Baroness Orczy

Scarlet Pimpernel Vol 4

Table of Contents

Pimpernel and Rosemary

Sir Percy Hits Back

The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel

Pimpernel and Rosemary

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XL

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER XLIV

CHAPTER XLV

CHAPTER XLVI

CHAPTER XLVII

CHAPTER XLVIII

CHAPTER I

To Peter Blakeney, Rosemary Fowkes' engagement to his friend Tarkington seemed not only incredible but impossible. The end of the world! Death! Annihilation! Hell! Anything!

But it could not be true.

He was playing at Lord's that day; Tarkington told him the news at the luncheon interval, and Peter had thought for the moment that for once in his life Tarkington must be drunk. But Tarkington looked just as he always did-grave, impassive, and wonderfully kind. Indeed, he seemed specially kind just then. Perhaps he knew. Perhaps Rosemary had told him. Women were so queer. Perhaps she did tell Tarkington that he, Peter, had once been fool enough to-—

Anyway, Tarkington was sober, and very grave and kind, and he told Peter in his quiet, unemotional way that he considered himself the happiest man on God's earth. Of course he was, if Rosemary---But it was impossible. Impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!!

That afternoon Peter hit many boundaries, and at the end of play was 148 not out.

In the evening he went to the Five Arts' Ball at the Albert Hall. He knew that Rosemary would be there; he had designed the dress she would be wearing, and Tarkington told him, sometime during that afternoon that he was taking his fiancée to the ball.

His fiancée! Dear old Tarkington! So kind, so unemotional! Rosemary's husband presently! Ye gods!

At the Albert Hall ball Peter wore that beautiful Hungarian national dress that had belonged to his grandfather, a wonderful dress of semi-barbaric splendour, with the priceless fifteenth-century jewellery which he had inherited from his mother-the buttons, the sword-belt, the clasp for the mantle-they had been in the Heves family ever since it was fashioned by Florentine workmen imported into Hungary by a medieval queen. Peter dressed himself with the greatest care. If a thing was worth doing at all, it was worth doing well, and Rosemary had said once that she would like to see him in the dress.

But during that hot afternoon at Lord's while he dressed, and now inside the crowded, stuffy Albert Hall, Peter did not feel as if he were really alive. He did not feel like a personage in a dream, he only felt that the world as he had seen it since luncheon time, was not a real world. Someone had invented something altogether new in opposition to the Creator, and he, Peter, being no longer alive, was permitted a private view of the novelty.

It appeared to be a very successful novelty. At any rate, the numberless puppets who raised shrill voices so that Peter might hear what they said, all declared that this ball was incontestably the most successful function of the season.

Just as in the real world, Peter thought, where every function is always incontestably the most successful function of the season.

Other shrill voices declared in Peter's hearing that this function had been more than usually well-managed. It had been splendidly advertised, and the tickets had sold like the proverbial hot cakes.

And Peter was quite sure that somewhere in the dead, forgotten world of long ago he had heard such an expression of opinion over and over again.

Anyway, in this Albert Hall of the newly invented world things were much as they had been in the old. It was crowded. At one time there was hardly room enough to move, let alone to dance. Certain contortions of the body being called dancing, now as then, and certain demoniacal sounds made on hellish instruments by gentlemen of colour being called dance music, the floor of the hall, raised to the level of the lower-tier boxes, was given over to the performance of various gyrations more or less graceful, whilst Peter looked on, strangely familiar with this new world of unrealities which had only been invented a few hours ago, when Tarkington told him of his engagement to Rosemary Fowkes.

He knew just how it would be!

In to-morrow's issue of the Morning Star or the Talk of the Town, the thousands who gyrated here or who looked on at the gyrations of others would be referred to as being "also present."

He, Peter Blakeney, the famous cricketer and distinguished V.C., would be referred to as being "also present," and there would be a photograph of him with a set grin on his face and his eyes staring out of his head like those of a lunatic at large, in all the illustrated weeklies. This was as it should be. It was well worth paying two guineas (supper included) for the privilege of being referred to as "also present" in this distinguished company of puppets that included both home and foreign royalties.

