious about it, until we saw some smoke issuing through an
aperture at the side. I dismounted and crept close to it. It was
then empty, but in one corner of the hut, there was a charcoal fire,
and a couple of stools were also in the hut. I consulted with my
comrades, and we decided that they should take cover with the
horses, well out of sight, and that I should remain on the watch,
which I did."
  "Well? And did you see anything?"
  "About half an hour later, I heard voices, Citoyen, and presently,
two men came along toward the edge of the cliff; they seemed to me
to have come from the Lille Road. One was young, the other quite
old. They were talking in a whisper to one another, and I could not
hear what they said."
  One was young, the other quite old. Marguerite's aching heart almost
stopped beating as she listened: was the young one Armand, her
brother, and the old one de Tournay? Were they the two fugitives
who, unconsciously, were used as a decoy to entrap their fearless
and noble rescuer?
  "The two men presently went into the hut," continued the soldier,
while Marguerite's aching nerves seemed to catch the sound of
Chauvelin's triumphant chuckle, "and I crept nearer to it then. The
hut is very roughly built and I caught snatches of their
conversation."
  "Yes? Quick! What did you hear?"
  "The old man asked the young one if he were sure that was the
right place. 'Oh, yes,' he replied, ''tis the place sure enough,'
and by the light of the charcoal fire he showed to his companion a
paper which he carried. 'Here is the plan,' he said, 'which he gave me
before I left London. We were to adhere strictly to that plan unless I
had contrary orders, and I have had none. Here is the road we
followed, see... here the fork... here we cut across the St. Martin
Road... and here is the footpath which brought us to the edge of the
cliff.' I must have made a slight noise then, for the young man came
to the door of the hut and peered anxiously all round him. When he
again joined his companion, they whispered so low that I could no
longer hear them."
  "Well? And?" asked Chauvelin impatiently.
  "There were six of us altogether patrolling that part of the
beach, so we consulted together and thought it best that four should
remain behind and keep the hut in sight and I and my comrade rode back
at once to make report of what we had seen."
  "You saw nothing of the tall stranger?"
  "Nothing, Citoyen."
  "If your comrades see him, what would they do?"
  "Not lose sight of him for a moment, and if he showed signs of
escape or any boat came in sight, they would close in on him, and,
if necessary, they would shoot; the firing would bring the rest of the
patrol to the spot. In any case they would not let the stranger go."
  "Aye, but I did not want the stranger hurt- not just yet,"
murmured Chauvelin savagely, "but there, you've done your best. The
fates grant that I may not be too late..."
  "We met half a dozen men just now who have been patrolling this road
for several hours."
  "Well?"
  "They have seen no stranger either."
  "Yet he is on ahead somewhere, in a cart- or else... Here! There
is not a moment to lose. How far is that hut from here?"
  "About a couple of leagues, Citoyen."
  "You can find it again? At once? Without hesitation?"
  "I have absolutely no doubt, Citoyen."
  "The footpath to the edge of the cliff? Even in the dark?"
  "It is not a dark night, Citoyen, and I know I can find my way,"
repeated the soldier firmly.
  "Fall in behind then. Let your comrade take both your horses back to
Calais. You won't want them. Keep beside the cart, and direct the
Jew to drive straight ahead; then stop him, within a quarter of a
league of the footpath; see that he takes the most direct road."
  While Chauvelin spoke, Desgas and his men were fast approaching, and
Marguerite could hear their footsteps within a hundred yards behind
her now. She thought it unsafe to stay where she was, and
unnecessary too, as she had heard enough. She seemed suddenly to
have lost all faculty even for suffering; her heart, her nerves, her
brain seemed to have become numb after all these hours of ceaseless
anguish, culminating in this awful despair.
  For now there was absolutely not the faintest hope. Within two short
leagues of this spot, the fugitives were waiting for their brave
deliverer. He was on his way, somewhere on this lonely road, and
presently he would join them; then the well-laid trap would close, two
dozen men, led by one whose hatred was as deadly as his cunning was
malicious, would close round the small band of fugitives and their
daring leader. They would all be captured. Armand, according to
Chauvelin's pledged word would be restored to her, but her husband,
Percy, whom with every breath she drew she seemed to love and
worship more and more, he would fall into the hands of a remorseless
enemy who had no pity for a brave heart, no admiration for the courage
of a noble soul, who would show nothing but hatred for the cunning
antagonist who had baffled him so long.
  She heard the soldier giving a few brief directions to the Jew, then
she retired quickly to the edge of the road and cowered behind some
low shrubs when Desgas and his men came up.
  All fell in noiselessly behind the cart, and slowly they an
started down the dark road. Marguerite waited until she reckoned
that they were well outside the range of earshot, then she too, in the
darkness which suddenly seemed to have become more intense, crept
noiselessly along.
                            28
                 The Pere Blanchard's Hut

  AS IN A DREAM, Marguerite followed on; the web was drawing more
and more tightly every moment round the beloved life which had
become dearer than all. To see her husband once again, to tell him how
she had suffered, how much she had wronged and how little understood
him, had become now her only aim. She had abandoned all hope of saving
him: she saw him gradually hemmed in on all sides; and, in despair,
she gazed round her into the darkness and wondered whence he would
presently come, to fall into the deathtrap which his relentless
enemy had prepared for him.
  The distant roar of the waves now made her shudder; the occasional
dismal cry of an owl or a sea gull filled her with unspeakable horror.
She thought of the ravenous beasts in human shape who lay in wait
for their prey and destroyed them as mercilessly as any hungry wolf
for the satisfaction of their own appetite of hate. Marguerite was not
afraid of the darkness; she only feared that man, on ahead, who was
sitting at the bottom of a rough wooden cart, nursing thoughts of
vengeance which would have made the very demons in hell chuckle with
delight.
  Her feet were sore. Her knees shook under her from sheer bodily
fatigue. For days now she had lived in a wild turmoil of excitement;
she had not had a quiet rest for three nights; now, she had walked
on a slippery road for nearly two hours, and yet her determination
never swerved for a moment. She would see her husband, tell him all,
and, if he was ready to forgive the crime which she had committed in
her blind ignorance, she would yet have the happiness of dying by
his side.
  She must have walked on almost in a trance, instinct alone keeping
her up and guiding her in the wake of the enemy, when suddenly her
ears, attuned to the slightest sound by that same blind instinct, told
her that the cart had stopped and that the soldiers had halted. They
had come to their destination. No doubt on the right, somewhere
close ahead, was the footpath that led to the edge of the cliff and to
the hut.
  Heedless of any risks, she crept quite close up to where Chauvelin
stood, surrounded by his little troop; he had descended from the
cart and was giving some orders to the men. These she wanted to
hear- what little chance she yet had of being useful to Percy
consisted in hearing absolutely every word of his enemy's plans.
  The spot where all the party had halted must have lain some eight
hundred meters from the coast; the sound of the sea came only very
faintly, as from a distance. Chauvelin and Desgas, followed by the
soldiers, had turned off sharply to the right of the road,
apparently onto the footpath which led to the cliffs. The Jew had
remained on the road with his cart and nag.
  Marguerite, with infinite caution and literally crawling on her
hands and knees, had also turned off to the right. To accomplish
this she had to creep through the rough, low shrubs, trying to make as
little noise as possible as she went along, tearing her face and hands
against the dry twigs, intent only upon hearing without being seen
or heard. Fortunately- as is usual in this part of France- the
footpath was bordered by a low, rough hedge, beyond which was a dry
ditch filled with coarse grass. In this Marguerite managed to find
shelter; she was quite hidden from view, yet could contrive to get
within three yards of where Chauvelin stood, giving orders to his men.
  "Now," he was saying in a low and peremptory whisper, "where is
the Pere Blanchard's hut?"
  "About eight hundred meters from here, along the footpath," said the
soldier who had lately been directing the party, "and halfway down the
cliff."
  "Very good. You shall lead us. Before we begin to descend the cliff,
you shall creep down to the hut as noiselessly as possible and
ascertain if the traitor Royalists are there. Do you understand?"
  "I understand, Citoyen."
  "Now listen very attentively, all of you," continued Chauvelin
impressively, and addressing the soldiers collectively, "for after
this we may not be able to exchange another word, so remember every
syllable I utter, as if your very lives depended on your memory.
Perhaps they do," he added drily.
  "We listen, Citoyen," said Desgas, "and a soldier of the Republic
never forgets an order."
