Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy
The Scarlet Pimpernel

CHAPTER I PARIS: SEPTEMBER, 1792

A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught 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 heel, for they went shoeless mostly in these days—but 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 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 endeavoured 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 feelings 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 marquise or count.

Oh! Bibot had a keen sense of humour, 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 metres towards 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 marchioness, 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 to-day, 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 citoyen 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 to-day 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 rumours 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 organised 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 rumours 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 how 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, whilst 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 citoyens 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, whilst 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 damned Englishman in disguise, and everyone of his soldiers aristos!”

The crowd this time said nothing: the story certainly savoured 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, whilst 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 hats, “tricotteuses,” as they were called, who sat there and knitted, whilst 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 colours, 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 to-morrow, but I don’t know if I shall be at my usual place.”

“Ah! how is that, la mere?” asked Bibot, who, hardened soldier that 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 small-pox,” she said with a jerk of her thumb towards the inside of her cart, “some say it’s the plague! If it is, I sha’n’t be allowed to come into Paris to-morrow.” At the first mention of the word small-pox, Bibot had stepped hastily backwards, and when the old hag spoke of the plague, he retreated from her as fast as he could.

“Curse you!” he muttered, whilst 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, brutalised 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 spoilt 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 Tourney 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.”

CHAPTER II 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 stock-pot 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 kitchen-maids 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 stock-pot methodically over the fire.

“What ho! Sally!” came in cheerful if none too melodious accents from the coffee-room close by.

“Lud bless my soul!” exclaimed Sally, with a good-humoured 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 kitchen-maids; 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 cross 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-humour 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 coffee-room, 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 that days of King Charles. “‘E knows ‘ow busy we are in ‘ere.”

“Your father is too busy discussing politics 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 coffee room.

There, there was certainly no sign of that bustle and activity which kept four women busy and hot in the glowing kitchen beyond.

The coffee-room 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 the 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 panelled 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 colour 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 silver and gold—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 coffee-room 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 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-humoured 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, whilst 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 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, and grey worsted stockings and smart buckled shoes, that characterised 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 coffee-room indeed, lighted by two well-polished lamps, which hung from the raftered ceiling, looked cheerful and cosy 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 fisher-folk who patronised Mr. Jellyband’s coffee-room, 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 towards 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 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 rec’llect 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-dying’ like the ‘Guptian mother’s first born, and doin’ no more good than they did, pore dears, save a lot more Jews, pedlars and sich, with their oranges and sich like 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 neighbourhood and so many free tankards of ale at “The Fisherman’s Rest.”

“Let ‘em murder,” he repeated again, “but don’t lets ‘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 one of those Scriptural utterances which 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-humoured 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 to-night, 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 do 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 favourite hobby-horse, 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, Godforsaking 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 open-mouthed 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 towards the centre 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 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 honour to finish this bottle of mine 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, whilst 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.

“Hi, hip, hurrah!” retorted the whole company present. Then there was a 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.

CHAPTER III 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 the 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 every one 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 civilised 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; 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 anti-revolutionists 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.

By now Sally came running back, very excited and very eager. The joyous company in the coffee-room 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 stable boy 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 my Lord Antony’s horse out in the yard, father,” she said, as she ran across the coffee-room.

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 round pretty Sally’s waist, while a hearty voice echoed along the polished rafters of the coffee-room.

“Aye, and bless your brown eyes for being so sharp, my pretty Sally,” said the man who had just entered, whilst worthy Mr. Jellyband came bustling forward, eager, alert and fussy, as became the advent of one of the most favoured 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, 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 gentlemen—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 favourite in London drawing-rooms or in the coffee-rooms 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 young face.

But only for a moment; the next he 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 favourin’ 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 to-night, 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 towards 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 towards 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 setting down in business in these parts.”

“In business? Faith, then, it must be as an undertaker, for 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 to-day 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 that 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 coloured dahlias in the centre, 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 to-night.”

“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 a general commotion in the coffee-room. 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 towards 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 quick 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 coffee-room.

“Welcome! Welcome to old England!” said Lord Antony, effusively, as he came eagerly forward with both hands outstretched towards 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 travelling cloaks, and both turned, with a shiver, towards the brightly-blazing hearth.

There was a general movement among the company in the coffee-room. Sally had bustled off to her kitchen whilst 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 snowy-white hair dressed high above the forehead, after the fashion of the times.

“I hope my friend, Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, proved an entertaining travelling 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 colour rushed up to her pale cheeks.

“So this is England,” she said, as she looked round with childlike curiosity at the great 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 savoury odour.

“Odd’s life, supper at last!” ejaculated Lord Antony, merrily, as he gallantly offered his arm to the Comtesse.

“May I have the honour?” he added ceremoniously, as he led her towards the supper table.

There was a general bustle in the coffee-room: Mr. Hempseed and most of the yokels and fisher-folk 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; whilst 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 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 whilst 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 took her place at the supper table.

CHAPTER IV 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, well-born 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 borne of long practice, slipped on to 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 coffee-room.

Not one of those at the supper table had noticed this curious and silent manoeuvre, but when the stranger finally closed the door of the coffee-room 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 affection 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 M. 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 reasurred 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 to-day.”