Of course there were others, the select few who would be referred to in the columns of the Morning Star or the Talk of the Town with charming familiarity as Lord Algy Fitznoodle, or Miss Baby Tomkins, or simply as Lady Poots or Lord Tim.

"While I was chatting with Lady Poots, etc."

"Lady Vi Dartmouth, with her beautiful hair shingled, etc. etc."

"The Marchioness of Flint came with her girls, etc."

All of which Peter knew by intuition would be vastly interesting to the suburban little madams who read Talk of the Town in this world of unrealities, that the puppets named Miss Baby or Lady Vi, would not think of being absent from the Five Arts' Ball. It was the acme of smartness, of Bohemian smartness, that is to say: the smartness of Chelsea and fashionable studios, which is so much smarter than the smartness of Mayfair.

And Peter-a kind of disembodied Peter-watched the throng. Ye gods! what a motley and a medley!

Polychromatic and kaleidoscopic, iridescent and prismatic, ceaselessly on the move, mercurial, restless, ever stirring, fluttering fans, fingering clothes, adjusting coiffures, lapels, frills, hair-ornaments and feathers! And talking! Talking incessantly, with voices hard and high-pitched trying to rise above other voices that were harder and higher of pitch. Dazzling to eye and ear; exciting to nerves and sense, the atmosphere and mixture of odours: of powders, cosmetics, perfumes, heat, gas, and a score of other indefinable scents.

The picture quite brilliant; not without touches of unconscious humour: Marie Antoinette flirting with Robespierre, Russian moujik in familiar converse with a jewelled Catherine, Queen Elizabeth condescending to pre-historic man. And then Pierrots, Pierrots everywhere, of every conceivable motley and shape. Blue Pierrots and yellow Pierrots! white or black, purple with orange frills, and orange with purple frills, black skull caps and tall white peaks. Pierrots of satin, and Pierrots of gingham! Cool and active! Ye gods! how active! Bohemian smartness, it seems, demanded that its Pierrots should be bright and amusing and active.

From his point of vantage on the floor of the hall Peter scanned the semicircle of boxes where sat more puppets, hundreds of them, watching the thousands down below.

What was the good of them? Peter thought. Why has God made them? What use were they in his new world which some wanton sprite had fashioned in opposition to the Creator? They fluttered their fans, they laughed, they jabbered, and did not seem to know that they, just like Peter, had become unreal and disembodied at the precise moment when Rosemary Fowkes promised to become Jasper Tarkington's wife.

And then suddenly the puppets all faded away. The new world ceased to be, there was no hall, no dancing, no music, no more puppets, no more Pierrots. There was only Rosemary, and she came up to Peter and said quite gaily, naturally, in a voice that belonged to the old world, not the new:

"Won't you ask me to dance, Peter?"

After that-well, dancing permits, necessitates, holding the partner in one's arms. And Peter danced with Rosemary.

CHAPTER II

Lady Orange always had a box for the big functions at the Albert Hall. It was chic, it was right and it was convenient. It gave her an opportunity of entertaining distinguished foreigners de passage in London in a manner that was both original and expensive.

Lady Orange prided herself on her internationalism, and delighted to gather distinguished foreigners about her; members and attaches of minor embassies invariable graced her dinner parties. She often referred to her attainments as "bi-lingual," and in effect she spoke French with a perfect Geneva accent. She thought it bon ton to appear bored at every social function except those which took place at her house in Belgrave Square, and now when a procession made up of bedizened unities marched in double file past her box she remarked languidly:

"I think they show a singular lack of imagination. One would have thought Chelsea artists would have invented something unique, picturesque for themselves."

"They only thought of comfort, perhaps. But it is they who gave the impetus to the imagination of others. Not?"

The man who sat next to Lady Orange spoke with certain gestures of hands and arms that would have proclaimed him a foreigner ever apart from his appearance-the somewhat wide expanse of white waistcoat, the ultra-smart cut of his evening clothes, the diamond ring on his finger. He had large, mellow dark eyes, which he used with great effect when he spoke to women, and full lips half-concealed under a heavy black moustache. He had a soft, rich voice, and spoke English with that peculiar intonation which is neither Italian nor Slav, but has the somewhat unpleasant characteristics of both; and he had large, well-shaped, podgy hands all covered with a soft dark down that extended almost to his finger-tips.