  "You who have crept up to the hut will try to peep inside. If an
Englishman is there with those traitors, a man who is tall above the
average or who stoops as if he would disguise his height, then give
a sharp, quick whistle as a signal to your comrades. All of you," he
added, once more speaking to the soldiers collectively, "then
quickly surround and rush into the hut and each seize one of the men
there before they have time to draw their firearms; if any of them
struggle, shoot at their legs or arms, but on no account kill the tall
man. Do you understand?"
  "We understand, Citoyen."
  "The man who is tall above the average is probably also strong above
the average- it will take four or five of you at least to over-power
him."
  There was a little pause, then Chauvelin continued. "If the Royalist
traitors are still alone, which is more than likely to be the case,
then warn your comrades who are lying in wait there, and all of you
creep and take cover behind the rocks and boulders round the hut and
wait there, in dead silence, until the tall Englishman arrives; then
only rush the hut when he is safely within its doors. But remember
that you must be as silent as the wolf is at night when he prowls
around the pens. I do not wish those Royalists to be on the alert- the
firing of a pistol, a shriek or call on their part would be
sufficient, perhaps, to warn the tall personage to keep clear of the
cliffs and of the hut, and," he added emphatically, "it is the tall
Englishman whom it is your duty to capture tonight."
  "You shall be implicitly obeyed, Citoyen."
  "Then get along as noiselessly as possible, and I will follow you."
  "What about the Jew, Citoyen?" asked Desgas, as silently, like
noiseless shadows, one by one the soldiers began to creep along the
rough and narrow footpath.
  "Ah, yes! I had forgotten the Jew," said Chauvelin, and, turning
toward the Jew, he called him peremptorily.
  "Here, you... Aaron, Moses, Abraham, or whatever your confounded
name may be," he said to the old man, who had quietly stood beside his
lean nag, as far away from the soldiers as possible.
  "Benjamin Rosenbaum, so it please Your Honor," he replied humbly.
  "It does not please me to hear your voice, but it does please me
to give you certain orders, which you will find it wise to obey."
  "So please Your Honor..."
  "Hold your confounded tongue. You shall stay here- do you hear?-
with your horse and cart until our return. You are on no account to
utter the faintest sound or to breathe even louder than you can
help; nor are you, on any consideration whatever, to leave your post
until I give you orders to do so. Do you understand?"
  "But Your Honor-" protested the Jew pitiably.
  "There is no question of 'but' or of any argument," said Chauvelin
in a tone that made the timid old man tremble from head to foot. "If
when I return, I do not find you here, I most solemnly assure you
that, wherever you may try and hide yourself, I can find you and
that punishment, swift, sure, and terrible, will sooner or later
overtake you. Do you hear me?"
  "But Your Excellency..."
  "I said, do you hear me?"
  The soldiers had all crept away; the three men stood alone
together in the dark and lonely road, with Marguerite there, behind
the hedge, listening to Chauvelin's orders as she would to her own
death sentence.
  "I heard, Your Honor," protested the Jew again, while he tried to
draw nearer to Chauvelin, "and I swear by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
that I would obey Your Honor most absolutely and that I would not move
from this place until Your Honor once more deigned to shed the light
of your countenance upon your humble servant; but remember, Your
Honor, I am a poor old man; my nerves are not as strong as those of
a young soldier. If midnight marauders should come prowling round this
lonely road, I might scream or run in my fright! And is my life to
be forfeit, is some terrible punishment to come on my poor old head
for that which I cannot help?"
  The Jew seemed in real distress; he was shaking from head to foot.
Clearly he was not the man to be left by himself on this lonely
road. The man spoke truly; he might unwittingly, in sheer terror,
utter the shriek that might prove a warning to the wily Scarlet
Pimpernel.
  Chauvelin reflected for a moment. "Will your horse and cart be
safe alone here, do you think?" he asked roughly.
  "I fancy, Citoyen," here interposed Desgas, "that they will be safer
without that dirty, cowardly Jew as with him. There seems no doubt
that if he gets scared, he will either make a bolt of it or shriek his
head off."
  "But what am I to do with the brute?"
  "Will you send him back to Calais, Citoyen?"
  "No, for we shall want him to drive back the wounded presently,"
said Chauvelin with grim significance.
  There was a pause again- Desgas waiting for the decision of his
chief and the old Jew whining beside his nag.
  "Well, you lazy, lumbering old coward," said Chauvelin "at last, you
had better shuffle along behind us. Here, Citoyen Desgas, tie this
handkerchief tightly round the fellow's mouth."
  Chauvelin handed a scarf to Desgas, who solemnly began winding it
round the Jew's mouth. Meekly Benjamin Rosenbaum allowed himself to be
gagged; he evidently preferred this uncomfortable state to that of
being left alone on the dark St. Martin Road. Then the three men
fell in line.
  "Quick!" said Chauvelin impatiently. "We have already wasted much
valuable time."
  And the firm footsteps of Chauvelin and Desgas, the shuffling gait
of the old Jew soon died away along the footpath.
  Marguerite had not lost a single one of Chauvelin's words of
command. Her every nerve was strained to completely grasp the
situation first, then to make a final appeal to those wits which had
so often been called the sharpest in Europe and which alone might be
of service now.
  Certainly the situation was desperate enough; a tiny band of
unsuspecting men quietly awaiting the arrival of their rescuer, who
was equally unconscious of the trap laid for them all. It seemed so
horrible, this net, as it were, drawn in a circle at dead of night
on a lonely beach round a few defenseless men, defenseless because
they were tricked and unsuspecting; of these, one was the husband
she idolized, another the brother she loved. She vaguely wondered
who the others were who were also calmly waiting for the Scarlet
Pimpernel, while death lurked behind every boulder of the cliffs.
  For the moment she could do nothing but follow the soldiers and
Chauvelin. She feared to lose her way, or she would have rushed
forward and found that wooden hut and perhaps been in time to warn the
fugitives and their brave deliverer yet.
  For a second, the thought flashed through her mind of uttering the
piercing shrieks which Chauvelin seemed to dread as a possible warning
to the Scarlet Pimpernel and his friends- in the wild hope that they
would hear and have yet time to escape before it was too late. But she
did not know how far from the edge of the cliff she was; she did not
know if her shrieks would reach the ears of the doomed men. Her effort
might be premature, and she would never be allowed to make another.
Her mouth would be securely gagged, like that of the Jew, and she a
helpless prisoner in the hands of Chauvelin's men.
  Like a ghost, she flitted noiselessly behind that hedge; she had
taken her shoes off, and her stockings were by now torn off her
feet. She felt neither soreness nor weariness; indomitable will to
reach her husband in spite of adverse fate, and of a cunning enemy,
killed all sense of bodily pain within her and rendered her
instincts doubly acute.
  She heard nothing save the soft and measured footsteps of Percy's
enemies on in front; she saw nothing but- in her mind's eye- that
wooden hut and he, her husband, walking blindly to his doom.
  Suddenly, those same keen instincts within her made her pause in her
mad haste and cower still further within the shadow of the hedge.
The moon, which had proved a friend to her by remaining hidden
behind a bank of clouds, now emerged in all the glory of an
early-autumn night and in a moment flooded the weird and lonely
landscape with a rush of brilliant light.
  There, not two hundred meters ahead, was the edge of the cliff,
and below, stretching far away to free and happy England, the sea
rolled on smoothly and peaceably. Marguerite's gaze rested for an
instant on the brilliant, silvery waters, and as she gazed, her heart,
which had been numb with pain for an these hours, seemed to soften and
distend and her eyes filled with hot tears: not three miles away, with
white sails set, a graceful schooner lay in wait.
  Marguerite had guessed rather than recognized her. It was the Day
Dream, Percy's favorite yacht, with old Briggs, that prince of
skippers, aboard and all her crew of British sailors; her white sails,
glistening in the moonlight, seemed to convey a message to
Marguerite of joy and hope, which yet she feared could never be. She
waited there out at sea, waited for her master, like a beautiful white
bird all ready to take flight, and he would never reach her, never see
her smooth deck again, never gaze any more on the white cliffs of
England, the land of liberty and of hope.
  The sight of the schooner seemed to infuse into the poor, wearied
woman the superhuman strength of despair. There was the edge of the
cliff, and some way below was the hut, where presently her husband
would meet his death. But the moon was out; she could see her way now;
she would see the hut from a distance, run to it, rouse them all, warn
them, at any rate, to be prepared and to sell their lives dearly,
rather than be caught like so many rats in a hole.