“Indeed, indeed, Monsieur,” she replied, “I have the fullest confidence in you and 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, whilst 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, whilst Suzanne ran up to her and tried to kiss away her tears.

Lord Antony and Sir Andrew had said nothing to interrupt the Comtesse whilst 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 to-day.”

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 organised 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 the 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 designated in red upon it. . . . Yes?”

“Yes, that is so,” assented Lord Antony.

“Then he will have received one such paper to-day?”

“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.—Hair-breath escapes . . . the devil’s 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 harbouring 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 hidden beneath the hood of a rickety cart, and lying amidst a heap of turnips and cabbages, not daring to breathe, whilst the mob howled, “A la lanterne les aristos!” at the 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 were 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 fellowmen 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 had done that so far, Madame.”

“It is wonderful to me, wonderful!—That you should all be so brave, so devoted to your fellowmen—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 school-fellow 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 rumours 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, whilst the Comtesse, encased in the plate-armour 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 towards 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 cobble stones, and the next moment a stable boy had thrown open the coffee-room 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.”

CHAPTER V MARGUERITE

In a moment the pleasant oak-raftered coffee-room of the inn became the scene of hopeless confusion and discomfort. At the first announcement made by the stable boy, 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 wits’ 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 sing-song in it, and a faint SOUPCON of foreign intonation in the pronunciation of the consonants.

Everyone in the coffee-room 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 towards the door, where she hoped still to see her dearly-beloved, erstwhile school-fellow.

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 . . . h’m! . . . 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 coffee-room.

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 an 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 chiselled nose, round chin, and delicate throat, all seemed set off by the picturesque costume of the period. The rich blue velvet robe moulded in its every line the graceful contour of the figure, whilst 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 around the room, Marguerite Blakeney had taken stock of every one there. She nodded pleasantly to Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, whilst 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 towards 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 effusive 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 realise 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 Princess 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 towards 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 upwards, 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 curtsey to the two young men, she sailed majestically out of the room.

There was silence in the old inn parlour 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, scarcely older than herself; filial obedience vanished before girlish sympathy; at the door she turned, ran back to Marguerite, and putting her arms round her, kissed her effusively; then only did she follow her mother, Sally bringing up the rear, with a final curtsey 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 affection, 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 sha’n’t look like that.”

She gathered up her skirts and assuming a majestic gait, stalked towards 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 trifled 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.

CHAPTER VI 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, Bart., 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—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 well-born, 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 favour 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 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 travelled 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 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, whilst smiling indulgently at his inanities and his good-humoured 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 wife covered him, and if his matrimonial relations with the fascinating Parisienne had not turned out all that his hopes and his dog-like 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 irreproachable 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 Mechline lace: the extravagantly short-waisted satin coat, wide-lapelled 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 parlour, shaking the wet off his fine overcoat; then putting up a gold-rimmed eye-glass 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 towards 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 offenced 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 honour.”

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 eye glass 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 marvellous!” continued Sir Percy, imperturbably, “demmed marvellous! 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-humouredly, “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-humour. 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 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 duelling amongst gentlemen had been surpressed by the law with a very stern hand; still to him, a Frenchman, whose notions of bravery and honour 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 a 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 husband’s 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-humoured 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 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 a duel.”

For a moment longer the Vicomte hesitated, then with a slight shrug of the shoulders directed against the extraordinary code of honour 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.

“Odd’s 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 curtsey, “you need not be afraid! ‘Tis not the MEN who dislike the shape of my nose.”

“Afraid be demmed! Do you impugn my bravery, Madame? I don’t patronise the ring for nothing, do I, Tony? I’ve put up the fists with Red Sam before now, and—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 parlour, “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-humouredly. “La, Madame, you honour 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 towards the Vicomte, “that the jackanapes of yours will join us in a 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-bye 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 the 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 the 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 characterised his every movement, he opened the coffee-room 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.

CHAPTER VII THE SECRET ORCHARD

Once outside the noisy coffee-room, 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 on to 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 grey hairs round a rotund and massive chin, and who walked with that peculiar rolling gait which invariably betrays the seafaring 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 M. St. Just need go on board?”

“We ought to weigh anchor before half an hour, your ladyship,” replied the old man, pulling at his grey forelock.

Linking her arm in his, Marguerite led her brother towards 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—whilst 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 daresay,” she added, speaking very rapidly, as if she were about to lay down a heavy burden, which had oppressed her for months, “I daresay 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 . . . worshipped, 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 worshipped, 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, whilst 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 all 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 sacrified 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: 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 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 towards 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.

CHAPTER VIII 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 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 coffee-room 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 merry-making 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 supersensitive, 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 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 tie when first he worshipped 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, 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 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 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 analyse.

Then the day of retribution came. St. Cyr and his kin 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, whilst his family, his wife and his sons, shared in this awful fate.

Marguerite, horrified at the terrible consequences of her own thoughtlessness, was powerless to save the Marquis: his 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 realise 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 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; endeavouring 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 hidden 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 towards “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’ pleasant voice, Lord Tony’s boisterous guffaws, her husband’s occasional, drawly, sleepy comments; then realising 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 towards 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 towards 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 towards 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 fox-like 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?”

“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 loth 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 coffee-room 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 asked archly, “or I should not have been so pleased to see you.”

“And this within 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, whilst 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.”

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