Lady Orange, who had pale, round eyes and arched eyebrows that lent to her face a perpetual look of surprise, gazed intelligently about her.

"Ah, oui!" she sighed vaguely. "Vous avez raison!"

She would have liked to continue the conversation in French, but General Naniescu was equally determined to speak English.

As Lady Orange was going to Bucharest shortly, and desired an introduction to august personages there, she thought it best to humour the general's whim.

"How well you express yourself in our barbarous tongue, M. le General!" she said kindly.

"Ah, madame," the general replied, with an expressive shrug, "we in our country are at such disadvantage in the social life of great cities like London and Paris, that we must strive to win our way by mastering the intricacies of language, so as to enable us to converse freely with the intelligentsia of the West who honour us by their gracious acceptance."

"You are a born courtier, Monsieur le General," Lady Orange rejoined with a gracious smile. "Is he not, ma chere?" And with the edge of her large feather fan she tapped the knees of an elderly lady who sat the other side of M. le General.

"Oh, Mademoiselle Fairfax was not listening to my foolish remarks," General Naniescu said, turning the battery of his mellow eyes on the somewhat frumpish old maid.

"No," Miss Fairfax admitted drily. "Monsieur de Kervoisin here on my left was busy trying to convert me to the dullness of Marcel Proust. He is not succeeding."

"Ah!" exclaimed Naniescu suavely, "you English ladies! You are so intellectual and so deliciously obstinate. So proud of your glorious literature that even the French modernists appear poor in your sight."

"There, you see, ma chere," Lady Orange put in with her habitual vagueness, "always the courtier."

"How can one help being a courtier, dear lady, when for hours one is thrown in a veritable whirlpool of beauty, brilliance and wit? Look at this dazzling throng before us," the general went on, with a fine sweep of his arm. "The eyes are nearly blinded with its magnificence. Is it not so, my dear Kervoisin?"

This last remark he made in French, for M. de Kervoisin spoke not a word of English. He was a small, spare man, with thin grey beard neatly trimmed into a point, and thin grey hair carefully arranged so as to conceal the beginnings of baldness. Around his deep-set grey eyes there was a network of wrinkles; they were shrewd, piercing eyes, with little, if any, softness in them. M. de Kervoisin, whose name proclaimed him a native of Brittany, was financial adviser to a multiplicity of small, newly created states, all of whom were under the tutelage of France. His manner was quiet and self-effacing when social or political questions were on the tapis, and he only appeared to warm up when literature or the arts were being discussed. He fancied himself as a Maecenas rather than a financier. Marcel Proust was his hobby for the moment, because above all things he prided himself on modernity, and on his desire to keep abreast of every literary and artistic movement that had risen in the one country that he deemed of intellectual importance, namely his own.

For the moment he felt vaguely irritated because Miss Fairfax-a seemingly unpretentious and socially unimportant elderly female-refused to admit that there was not a single modern English prose writer that could compare with Proust. To the general's direct challenge he only replied drily.

"Very brilliant indeed, my good Naniescu; but you know, I have seen so much in my day that sights like these have no longer the power to stir me."

"I am sorry for you," Miss Fairfax retorted with old-maidish bluntness. "I have been about the world a good deal myself, but I find it always a pleasure to look at pretty people. Look at Rosemary Fowkes now," she went on, addressing no one in particular, "did you ever in all your life see anything so beautiful?"

She made lively little gestures of greeting, and pointed to a couple on the dancing-floor below. Lady Orange turned her perpetually surprised gaze in that direction and General Naniescu uttered an exaggerated cry of admiration. Even M. de Kervoisin appeared interested.

"Who is the lady?" he asked.

"She is Rosemary Fowkes," Miss Fairfax said, "one of the most distinguished-"

"Ah! I entreat you, mademoiselle, tell us no more," the general exclaimed with mock protest; "a lovely woman needs no other label but her own loveliness. She is distinguished amongst all because she is beautiful. What else should a woman be when she is the finest work the Creator ever produced-an enchantress?"