  She stumbled on behind the hedge in the low, thick grass of the
ditch. She must have run on very fast and had outdistanced Chauvelin
and Desgas, for presently she reached the edge of the cliff and
heard their footsteps distinctly behind her. But only a very few yards
away- and now the moonlight was full upon her, her figure must have
been distinctly silhouetted against the silvery background of the sea.
  Only for a moment, though; the next she had cowered, like some
animal doubled up within itself. She peeped down the great rugged
cliffs- the descent would be easy enough, as they were not precipitous
and the great boulders afforded plenty of foothold. Suddenly, as she
gazed, she saw at some little distance on her left, and about midway
down the cliffs, a rough wooden construction, through the walls of
which a tiny red light glimmered like a beacon. Her very heart
seemed to stand still; the eagerness of joy was so great that it
felt like an awful pain.
  She could not gauge how distant the hut was, but without
hesitation she began the steep descent, creeping from boulder to
boulder, caring nothing for the enemy behind or for the soldiers,
who evidently had all taken cover since the tall Englishman had not
yet appeared.
  On she pressed, forgetting the deadly foe on her track, running,
stumbling, footsore, half dazed, but still on... When suddenly a
crevice or stone or slippery bit of rock threw her violently to the
ground. She struggled again to her feet and started running forward
once more to give them that timely warning, to beg them to flee before
he came, and to tell him to keep away- away from this deathtrap-
away from this awful doom. But now she realized that other steps,
quicker than her own, were already close at her heels. The next
instant a hand dragged at her skirt, and she was down on her knees
again, while something was wound round her mouth to prevent her
uttering a scream.
  Bewildered, half frantic with the bitterness of disappointment,
she looked round her helplessly, and, bending down quite close to her,
she saw, through the mist which seemed to gather round her, a pair
of keen, malicious eyes, which appeared to her excited brain to have a
weird, supernatural green light in them.
  She lay in the shadow of a great boulder; Chauvelin could not see
her features, but he passed his thin, white fingers over her face.
"A woman!" he whispered. "By all the saints in the calendar. We cannot
let her loose, that's certain," he muttered to himself. "I wonder
now..."
  Suddenly he paused, and after a few seconds of deadly silence, he
gave forth a long, low, curious chuckle, while once again Marguerite
felt, with a horrible shudder, his thin fingers wandering over her
face. "Dear me, dear me," he whispered, with affected gallantry, "this
is indeed a charming surprise," and Marguerite felt her resistless
hand raised to Chauvelin's thin, mocking lips.
  The situation was indeed grotesque, had it not been at the same time
so fearfully tragic: the poor weary woman, broken in spirit and half
frantic with the bitterness of her disappointment, receiving on her
knees the banal gallantries of her deadly enemy.
  Her senses were leaving her; half choked with the tight grip round
her mouth, she had no strength to move or to utter the faintest sound.
The excitement which all along had kept up her delicate body seemed at
once to have subsided and the feeling of blank despair to have
completely paralyzed her brain and nerves.
  Chauvelin must have given some directions, which she was too dazed
to hear, for she felt herself lifted from off her feet; the bandage
round her mouth was made more secure, and a pair of strong arms
carried her toward that tiny red light, on ahead, which she had looked
upon as a beacon and the last faint glimmer of hope.
                            29
                          Trapped

  SHE DID NOT know how long she was thus carried along; she had lost
all notion of time and space, and for a few seconds tired nature
mercifully deprived her of consciousness.
  When she once more realized her state, she felt that she was
placed with some degree of comfort upon a man's coat, with her back
resting against a fragment of rock. The moon was hidden again behind
some clouds, and the darkness seemed in comparison more intense. The
sea was roaring some two hundred feet below her, and on looking all
round she could no longer see any vestige of the tiny glimmer of red
light.
  That the end of the journey had been reached, she gathered from
the fact that she heard rapid questions and answers spoken in a
whisper quite close to her.
  "There are four men in there, Citoyen; they are sitting by the
fire and seem to be waiting quietly."
  "The hour?"
  "Nearly two o'clock."
  "The tide?"
  "Coming in quickly."
  "The schooner?"
  "Obviously an English one, lying some three kilometers out. But we
cannot see her boat."
  "Have the men taken cover?"
  "Yes, Citoyen."
  "They will not blunder?"
  "They will not stir until the tall Englishman comes, then they
will surround and overpower the five men."
  "Right. And the lady?"
  "Still dazed, I fancy. She's close behind you, Citoyen."
  "And the Jew?"
  "He's gagged and his legs strapped together. He cannot move or
scream."
  "Good. Then have your gun ready, in case you want it. Get close to
the hut and leave me to look after the lady."
  Desgas evidently obeyed, for Marguerite heard him creeping away
along the stony cliff, then she felt that a pair of warm, thin,
talonlike hands took hold of both her own and held them in a grip of
steel.
  "Before that handkerchief is removed from your pretty mouth, fair
lady," whispered Chauvelin close to her ear, "I think it right to give
you one small word of warning. What has procured me the honor of being
followed across the Channel by so charming a companion, I cannot, of
course, conceive; but, if I mistake not, the purpose of this
flattering attention is not one that would commend itself to my
vanity, and I think that I am right in surmising, moreover, that the
first sound which your pretty lips would utter as soon as the cruel
gag is removed would be one that would perhaps prove a warning to
the cunning fox which I have been at such pains to track to his lair."
  He paused a moment, while the steellike grasp seemed to tighten
round her wrist; then he resumed in the same hurried whisper.
"Inside that hut, if again I am not mistaken, your brother, Armand St.
Just, waits- with that traitor de Tournay and two other men unknown to
you- for the arrival of the mysterious rescuer, whose identity has for
so long puzzled our Committee of Public Safety- the audacious
Scarlet Pimpernel. No doubt if you scream, if there is a scuffle here,
if shots are fired, it is more than likely that the same long legs
that brought this scarlet enigma here will as quickly take him to some
place of safety. The purpose, then, for which I have traveled all
these miles will remain unaccomplished. On the other hand, it only
rests with yourself that your brother- Armand- shall be free to go off
with you tonight if you like, to England or any other place of
safety."
  Marguerite could not utter a sound, as the handkerchief was wound
very tightly round her mouth, but Chauvelin was peering through the
darkness very closely into her face; no doubt too, her hand gave a
responsive appeal to his last suggestion, for presently he continued.
  "What I want you to do to ensure Armand's safety is a very simple
thing, dear lady."
  "What is it?" Marguerite's hand seemed to convey to his in response.
  "To remain on this spot without uttering a sound until I give you
leave to speak. Ah, but I think you will obey," he added, with that
funny dry chuckle of his, as Marguerite's whole figure seemed to
stiffen in defiance of this order, "for let me tell you that if you
scream- nay!- if you utter one sound or attempt to move from here,
my men- there are thirty of them about- will seize St. Just, de
Tournay, and their two friends and shoot them here- by my orders-
before your eyes."
  Marguerite had listened to her implacable enemy's speech with
ever-increasing terror. Numbed with physical pain, she yet had
sufficient mental vitality in her to realize the full horror of this
terrible "either-or" he was once more putting before her; an
"either-or" ten thousand times more appalling and horrible than the
one he had suggested to her that fatal night at the ball.
  This time it meant that she should keep still and allow the
husband she worshiped to walk unconsciously to his death or that she
should, by trying to give him a word of warning, which perhaps might
even be unavailing, actually give the signal for her own brother's
death and that of three other unsuspecting men.
  She could not see Chauvelin, but she could almost feel those keen,
pale eyes of his fixed maliciously upon her helpless form, and his
hurried, whispered words reached her ear as the death knell of her
last faint, lingering hope.
  "Nay, fair lady," he added urbanely, "you can have no interest in
anyone save St. Just, and all you need do for his safety is to
remain where you are and to keep silent. My men have strict orders
to spare him in every way. As for that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel,
what is he to you? Believe me, no warning from you could possibly save
him. And now, dear lady, let me remove this unpleasant coercion
which has been placed before your pretty mouth. You see I wish you
to be perfectly free in the choice which you are about to make."
  Her thoughts in a whirl, her temples aching, her nerves paralyzed,
her body numb with pain, Marguerite sat there in the darkness which
surrounded her as with a pall. From where she sat she could not see
the sea, but she heard the incessant mournful murmur of the incoming
tide, which spoke of her dead hopes, her lost love, the husband she
had with her own hand betrayed and sent to his death.