"Well." Miss Fairfax rejoined drily, "I would scold you, general, for those lyrical effusions if they were intended for anybody else. Pretty women are usually silly, because from childhood upwards they have been taught to use their intellect solely for purposes of self-contemplation and self-admiration. But Rosemary Fowkes is an exception. She is not only beautiful, but brilliantly clever. Surely you remember those articles in the International Review on the subject of 'The Evils of Bureaucracy in the Near East'? They were signed 'Uno,' and many doubted at the time that the writer was a woman, and a young one at that."

"Uno?" General Naniescu exclaimed, and threw a significant glance at M. de Kervoisin, who in his turn uttered an astonished "Ah!" and leaned over the edge of the box in order to take a closer view of the lady under discussion.

CHAPTER III

Indeed no lyrical effusion would seem exaggerated if dedicated to Rosemary Fowkes. She was one of those women on whom Nature seemed to have showered every one of her most precious gifts. There are few words that could adequately express the peculiar character of her beauty. She was tall, and her figure was superb; had hair the colour of horse-chestnuts when first they fall out of their prickly green cases, and her skin was as delicately transparent as egg-shell china; but Rosemary's charm did not lie in the colour of her hair or the quality of her skin. It lay in something more undefinable. Perhaps it was in her eyes. Surely, surely it was in her eyes. People were wont to say they were "haunting," like the eyes of a pixie or of a fairy. They were not blue, nor were they green or grey, but they were all three at times, according as Rosemary was pleased or amused or thoughtful; and when she was pleased or amused she would screw up those pixie eyes of hers, and three adorable little lines that were not wrinkles would form on each side of her nose, like those on the nose of a lion cub.

Her chestnut-coloured hair lay in luscious waves over her forehead and round her perfectly shaped little head, and when she smiled her small white teeth would gleam through her full, parted lips.

Eschewing the fantastic pierrot costumes of the hour, rosemary Fowkes was dressed in a magnificent Venetian gown of the fifteenth century, the rich crimson folds of which set off her stately figure as well as the radiant colouring of her skin and hair. She wore a peculiarly shaped velvet cap, the wings of which fastened under her chin, thus accentuating the perfect oval of the face and the exquisite contour of forehead and cheeks.

"A woman so beautiful has no right to be clever," General Naniescu remarked with an affected sigh. "It is not fair to the rest of her sex."

"Miss Fowkes is certainly very gifted," Lady Orange remarked drily, her enthusiasm apparently being less keen on the subject of Rosemary than that of Miss Fairfax.

"And who is the happy man," M. de Kervoisin put in in his dry, ironic tone, "with whom the enchantress is dancing?"

"Peter Blakeney," Miss Fairfax replied curtly.

"Qui ça, Peter Blakeney?"

"Peter Blakeney, Peter Blakeney! He does not know who is Peter Blakeney!" Lady Orange exclaimed, and for this supreme moment she departed from her habitual vagueness of attitude, whilst her glance became more markedly astonished than before.

Two or three young people who sat at the back of the box tittered audibly, and gazed at the foreigner as if he were indeed an extraordinary specimen lately presented to the Zoo.

"Remember, dear lady," General Naniescu put in, wholly unperturbed by the sensation which his friend's query had provoked, "that M. de Kervoisin and I are but strangers in your wonderful country, and that no doubt it is our want of knowledge of your language that causes us to seem ignorant of some of your greatest names in literature or the Arts."

"It is not a case of literature or the Arts, mon cher general," Lady Orange condescended to explain. "Peter Blakeney is the finest cover-point England ever had."

"Ah! political sociology?" M. de Kervoisin queried blandly.

"Political what?"

"The Secret Points, no doubt you mean, dear lady?" the general went on, politely puzzled. "Advanced Communism, what? M. Blakeney is then a disciple of Lenin?"

"I don't know what you are talking about," Lady Orange sighed. "Peter Blakeney is the finest cricketer Eton and Oxford have ever produced."

"Cricket!" exclaimed the general, while M. de Kervoisin uttered a significant "Ah!"

There was a moment of quite uncomfortable silence. Naniescu was thoughtfully stroking his luxurious moustache, and a gentle, indulgent smile hovered round the thin lips of M. de Kervoisin.