  Chauvelin removed the handkerchief from her mouth. She certainly did
not scream; at that moment, she had no strength to do anything but
barely to hold herself upright and to force herself to think.
  Oh! think! think! think! of what she should do. The minutes flew on;
in this awful stillness she could not tell how fast or how slowly; she
heard nothing, she saw nothing; she did not feel the sweet-smelling
autumn air scented with the briny odor of the sea, she no longer heard
the murmur of the waves, the occasional rattling of a pebble as it
rolled down some steep incline. More and more unreal did the whole
situation seem. It was impossible that she, Marguerite Blakeney, the
queen of London society, should actually be sitting here on this bit
of lonely coast in the middle of the night, side by side with a most
bitter enemy. And- oh!- it was not possible that somewhere, not many
hundred feet away, perhaps, from where she stood, the being she had
once despised, but who now, in every moment of this weird, dreamlike
life, became more and more dear- it was not possible that he was
unconsciously, even now, walking to his doom, while she did nothing to
save him.
  Why did she not with unearthly screams that would re-echo from one
end of the lonely beach to the other send out a warning to him to
desist, to retrace his steps, for death lurked here while he advanced?
Once or twice the screams rose to her throat- as if by instinct; then,
before her eyes there stood the awful alternative: her brother and
those three men shot before her eyes, practically by her orders- she
their murderer.
  Oh! That fiend in human shape next to her knew human- female- nature
well. He had played upon her feelings as a skillful musician plays
upon an instrument. He had gauged her very thoughts to a nicety.
  She could not give that signal- for she was weak and she was a
woman. How could she deliberately order Armand to be shot before her
eyes, to have his dear blood upon her head, he dying perhaps with a
curse on her upon his lips. And little Suzanne's father too! He, an
old man- and the others! Oh, it was all too, too horrible!
  Wait! wait! wait! how long? The early morning hours sped on, and yet
it was not dawn; the sea continued its incessant mournful murmur,
the autumnal breeze sighed gently in the night, the lonely beach was
silent, even as the grave.
  Suddenly from somewhere not very far away, a cheerful strong voice
was heard singing "God Save the King."
                            30
                       The Schooner

  MARGUERITE'S ACHING HEART stood still. She felt, more than she
heard, the men on the watch preparing for the fight. Her senses told
her that each, with sword in hand, was crouching, ready for the
spring.
  The voice came nearer and nearer; in the vast immensity of these
lonely cliffs, with the loud murmur of the sea below, it was
impossible to say how near, or how far, nor yet from which direction
came that cheerful singer who sang to God to save his king, while he
himself was in such deadly danger. Faint at first, the voice grew
louder and louder; from time to time a small pebble detached itself
apparently from beneath the firm tread of the singer and went
rolling down the rocky cliffs to the beach below.
  Marguerite as she heard felt that her very life was slipping away,
as if when that voice drew nearer, when that singer became
entrapped...
  She distinctly heard the click of Desgas' gun close to her...
  No! no! no! no! Oh, God in heaven! This cannot be! Let Armand's
blood then be upon her own head! Let her be branded as his murderer!
Let even he whom she loved despise and loathe her for this, but God-
oh, God!- save him at any cost!
  With a wild shriek, she sprang to her feet and darted round the rock
against which she had been cowering; she saw the little red gleam
through the chinks of the hut; she ran up to it and fell against its
wooden walls, which she began to hammer with clenched fists in an
almost maniacal frenzy while she shouted, "Armand! Armand! For God's
sake fire! Your leader is near! He is coming! He is betrayed!
Armand! Armand! Fire in heaven's name!"
  She was seized and thrown to the ground. She lay there moaning,
bruised, not caring, but still half sobbing, half-shrieking, "Percy,
my husband, for God's sake fly! Armand! Armand! Why don't you fire?"
  "One of you stop that woman screaming," hissed Chauvelin, who hardly
could refrain from striking her.
  Something was thrown over her face; she could not breathe, and
perforce she was silent.
  The bold singer, too, had become silent, warned, no doubt, of his
impending danger by Marguerite's frantic shrieks. The men had sprung
to their feet; there was no need for further silence on their part;
the very cliffs echoed the poor heartbroken woman's screams.
  Chauvelin, with a muttered oath which boded no good to her, who
had dared to upset his most cherished plans, had hastily shouted the
word of command. "Into it, my men, and let no one escape from that hut
alive!"
  The moon had once more emerged from between the clouds; the darkness
on the cliffs had gone, giving place once more to brilliant, silvery
light. Some of the soldiers had rushed to the rough wooden door of the
hut, while one of them kept guard over Marguerite.
  The door was partially open; one of the soldiers pushed it
further- but within, all was darkness, the charcoal fire only lighting
with a dim red light the furthest corner of the hut. The soldiers
paused automatically at the door, like machines waiting for further
orders.
  Chauvelin, who was prepared for a violent onslaught from within
and for a vigorous resistance from the four fugitives under cover of
the darkness, was for the moment paralyzed with astonishment when he
saw the soldiers standing there at attention, like sentries on
guard, while not a sound proceeded from the hut.
  Filled with strange, anxious foreboding, he too went to the door
of the hut, and peering into the gloom, he asked quickly, "What is the
meaning of this?"
  "I think, Citoyen, that there is no one there now," replied one of
the soldiers imperturbably.
  "You have not let those four men go?" thundered Chauvelin
menacingly. "I ordered you to let no man escape alive! Quick, after
them, all of you! Quick, in every direction!"
  The men, obedient as machines, rushed down the rocky incline
toward the beach, some going off to right and left as fast as their
feet could carry them.
  "You and your men will pay with your lives for this blunder, Citoyen
Sergeant," said Chauvelin viciously to the sergeant who had been in
charge of the men. "And you too, Citoyen," he added, turning with a
snarl to Desgas, "for disobeying my orders."
  "You ordered us to wait, Citoyen, until the tall Englishman
arrived and joined the four men in the hut. No one came," said the
sergeant sullenly.
  "But I ordered you just now, when the woman screamed, to rush in and
let no one escape."
  "But, Citoyen, the four men who were there before had been gone some
time, I think..."
  "You think? You..." said Chauvelin, almost choking with fury, "and
you let them go..."
  "You ordered us to wait, Citoyen," protested the sergeant, "and to
implicitly obey your commands on pain of death. We waited. I heard the
men creep out of the hut not many minutes after we took cover and long
before the woman screamed," he added, as Chauvelin seemed still
quite speechless with rage.
  "Hark!" said Desgas suddenly.
  In the distance the sound of repeated firing was heard. Chauvelin
tried to peer along the beach below, but as luck would have it, the
fitful moon once more hid her light behind a bank of clouds, and he
could see nothing. "One of you go into the hut and strike a light," he
stammered at last.
  Stolidly the sergeant obeyed. He went up to the charcoal fire and
lit the small lantern he carried in his belt; it was evident that
the hut was quite empty.
  "Which way did they go?" asked Chauvelin.
  "I could not tell, Citoyen," said the sergeant. "They went
straight down the cliff first, then disappeared behind some boulders."
  "Hush! What was that?"
  All three men listened attentively. In the far, very far distance
could be heard, faintly echoing and already dying away, the quick,
sharp splash of half a dozen oars. Chauvelin took out his handkerchief
and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
  "The schooner's boat!" was all he gasped.
  Evidently Armand St. Just and his three companions had managed to
creep along the side of the cliffs, while the men, like true
soldiers of the well-drilled republican army, had with blind
obedience, and in fear of their lives, implicitly obeyed Chauvelin's
orders- to wait for the tall Englishman, who was the important
capture.
  They had no doubt reached one of the creeks which jut far out to sea
on this coast at intervals; behind this, the boat of the Day Dream
must have been on the lookout for them, and they were by now safely on
board the British schooner.
  As if to confirm this last supposition, the dull boom of a gun was
heard from out at sea.
  "The schooner, Citoyen," said Desgas quietly. "She's off."
  It needed all Chauvelin's nerve and presence of mind not to give way
to a useless and undignified access of rage. There was no doubt now
that, once again, that accursed British head had completely
outwitted him. How he had contrived to reach the hut without being
seen by one of the thirty soldiers who guarded the spot was more
than Chauvelin could conceive. That he had done so before the thirty
men had arrived on the cliff was, of course, fairly clear, but how
he had come over in Reuben Goldstein's cart, all the way from
Calais, without being sighted by the various patrols on duty was
impossible of explanation. It really seemed as if some potent fate
watched over that daring Scarlet Pimpernel, and his astute enemy
almost felt a superstitious shudder pass through him as he looked
round at the towering cliffs and the loneliness of this outlying
coast.
  But surely this was reality and the year of grace 1792! There were
no fairies and hobgoblins about. Chauvelin and his thirty men had
all heard with their own ears that accursed voice singing "God Save
the King"- full twenty minutes after they had all taken cover around
the hut; by that time, the four fugitives must have reached the
creek and got into the boat, and the nearest creek was more than a
mile from the hut.
  Where had that daring singer got to? Unless Satan himself had lent
him wings, he could not have covered that mile on a rocky cliff in the
space of two minutes- and only two minutes had elapsed between his
song and the sound of the boat's oars away at sea. He must have
remained behind and was even now hiding somewhere about the cliffs;
the patrols were still about- he would still be sighted, no doubt.
Chauvelin felt hopeful once again.
  One or two of the men who had run after the fugitives were now
slowly working their way up the cliff; one of them reached Chauvelin's
side at the very moment that this hope arose in the astute
diplomatist's heart.
  "We are too late, Citoyen," the soldier said. "We reached the
beach just before the moon was hidden by that bank of clouds. The boat
had undoubtedly been on the lookout behind that first creek, a mile
off, but she had shoved off some time ago, when we got to the beach,
and was already some way out to sea. We fired after her, but, of
course, it was no good. She was making straight and quickly for the
schooner. We saw her very clearly in the moonlight."
  "Yes," said Chauvelin with eager impatience, "she had shoved off
some time ago, you said, and the nearest creek is a mile further on."
  "Yes, Citoyen! I ran all the way, straight to the beach, though I
guessed the boat would have waited somewhere near the creek, as the
tide would reach there earliest. The boat must have shoved off some
minutes before the woman began to scream."
  Some minutes before the woman began to scream! Then Chauvelin's
hopes had not deceived him. The Scarlet Pimpernel may have contrived
to send the fugitives on ahead by the boat, but he himself had not had
time to reach it; he was still on shore, and all the roads were well
patrolled. At any rate, all was not yet lost, and would not be,
while that impudent Britisher was still on French soil.
  "Bring the light in here!" he commanded eagerly, as he once more
entered the hut.
  The sergeant brought his lantern, and together the two men
explored the little place. With a rapid glance Chauvelin noted its
contents: the cauldron placed close under an aperture in the wall, and
containing the last few dying embers of burned charcoal; a couple of
stools, overturned as if in the haste of sudden departure; then the
fisherman's tools and his nets lying in one corner; and beside them,
something small and white.
  "Pick that up," said Chauvelin to the sergeant, pointing to this
white scrap, "and bring it to me."
  It was a crumpled piece of paper, evidently forgotten there by the
fugitives in their hurry to get away. The sergeant, much awed by the
citoyen's obvious rage and impatience, picked the paper up and
handed it respectfully to Chauvelin.
  "Read it, Sergeant," said the latter curtly.
  "It is almost illegible, Citoyen... a fearful scrawl..."
  "I ordered you to read it." repeated Chauvelin viciously.
  The sergeant, by the light of his lantern began deciphering the
few hastily scrawled words:

  "'I cannot quite reach you without risking your lives and
endangering the success of your rescue. When you receive this, wait
two minutes, then creep out of the hut one by one, turn to your left
sharply, and creep cautiously down the cliff; keep to the left all the
time, till you reach the first rock which you see jutting far out to
sea- behind it in the creek the boat is on the lookout for you- give a
long, sharp whistle- she will come up- get into her- my men will row
you to the schooner and thence to England and safety- once on board
the Day Dream, send the boat back for me- tell my men that I shall
be at the creek which is in a direct line opposite the Chat Gris
near Calais. They know it. I shall be there as soon as possible-
they must wait for me at a safe distance out at sea, till they hear
the usual signal. Do not delay- and obey these instructions
implicitly."

  "Then there is the signature, Citoyen," added the sergeant as he
handed the paper back to Chauvelin.
  But the latter had not waited an instant. One phrase of the
momentous scrawl had caught his ear: "I shall be at the creek which is
in a direct line opposite the Chat Gris near Calais"- that phrase
might yet mean victory for him.
  "Which of you knows this coast well?" he shouted to his men, who now
one by one had all returned from their fruitless run and were all
assembled once more round the hut.
  "I do, Citoyen," said one of them. "I was born in Calais and know
every stone of these cliffs."
  "There is a creek in a direct line from the Chat Gris?"
  "There is, Citoyen. I know it well."
  "The Englishman is hoping to reach that creek. He does not know
every stone of these cliffs; he may go there by the longest way round,
and in any case he will proceed cautiously for fear of the patrols. At
any rate, there is a chance to get him yet. A thousand francs to
each man who gets to that creek before that long-legged Englishman."
  "I know a short cut across the cliffs," said the soldier, and with
an enthusiastic shout, he rushed forward, followed closely by his
comrades.
  Within a few minutes their running footsteps had died away in the
distance. Chauvelin listened to them for a moment; the promise of
the reward was lending spurs to the soldiers of the Republic. The
gleam of hate and anticipated triumph was once more apparent on his
face.
  Close to him, Desgas still stood mute and impassive, waiting for
further orders, while two soldiers were kneeling beside the
prostrate form of Marguerite. Chauvelin gave his secretary a vicious
look. His well-laid plan had failed, its sequel was problematical;
there was still a great chance now that the Scarlet Pimpernel might
yet escape, and Chauvelin, with that unreasoning fury which
sometimes assails a strong nature, was longing to vent his rage on
somebody.
  The soldiers were holding Marguerite pinioned to the ground,
though she, poor soul, was not making the faintest struggle.
Overwrought nature had at last peremptorily asserted herself, and
she lay there in a dead swoon: her eyes circled by deep purple lines
that told of long, sleepless nights, her hair matted and damp round
her forehead, her lips parted in a sharp curve that spoke of
physical pain.
  The cleverest woman in Europe, the elegant and fashionable Lady
Blakeney, who had dazzled London society with her beauty, her wit, and
her extravagances, presented a very pathetic picture of tired-out,
suffering womanhood, which would have appealed to any but the hard,
vengeful heart of her baffled enemy.
  "It is no use mounting guard over a woman who is half dead," he said
spitefully to the soldiers, "when you have allowed five men who were
very much alive to escape."
  Obediently the soldiers rose to their feet.
  "You'd better try and find that footpath again for me and that
broken-down cart we left on the road."
  Then suddenly a bright idea seemed to strike him. "Ah, by the bye,
where is the Jew?"
  "Close by here, Citoyen," said Desgas. "I gagged him and tied his
legs together as you commanded."
  From the immediate vicinity, a plaintive moan reached Chauvelin's
ears. He followed his secretary, who led the way to the other side
of the hut, where, fallen into an absolute heap of dejection, with his
legs tightly pinioned together and his mouth gagged, lay the
unfortunate descendant of Israel.
  His face in the silvery light of the moon looked positively
ghastly with terror: his eyes were wide open and almost glassy, and
his whole body was trembling as if with ague, while a piteous wail
escaped his bloodless lips. The rope which had originally been wound
round his shoulders and arms had evidently given way, for it lay in
a tangle about his body, but he seemed quite unconscious of this,
for he had not made the slightest attempt to move from the place where
Desgas had originally put him- like a terrified chicken which looks
upon a line of white chalk drawn on a table as on a string which
paralyzes its movements.
  "Bring the cowardly brute here," commanded Chauvelin. He certainly
felt exceedingly vicious, and since he had no reasonable grounds for
venting his ill humor on the soldiers, who had but too punctually
obeyed his orders, he felt that the son of the despised race would
prove an excellent butt. With true French contempt of the Jew, which
has survived the lapse of centuries even to this day, he would not
go too near him, but said with biting sarcasm, as the wretched old man
was brought in full light of the moon by the two soldiers, "I
suppose now that, being a Jew, you have a good memory for bargains?
Answer!" he again commanded, as the Jew, with trembling lips, seemed
too frightened to speak.
  "Yes, Your Honor," stammered the poor wretch.