"It is interesting," Naniescu said suavely after a moment or two, "to see two such world-famous people given over to the pleasure of the dance."

"They are excellent dancers, both of them," Lady Orange assented placidly, even though she had a vague sense of uneasiness that the two foreigners were laughing surreptitiously at something or at her.

"And we may suppose," the general continued, "that a fine young man like Mr. Blakeney has some other mission in life than the playing of cricket."

"He hasn't time for anything else," came in indignant protest from a young lady with shingled hair. "He plays for England, in Australia, South Africa, all over the world. Isn't that good enough?"

"More that enough, dear lady," assented Naniescu with a bland smile. "Indeed, it were foolish to expect the greatest-what did you call him?-secret point to waste his time on other trifling matters." "Cover-point, mon general," Lady Orange suggested indulgently, whilst the young people at the back broke into uproarious mirth. "Cover-point, not secret."

"Peter Blakeney rowed two years in the 'Varsity eights," one of the young people interposed, hot in the defence of a popular hero. Then he added with characteristic English shamefacedness when subjects of that sort are mentioned, "And he got a V.C. in the war."

"He is a jolly fine chap, and ever so good-looking," rejoined the pretty girl with the shingled hair. She shot a provocative glance in the direction of the two ignorant dagoes who had never even heard of Peter Blakeney, and then she added, "He couldn't help being jolly and fine and all that, as he is the great-grandson--"

"No, kid, not the great-grandson," broke in one of her friends.

"Yes, the great-grandson," the young girl insisted.

There was a short and heated argument, while General Naniescu and M. de Kervoisin looked courteously puzzled. Then Miss Fairfax was appealed to.

"Miss Fairfax, isn't Peter Blakeney the great-grandson of the 'Scarlet Pimpernel'?"

And Miss Fairfax, who knew everything, settled the point.

"Peter," she said, "is the great-grandson of Jack Blakeney, who was known as the Little Pimpernel, and was the Scarlet Pimpernel's eldest son. In face and in figure he is the image of that wonderful portrait by Romney of Sir Percy Blakeney."

"Hurrah for me!" exclaimed the one who had been right whilst the pretty girl with the shingled hair threw a glance at the handsome Roumanian which conveyed an eloquent "So there!"

General Naniescu shrugged amiably.

"Ah!" he said, "now I understand. When one gets the youth of England on the subject of its Scarlet Pimpernel, one can only smile and hold one's tongue."

"I think," Miss Fairfax concluded, "that Peter is the best-looking and the best-dressed man in the hall to-night."

"You stab me to the heart, dear lady," the general protested with mock chagrin, "though I am willing to admit that the descendant of your national hero has much of his mother's good looks."

"Did you know Mrs. Blakeney, then?"

"Only by sight and before her marriage. She was a Hungarian lady of title, Baroness Heves," General Naniescu replied, with a shrug that had in it a vague suggestion of contempt. "I guessed that our young cricket player was her son from the way he wears the Hungarian national dress."

"I was wondering what that dress was," Lady Orange remarked vaguely, thankful that the conversation had drifted back to a more equable atmosphere. "It is very picturesque and very becoming."

"And quite medieval and Asiatic, do you not think so, dear lady? The Hungarian aristocrats used to go to their Court dressed in that barbaric fashion in the years before the war."

"And very handsome they must have looked, judging by Peter Blakeney's appearance to-night."

"I knew the mother, too," Miss Fairfax remarked gently; "she was a dear."

"She is dead, then?" M. de Kervoisin asked.

"Oh, yes, some years ago, my dear friend," the general replied. "It was a tragic story, I remember, but I have forgotten its details."

"No one ever knew it over here," was Miss Fairfax's somewhat terse comment, which seemed to suggest that further discussion on the subject would be unwelcome.

General Naniescu, nevertheless, went on with an indifferent shrug and that same slightly contemptuous tone in his voice. "Hungarian women are most of them ill-balanced. But by your leave, gracious ladies, we will not trouble our heads any longer with that man, distinguished though his cricket-playing career may have been. To me he is chiefly interesting because he dances in perfect harmony with Venus Aphrodite."