  "You remember, then, the one you and I made together in Calais, when
you undertook to overtake Reuben Goldstein, his nag, and my friend,
the tall stranger? Eh?"
  "B... b... but... Your Honor..."
  "There is no but. I said, do you remember?"
  "Y... y... y... yes... Your Honor!"
  "What was the bargain?"
  There was dead silence. The unfortunate man looked round at the
great cliffs, the moon above, the stolid faces of the soldiers, and
even at the poor prostrate, inanimate woman close by, but said
nothing.
  "Will you speak?" thundered Chauvelin menacingly.
  He did try, poor wretch, but, obviously, he could not. There was
no doubt, however, that he knew what to expect from the stern man
before him. "Your Honor..." he ventured imploringly.
  "Since your terror seems to have paralyzed your tongue," said
Chauvelin sarcastically, "I must needs refresh your memory. It was
agreed between us that if we overtook my friend, the tall stranger,
before he reached this place, you were to have ten pieces of gold."
  A low moan escaped from the Jew's trembling lips.
  "But," added Chauvelin with slow emphasis, "if you deceived me in
your promise, you were to have a sound beating, one that would teach
you not to tell lies."
  "I did not, your Honor; I swear it by Abraham..."
  "And by all the other patriarchs, I know. Unfortunately, they are
still in Hades, I believe, according to your creed, and cannot help
you much in your present trouble. Now, you did not fulfill your
share of the bargain, but I am ready to fulfill mine. Here," he added,
turning to the soldiers, "the buckle end of your two belts to this
confounded Jew."
  As the soldiers obediently unbuckled their heavy leather belts,
the Jew set up a howl that surely would have been enough to bring
all the patriarchs out of Hades and elsewhere to defend their
descendant from the brutality of this French official.
  "I think I can rely on you citoyen soldiers," laughed Chauvelin
maliciously, "to give this old liar the best and soundest beating he
has ever experienced. But don't kill him," he added drily.
  "We will obey, Citoyen," replied the soldiers as imperturbably as
ever.
  He did not wait to see his orders carried out: he knew that he could
trust these soldiers- who were still smarting under his rebuke- not to
mince matters when given a free hand to belabor a third party.
  "When that lumbering coward has had his punishment," he said to
Desgas, "the men can guide us as far as the cart, and one of them
can drive us in it back to Calais. The Jew and the woman can look
after each other," he added roughly, "until we can send somebody for
them in the morning. They can't run away very far in their present
condition, and we cannot be troubled with them just now."
  Chauvelin had not given up all hope. His men, he knew, were
spurred on by the hope of the reward. That enigmatic and audacious
Scarlet Pimpernel, alone and with thirty men at his heels, could not
reasonably be expected to escape a second time.
  But he felt less sure now; the Englishman's audacity had baffled him
once, while the wooden-headed stupidity of the soldiers and the
interference of a woman had turned his hand, which held all the
trumps, into a losing one. If Marguerite had not taken up his time, if
the soldiers had had a grain of intelligence, if... it was a long
"if," and Chauvelin stood for a moment quite still and enrolled
thirty-odd people in one long, overwhelming anathema. Nature-
poetic, silent, balmy: the bright moon, the calm, silvery sea- spoke
of beauty and of rest, and Chauvelin cursed nature, cursed man and
woman, and, above all, he cursed all long-legged, meddlesome British
enigmas with one gigantic curse.
  The howls of the Jew behind him, undergoing his punishment, sent a
balm through his heart, overburdened as it was with revengeful malice.
He smiled. It eased his mind to think that some human being at least
was, like himself, not altogether at peace with mankind.
  He turned and took a last look at the lonely bit of coast where
stood the wooden hut, now bathed in moonlight, the scene of the
greatest discomfiture ever experienced by a leading member of the
Committee of Public Safety.
  Against a rock, on a bard bed of stone, lay the unconscious figure
of Marguerite Blakeney, while some few paces further on, the
unfortunate Jew was receiving on his broad back the blows of two stout
leather belts wielded by the stolid arms of two sturdy soldiers of the
Republic. The howls of Benjamin Rosenbaum were fit to make the dead
rise from their graves. They must have wakened all the gulls from
sleep and made them look down with great interest at the doings of the
lords of the creation.
  "That will do," commanded Chauvelin, as the Jew's moans became
more feeble and the poor wretch seemed to have fainted away, "we don't
want to kill him."
  Obediently the soldiers buckled on their belts, one of them
viciously kicking the Jew to one side.
  "Leave him there," said Chauvelin, "and lead the way now quickly
to the cart. I'll follow."
  He walked up to where Marguerite lay and looked down into her
face. She had evidently recovered consciousness and was making
feeble efforts to raise herself. Her large, blue eyes were looking
at the moonlit scene round her with a scared and terrified look;
they rested with a mixture of horror and pity on the Jew, whose
luckless fate and wild howls had been the first signs that struck her,
with her returning senses; then she caught sight of Chauvelin in his
neat, dark clothes, which seemed hardly crumpled after the stirring
events of the last few hours. He was smiling sarcastically, and his
pale eyes peered down at her with a look of intense malice.
  With mock gallantry, he stooped and raised her icy-cold hand to
his lips, which sent a thrill of indescribable loathing through
Marguerite's weary frame.
  "I much regret, fair lady," he said in his most suave tones, "that
circumstances over which I have no control compel me to leave you here
for the moment. But I go away secure in the knowledge that I do not
leave you unprotected. Our friend Benjamin here, though a trifle the
worse for wear at the present moment, will prove a gallant defender of
your fair person, I have no doubt. At dawn I will send an escort for
you; until then, I feel sure that you will find him devoted, though
perhaps a trifle slow."
  Marguerite only had the strength to turn her head away. Her heart
was broken with cruel anguish. One awful thought had returned to her
mind, together with gathering consciousness: what had become of Percy,
what of Armand?
  She knew nothing of what had happened after she heard the cheerful
song "God Save the King," which she believed to be the signal of
death.
  "I, myself," concluded Chauvelin, "must now very reluctantly leave
you. Au revoir, fair lady. We meet, I hope, soon in London. Shall I
see you at the Prince of Wales's garden party? No? Ah, well, au
revoir, remember me, I pray, to Sir Percy Blakeney."
  And, with a last ironical smile and bow, he once more kissed her
hand and disappeared down the footpath in the wake of the soldiers and
followed by the imperturbable Desgas.
                            31
                        The Escape

  MARGUERITE LISTENED- half-dazed as she was- to the
fast-retreating, firm footsteps of the four men.
  All nature was so still that she, lying with her ear close to the
ground, could distinctly trace the sound of their tread as they
ultimately turned into the road, and presently the faint echo of the
old cart wheels, the halting gait of the lean nag told her that her
enemy was a quarter of a league away. How long she lay there she
knew not. She had lost count of time; dreamily she looked up at the
moonlit sky and listened to the monotonous roll of the waves.
  The invigorating scent of the sea was nectar to her wearied body,
the immensity of the lonely cliffs was silent and dreamlike. Her brain
only remained conscious of its ceaseless, its intolerable torture of
uncertainty.
  She did not know!
  She did not know whether Percy was even now, at this moment, in
the hands of the soldiers of the Republic, enduring- as she had done
herself- the gibes and jeers of his malicious enemy. She did not know,
on the other hand, whether Armand's lifeless body did not lie there in
the hut, while Percy had escaped, only to hear that his wife's hands
had guided the human bloodhounds to the murder of Armand and his
friends.
  The physical pain of utter weariness was so great that she hoped
confidently her tired body could rest here forever, after all the
turmoil, the passion, and the intrigues of the last few days- here,
beneath that clear sky, within sound of the sea, and with this balmy
autumn breeze whispering to her a last lullaby. All was so solitary,
so silent, like unto dreamland. Even the last faint echo of the
distant cart had long ago died away afar.
  Suddenly... a sound... the strangest, undoubtedly, that these lonely
cliffs of France had ever heard, broke the silent solemnity of the
shore.
  So strange was it that the gentle breeze ceased to murmur, the
tiny pebbles to roll down the steep incline. So strange that
Marguerite, wearied, overwrought as she was, thought that the
beneficial unconsciousness of the approach of death was playing her
half-sleeping senses a weird and elusive trick.
  It was the sound of a good, solid, absolutely British "Damn!"
  The sea gulls in their nest awoke and looked round in
astonishment; a distant and solitary owl set up a midnight hoot; the
tall cliffs frowned down majestically at the strange, unheard-of
sacrilege.