"Whose Vulcan, I imagine, he would gladly be," M. de Kervoisin remarked with a smile.

"A desire shared probably by many, or is the one and only Vulcan already found?"

"Yes, in the person of Lord Tarkington," Miss Fairfax replied.

"Qui ça Lord Tarkington?" the general queried again.

"You are determined to know everything, mon cher general," Lady Orange retorted playfully.

"Ah, but Mademoiselle Fairfax is such a wonderful encyclopedia of social science, and since my attention has been purposefully drawn to Aphrodite, my curiosity with regard to Vulcan must be satisfied. Mademoiselle, I beg you to tell me all about him."

"Well," Julia Fairfax resumed good-humouredly, "all I can tell you is that Jasper Tarkington is one of the few rich peers left in England; and this is all the more remarkable as his uncle, the late Lord Tarkington, was one of the poorest. Nobody seems to know where Jasper got his money. I believe that he practically owns one of the most prosperous seaside towns on the South Coast. I forget which. Anyway, he is in a position to give Rosemary just what she wants and everything that she craves for, except perhaps--"

Miss Fairfax paused and shrugged her thin shoulders. Taunted by General Naniescu, she refused to complete the sentence she had so tantalizingly left half spoken.

"Lord Tarkington is a great friend of your country, General Naniescu," she said abruptly. "Surely you must know him?"

"Tarkington?" the general mused. "Tarkington? I ought to remember, but--"

"He was correspondent for the Daily Post at the time that your troops marched into Hungary in 1919."

"Surely you are mistaken, dear lady. Tarkington? I am sure I should remember the name. My poor misjudged country has so few friends in England I should not be likely to forget."

"Lord Tarkington only came into the title on the death of his uncle a year ago," Lady Orange condescended to explain.

"And he was called something else before that," the general sighed affectedly. "Ah, your English titles! Another difficulty we poor foreigners encounter when we come to your wonderful country. I knew once an English gentleman who used to come to Roumania to shoot with a friend of mine. He came four times in four years and every time he had a different name."

"Delicieux!" Lady Orange murmured, feeling that in this statement the Roumanian general was paying an unconscious tribute to the English aristocracy. "Do tell me who it was, mon cher general ."

"I cannot exactly tell you who he was, kind lady. When first I knew the gentleman he was Mr. Oldemarsh. Then somebody died and he became Lord Henly Oldemarsh. The following year somebody else died and he was Viscount Rawcliffe, and when last I saw him he was the Marquis of Barchester. Since then I have lost sight of him, but I have no doubt that when I see him he will have changed his name again."

"Vous etes vraiment delicieux, mon cher," Lady Orange exclaimed, more convinced than ever that there was only one aristocracy in the whole of Europe, and that was the English. "No wonder you were puzzled."

She would have liked to have entered on a long dissertation on a subject which interested her more than any other-a dissertation which would have embraced the Domesday Book and the entire feudal system; but Naniescu and Miss Fairfax were once more discussing Rosemary Fowkes and her fiancé.

"I suppose," the Roumanian was saying, "that Lord Tarkington has given up journalism altogether now?"

"I don't know," Miss Fairfax replied. "Lord Tarkington never talks about himself. But Rosemary will never give up her work. She may be in love with Jasper for the moment, but she is permanently enamoured of power, of social and political power, which her clever pen will always secure for her, in a greater degree even than Tarkington's wealth and position."

"Power?" the general said thoughtfully. "Ah, yes. The writer of those articles in the International Review can lay just claim to political power. They did my unfortunate country a good deal of harm at that time, for they appeared as a part of that insidious propaganda which we are too proud, and alas! also too poor, to combat adequately. Over here in England people do not appear to understand how difficult it is to subdue a set of rebellious, arrogant people like the Hungarians, who don't seem to have realized yet that they have lost the war."

Lady Orange gave a little scream of horror.

"Pour l'amour de Dieu," she exclaimed, "keep away from politics, mon cher general."

"A thousand pardons, gracious friend," he retorted meekly, "the sight of that lovely lady who did my poor country so much harm brought words to my tongue which should have remained unspoken in your presence."