  Marguerite did not trust her ears. Half-raising herself on her
hands, she strained every sense to see or hear, to know the meaning of
this very earthly sound.
  All was still again for the space of a few seconds; the same silence
once more fell upon the great and lonely vastness.
  Then Marguerite, who listened as in a trance, who felt she must be
dreaming, with that cool, magnetic moonlight overhead, heard again;
and this time her heart stood still, her eyes, large and dilated,
looked round her, not daring to trust to her other sense.
  "Odd's life, but I wish those demmed fellows had not hit quite so
hard!"
  This time it was quite unmistakable: only one particular pair of
essentially British lips could have uttered those words in sleepy,
drawly, affected tones.
  "Damn!" repeated those same British lips emphatically. "Zounds,
but I'm as weak as a rat!"
  In a moment Marguerite was on her feet.
  Was she dreaming? Were those great stony cliffs the gates of
paradise? Was the fragrant breath of the breeze suddenly caused by the
flutter of angels' wings, bringing tidings of unearthly joys to her
after all her sufferings, or- faint and ill- was she the prey of
delirium?
  She listened again, and once again she heard the same very earthly
sounds of good, honest British language, not the least akin to
whisperings from paradise or flutter of angels' wings.
  She looked round her eagerly at the tall cliffs, the lonely hut, the
great stretch of rocky beach. Somewhere there, above or below her,
behind a boulder or inside a crevice, but still hidden from her
longing, feverish eyes, must be the owner of that voice, which once
used to irritate her but which now would make her the happiest woman
in Europe if only she could locate it.
  "Percy! Percy!" she shrieked hysterically, tortured between doubt
and hope. "I am here! Come to me! Where are you? Percy! Percy!..."
  "It's all very well calling me, m'dear," said the same sleepy,
drawly voice, "but odd's life, I cannot come to you- those demmed
frog-eaters have trussed me like a goose on a spit, and I am as weak
as a mouse... I cannot get away."
  And still Marguerite did not understand. She did not realize for
at least another ten seconds whence came that voice, so drawly, so
dear, but- alas!- with a strange accent of weakness and of
suffering. There was no one within sight... except by that rock...
Great God!... The Jew!... Was she mad or dreaming?...
  His back was against the pale moonlight, he was half-crouching,
trying vainly to raise himself with his arms tightly pinioned.
Marguerite ran up to him, took his head in both her hands... and
looked straight into a pair of blue eyes, good-natured, even a
trifle amused, shining out of the weird and distorted mask of the Jew.
  "Percy... Percy... my husband!" she gasped, faint with the
fullness of her joy. "Thank God! Thank God!"
  "La, m'dear," he rejoined good-humoredly, "we will both do that
anon, an you think you can loosen these demmed ropes and release me
from my inelegant attitude."
  She had no knife, her fingers were numb and weak, but she worked
away with her teeth, while great welcome tears poured from her eyes
onto those poor pinioned hands.
  "Odd's life," he said when at last, after frantic efforts on her
part, the ropes seemed at last to be giving way, "but I marvel whether
it has ever happened before that an English gentleman allowed
himself to be licked by a demmed foreigner and made no attempt to give
as good as he got."
  It was very obvious that he was exhausted from sheer physical
pain, and when at last the rope gave way, he fell in a heap against
the rock.
  Marguerite looked helplessly round her.
  "Oh, for a drop of water on this awful beach!" she cried in agony,
seeing that he was ready to faint again.
  "Nay, m'dear," he murmured with his good-humored smile,
"personally I should prefer a drop of good French brandy! An you'll
dive in the pocket of this dirty old garment, you'll find my
flask... I am demmed if I can move."
  When he had drunk some brandy, he forced Marguerite to do likewise.
  "La that's better now! Eh, little woman?" he said with a sigh of
satisfaction. "Heigh-ho but this is a queer rig-up for Sir Percy
Blakeney, Bart., to be found in by his lady, and no mistake. Begad,"
he added, passing his hand over his chin, "I haven't been shaved for
nearly twenty hours. I must look a disgusting object. As for these
curls..."
  And laughingly he took off the disfiguring wig and curls and
stretched out his long limbs, which were cramped from many hours'
stooping. Then he bent forward and looked long and searchingly into
his wife's blue eyes.
  "Percy," she whispered, while a deep blush suffused her delicate
cheeks and neck, "if you only knew..."
  "I do know, dear... everything," he said with infinite gentleness.
  "And can you ever forgive?"
  "I have nought to forgive, sweetheart; your heroism, your
devotion, which I, alas, so little deserved, have more than atoned for
that unfortunate episode at the ball."
  "Then you knew?" she whispered. "All the time..."
  "Yes," he replied tenderly, "I knew... all the time. But, begad! Had
I but known what a noble heart yours was, my Margot, I should have
trusted you as you deserved to be trusted, and you would not have
had to undergo the terrible sufferings of the past few hours in
order to run after a husband who has done so much that needs
forgiveness."
  They were sitting side by side, leaning up against a rock, and he
had rested his aching head on her shoulder. She certainly now deserved
the name of "the happiest woman in Europe."
  "It is a case of the blind leading the lame, sweetheart, is it not?"
he said with his good-natured smile of old. "Odd's life, but I do
not know which are the more sore- my shoulders or your little feet!"
  He bent forward to kiss them, for they peeped out through her torn
stockings and bore pathetic witness to her endurance and devotion.
  "But Armand..." she said, with sudden terror and remorse, as in
the midst of her happiness the image of the beloved brother, for whose
sake she had so deeply sinned, rose now before her mind.
  "Oh, have no fear for Armand, sweetheart," he said tenderly. "Did
I not pledge you my word that he should be safe? He with de Tournay
and the others are even now on board the Day Dream."
  "But how?" she gasped. "I do not understand."
  "Yet. 'tis simple enough, m'dear," he said with that funny,
half-shy, half-inane laugh of his. "You see, when I found that that
brute Chauvelin meant to stick to me like a leech, I thought the
best thing I could do, as I could not shake him off, was to take him
along with me. I had to get to Armand and the others somehow, and
all the roads were patrolled and everyone on the lookout for your
humble servant. I knew that when I slipped through Chauvelin's fingers
at the Chat Gris that he would lie in wait for me here, whichever
way I took. I wanted to keep an eye on him and his doings, and a
British head is as good as a French one any day."
  Indeed it had proved to be infinitely better, and Marguerite's heart
was filled with joy and marvel as he continued to recount to her the
daring manner in which he had snatched the fugitives away right from
under Chauvelin's very nose.
  "Dressed as the dirty old Jew," he said gaily, "I knew I should
not be recognized. I had met Reuben Goldstein in Calais earlier in the
evening. For a few gold pieces he supplied me with this rig-out and
undertook to bury himself out of sight of everybody, while he lent
me his cart and nag."
  "But if Chauvelin had discovered you," she gasped excitedly. "Your
disguise was good... but he is so sharp."
  "Odd's fish," he rejoined quietly, "then certainly the game would
have been up. I could but take the risk. I know human nature pretty
well by now," he added, with a note of sadness in his cheery, young
voice, "and I know these Frenchmen out and out. They so loathe a Jew
that they never come nearer than a couple of yards of him, and-
begad!- I fancy that I contrived to make myself look about as
loathsome an object as it is possible to conceive."
  "Yes, and then?" she asked eagerly.
  "Zooks! Then I carried out my little plan. That is to say, at
first I only determined to leave everything to chance, but when I
heard Chauvelin giving his orders to the soldiers, I thought that fate
and I were going to work together after all. I reckoned on the blind
obedience of the soldiers. Chauvelin had ordered them, on pain of
death, not to stir until the tall Englishman came. Desgas had thrown
me down in a heap quite close to the hut; the soldiers took no
notice of the Jew, who had driven Citoyen Chauvelin to this spot. I
managed to free my hands from the ropes with which the brute had
trussed me. I always carry pencil and paper with me wherever I go, and
I hastily scrawled a few important instructions on a scrap of paper.
Then I looked about me. I crawled up to the hut, under the very
noses of the soldiers, who lay under cover without stirring, just as
Chauvelin had ordered them to do, then I dropped my little note into
the hut, through a chink in the wall, and waited. In this note I
told the fugitives to walk noiselessly out of the hut, creep down
the cliffs, keep to the left until they came to the first creek, to
give a certain signal, when the boat of the Day Dream, which lay in
wait not far out to sea, would pick them up. They obeyed implicitly,
fortunately for them and for me. The soldiers who saw them were
equally obedient to Chauvelin's order. They did not stir! I waited for
nearly half an hour; when I knew that the fugitives were safe I gave
the signal which caused so much stir."
  And that was the whole story. It seemed so simple! And Marguerite
could but marvel at the wonderful ingenuity, the boundless pluck and
audacity which had evolved and helped to carry out this daring plan.
  "But those brutes struck you!" she gasped in horror at the bare
recollection of the fearful indignity.
  "Well, that could not be helped," he said gently. "While my little
wife's fate was so uncertain, I had to remain here by her side.
Odd's life," he added merrily, "never fear! Chauvelin will lose
nothing by waiting, I warrant! Wait till I get him back to England!
La, he shall pay for the thrashing he gave me with compound
interest, I promise you."
  Marguerite laughed. It was so good to be beside him, to hear his
cheery voice, to watch that good-humored twinkle in his blue eyes as
he stretched out his strong arms in longing for that foe and
anticipation of his well-deserved punishment.
  Suddenly, however, she started- the happy blush left her cheek,
the light of joy died out of her eyes: she had heard a stealthy
footfall overhead, and a stone had rolled down from the top of the
cliffs right down to the beach below. "What's that?" she whispered
in horror and alarm.
  "Oh, nothing, m'dear," he muttered with a pleasant laugh. "Only a
trifle you happened to have forgotten- my friend Ffoulkes."
  "Sir Andrew!" she gasped.
  Indeed, she had wholly forgotten the devoted friend and companion
who had trusted and stood by her during all these hours of anxiety and
suffering. She remembered him now, tardily and with a pang of remorse.
  "Aye, you had forgotten him, hadn't you, m'dear," said Sir Percy
merrily. "Fortunately, I met him not far from the Chat Gris before I
had that interesting supper party with my friend Chauvelin. Odd's
life, but I have a score to settle with that young reprobate! But in
the meanwhile, I told him of a very long, very roundabout road that
would bring him here by a very circuitous road which Chauvelin's men
would never suspect, just about the time when we are ready for him,
eh, little woman?"
  "And he obeyed?" asked Marguerite in utter astonishment.
  "Without word or question. See, here he comes. He was not in the way
when I did not want him, and now he arrives in the nick of time. Ah,
he will make pretty little Suzanne a most admirable and methodical
husband."
  In the meanwhile Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had cautiously worked his way
down the cliffs; he stopped once or twice, pausing to listen for the
whispered words which would guide him to Blakeney's hiding place.
  "Blakeney!" he ventured to say at last cautiously. "Blakeney, are
you there?" The next moment he rounded the rock against which Sir
Percy and Marguerite were leaning, and seeing the weird figure,
still clad in the long Jew's gabardine, he paused in sudden,
complete bewilderment.
  But already Blakeney had struggled to his feet. "Here I am, friend,"
he said with his funny, inane laugh. "All alive, though I do look a
begad scarecrow in these demmed things."
  "Zooks!" ejaculated Sir Andrew in boundless astonishment as he
recognized his leader. "Of all the..."
  The young man had seen Marguerite and, happily, checked the forcible
language that rose to his lips at sight of the exquisite Sir Percy
in this weird and dirty garb.
  "Yes," said Blakeney calmly, "of all the... hem!... My friend! I
have not yet had time to ask you what you were doing in France, when I
ordered you to remain in London? Insubordination? What? Wait till my
shoulders are less sore, and, by gad, see the punishment you'll get."
  "Odd's fish! I'll bear it," said Sir Andrew with a merry laugh,
"seeing that you are alive to give it. Would you have had me allow
Lady Blakeney to do the journey alone? But, in the name of heaven,
man, where did you get these extraordinary clothes?"
  "Lud, they are a bit quaint, ain't they?" laughed Sir Percy
jovially. "But, odds fish," he added with sudden earnestness and
authority, "now you are here, Ffoulkes, we must lose no more time.
That brute Chauvelin may send someone to look after us."
  Marguerite was so happy, she could have stayed here forever, hearing
his voice, asking a hundred questions. But at mention of Chauvelin's
name she started in quick alarm, afraid for the dear life she would
have died to save. "But how can we get back?" she gasped. "The roads
are full of soldiers between here and Calais and..."
  "We are not going back to Calais, sweetheart," he said, "but just
the other side of Gris Nez, not half a league from here. The boat of
the Day Dream will meet us there."
  "The boat of the Day Dream?"
  "Yes!" he said with a merry laugh. "Another little trick of mine.
I should have told you before that when I slipped that note into the
hut, I also added another for Armand, which I directed him to leave
behind and which has sent Chauvelin and his men running full tilt back
to the Chat Gris after me; but the first little note contained my real
instructions, including those to old Briggs. He had my orders to go
out further to sea and then toward the west. When well out of sight of
Calais, he will send the galley to a little creek he and I know of,
just beyond Gris Nez. The men will look out for me- we have a
preconcerted signal, and we will all be safely aboard, while Chauvelin
and his men solemnly sit and watch the creek which is just opposite
the Chat Gris."
  "The other side of Gris Nez? But I... I cannot walk, Percy," she
moaned helplessly, as, trying to struggle to her tired feet, she found
herself unable even to stand.
  "I will carry you, dear," he said simply. "The blind leading the
lame, you know."
  Sir Andrew was ready, too, to help with the precious burden, but Sir
Percy would not entrust his beloved to any arms but his own. "When you
and she are both safely on board the Day Dream," he said to his
young comrade, "and I feel that Mademoiselle Suzanne's eyes will not
greet me in England with reproachful looks, then it will be my turn to
rest."
  And his arms, still vigorous in spite of fatigue and suffering,
closed round Marguerite's poor weary body and lifted her as gently
as if she had been a feather.
  Then, as Sir Andrew discreetly kept out of earshot, there were
many things said- or rather whispered- which even the autumn breeze
did not catch, for it had gone to rest.
  All his fatigue was forgotten; his shoulders must have been very
sore, for the soldiers had hit hard, but the man's muscles seemed made
of steel, and his energy was almost supernatural. It was a weary
tramp, half a league along the stony side of the cliffs, but never for
a moment did his courage give way or his muscles yield to fatigue.
On he tramped with firm footstep, his vigorous arms encircling the
precious burden; and, no doubt, as she lay, quiet and happy, at
times lulled to momentary drowsiness, at others watching, through
the slowly gathering morning light, the pleasant face with the lazy,
drooping blue eyes, ever cheerful, ever illumined with a
good-humored smile, she whispered many things which helped to
shorten the weary road and acted as a soothing balsam to his aching
sinews.
  The many-hued light of dawn was breaking in the east when at last
they reached the creek beyond Gris Nez. The galley lay in wait; in
answer to a signal from Sir Percy, she drew near, and two sturdy
British sailors had the honor of carrying my lady into the boat.
  Half an hour later, they were on board the Day Dream. The crew,
who of necessity were in their master's secrets and who were devoted
to him heart and soul, were not surprised to see him arriving in so
extraordinary a disguise.
  Armand St. Just and the other fugitives were eagerly awaiting the
advent of their brave rescuer; he would not stay to hear the
expressions of their gratitude, but found his way to his private cabin
as quickly as he could, leaving Marguerite quite happy in the arms
of her brother.
  Everything on board the Day Dream was fitted with that exquisite
luxury so clear to Sir Percy Blakeney's heart, and by the time they
all landed at Dover he had found time to get into some of the
sumptuous clothes which he loved and of which he always kept a
supply on board his yacht.
  The difficulty was to provide Marguerite with a pair of shoes, and
great was the little middy's joy when my lady found that she could put
foot on English shore in his best pair.
  The rest is silence- silence and joy for those who had endured so
much suffering, yet found at last a great and lasting happiness.
  But it is on record that at the brilliant wedding of Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes, Bart., with Mademoiselle Suzanne de Tournay de Basserive,
a function at which H.R.H. the Prince of Wales and all the elite of
fashionable society were present, the most beautiful woman there was
unquestionably Lady Blakeney, while the clothes Sir Percy Blakeney
wore were the talk of the jeunesse doree of London for many days.
  It is also a fact that M. Chauvelin, the accredited agent of the
French republican government, was not present at that or any other
social function in London after that memorable evening at Lord
Grenville's ball.


                        THE END