"I expect you would be interested to meet Rosemary," said the practical Miss Fairfax, with her slightly malicious smile. "You might convert her, you know."

"My only wish would be," General Naniescu replied with obvious sincerity, "to make her see the truth. It would indeed be an honour to pay my devoirs to the lovely 'Uno'."

"I can arrange that for you easily enough," rejoined Lady Orange.

She leaned over the edge of the box, and with that playful gesture which seemed habitual to her she tapped with her fan the shoulder of a man who was standing just below, talking to a friend.

"When this dance is over, George," she said to him, "tell Rosemary Fowkes to come into my box."

"Tell her that a distinguished Roumanian desires to lay his homage at her feet," Miss Fairfax added bluntly.

"Do you think Sir George will prevail on the divinity?" the general asked eagerly.

Just then the dance was over, the coloured musicians ceased to bawl, and there was a general movement and confusion down below through which Sir George Orange, ever obedient to his wife's commands could be seen vainly striving to find a beautiful needle in a tumbled and unruly haystack. He came back to the side of his wife's box after a while.

"I can't find her," he said apologetically. "She has probably gone to get an ice or something. Tarkington was also looking for her."

"Well," said Lady Orange placidly, turning her surprised gaze on General Naniescu, "suppose you and M. de Kervoisin take us up to supper in the meanwhile. We'll capture Rosemary later, I promise you."

The party in the box broke up. The young people went downstairs to dance whilst the two foreigners gallantly escorted the elderly ladies up innumerable flights of stairs to a cold and cheerless upper story, where an exceedingly indigestible supper washed down with salad dressing and coloured soda-water was served to Pierrots, Marie Antoinettes, Indian squaws, and others who crowded round the tables and fought eagerly for unwashed forks and glasses of doubtful cleanliness.

The Five Arts' Ball was indeed a huge success.

CHAPTER IV

"Would you like anything?" Peter Blakeney asked of his partner while he steered her clear of the crowded dancing floor.

"I am rather thirsty," Rosemary replied, "but I could not stand that awful supper upstairs."

"Well, look here," he urged, "you slip into one of the empty boxes and I'll forage for you."

They found a box on the upper tier, the occupants of which had probably gone off to supper. Rosemary sat down and pulled the curtain forward; thus ensconced in a cosy corner of the box she drew a contented little sigh, glad to be in the dark and alone. Peter went to forage and she remained quite still, gazing-unseeing-on the moving crowd below. She was hot and felt rather breathless, her chestnut hair, below the velvet cap, clung against her forehead, and tiny beads of moisture appeared round the wings of her delicately modelled nose. The last dance had been intoxicating. Peter was a perfect dancer. Rosemary sighed again quite involuntarily: it was a little sigh of regret for those golden minutes that had gone by all too rapidly. Jasper, she reflected, would never make a dancer, but he would make a kind, considerate, always thoughtful husband. The kindest husband any woman could wish for.

Her eyes now sought the dancing floor more insistently. She had just become aware of Jasper's tall figure moving aimlessly amidst the crowd. Dear, kind Jasper! He was looking for her, of course. Always not physically and actually, then with his thoughts, trying to find her, to understand her, to guess at an unspoken wish.

"Dear, kind Jasper," Rosemary sighed and closed her eyes, in order to shut out that sudden glimpse she had just had of Jasper's anxious gaze scanning the crowd-in search of her. She pulled the curtain an inch or two farther forward, pushed back her chair deeper into the shadow.

Peter returned, carrying a bottle of champagne and a tumbler.

"Will this do?" he asked, and busied himself with the cork.

"Delicious," she replied, "but what about you?"

"Me?"

"Yes; you have only brought one glass."

"The only one I could get. There's a regular fight up there for crockery."

She laughed. "It must be horrible up there." She exclaimed.

"Dante's Inferno," he assented laconically.

He filled the glass till the froth bubbled over and then gave it to her to drink, which she did with delight.

"Lovely," she exclaimed.

He watched her as she screwed up her eyes and those tantalizing little lines appeared at the sides of her nose.

"I hear you did splendidly at Lord's this afternoon, Peter," she said. "There's a wonderful article about you in the Evening Post."

Then she held the glass out to be refilled. "Your turn next," she said.

"Won't you have some more?"

"Not just now, thank you."

He put the bottle down on the floor, then put out his hand to take the glass from her. As he did so his fingers closed over hers. She tried to withdraw her hand, and it the brief struggle the glass fell between them and was smashed to smithereens.

"Our one and only glass," Rosemary exclaimed. "Please, Peter," she went on with a nervous little laugh, "will you release my hand?"

"No," he replied, and increased the pressure on her struggling fingers. "I have often been allowed to hold your hand before. Why not now?"

She shrugged her shoulders and ceased to struggle.

"Am I never to be allowed to hold your hand again?" he insisted.

But her head now was turned away; she was apparently deeply interested in the crowd below.

"Oh, Peter," she exclaimed lightly, "do look at Mrs. Opert in that girlish 1840 costume. Did you ever see anything more ludicrous? Do look at her huge feet in those wee sandals. There's Jimmy Ransome talking to her now-"

Again she tried to withdraw her hand and still he held her fast. She turned to him with a frown.

"Peter," she said, "if you are going to be foolish, I'll go."

"What do you call being foolish?" he retorted. "Holding your hand? I held you in my arms just now while we danced."

"I call it being foolish, Peter," she retorted coolly. "Would you rather I called it disloyal?"

"You are too clever to do that, Rosemary," he rejoined, "disloyalty being so essentially a feminine attribute."

"Peter!"

"Oh, I know! I know!" he went on, quite slowly, and then suddenly released her hand. "Presently you will be Jasper's wife, the wife of my best friend. And if I happen to hold your hand just one instant longer than convention permits I shall be called disloyal, a cad-any ugly word that takes your fancy or the moment. So I must become less than a friend-less than a distant cousin-I must not hold your hand-the others may-I may not. They may come near you, look into your eyes-see you smile-my God! Rosemary, am I never to look into those glorious eyes of yours again?"

For a moment it seemed as if she was going to give him a direct answer, a soft flush rose to her cheeks, and there was a quick intake of her breath as if words would tumble out that she was determined to suppress. The struggle only lasted for a second. The next she had thrown back her head and burst into a peal of laughter.

"Why, Peter," she exclaimed, and turned great, serious eyes upon him, "I never knew before that you read Browning."

Her laugh had half sobered him. But evidently he had not grasped her meaning, for he frowned and murmured puzzled: "Browning?"

"Why, yes," she said gaily. "I forgot exactly how it goes, but it is something like this: 'I will hold your hand, just as long as all may, Or so very little longer.'"

He made no sign that her flippancy had hurt him; he sat down beside her, his hands clasped between his knees.

"Why should you hate me so, Rosemary?" he asked quietly.

"Hate you, my dear Peter?" she exclaimed. "Whatever put that quaint notion into your head? The heat must have been too much for you this afternoon. You never will wear a cap."

"I know that I am beneath contempt, of course," he insisted, "but when one despises a poor creature like me, it seems wanton cruelty just to kick it."

"I did not mean to hurt you, Peter," Rosemary rejoined more gently, "But when you are trying to talk nonsense, I must in self-defence bring you back to sanity."

"Nonsense? Would to God I could talk nonsense, act nonsense, live nonsense. Would to God my poor brain did refuse to take in the fact that you have promised to become Jasper's wife, and that I like a fool, have lost you for ever."

"Lost me, Peter?" she retorted, with just the faintest tremor of bitterness in her voice. "I don't think you ever sought me very seriously, did you?"

"I have loved you, Rosemary," Peter Blakeney said very slowly and very deliberately, "from the first moment I set eyes on you."

Then, as the girl shrugged her shoulders with an obvious attempt at indifference, he said more insistently: "You knew it, Rosemary."

"I know that you often said so, Peter," she replied coldly.

"You knew it that night on the river when you lay in my arms just like a lovely pixie, with your haunting eyes closed and your lips pressed to mine. You knew it then, Rosemary," he insisted.

But now she would no longer trust herself to speak. She had drawn herself farther back within the shadows. All that Peter could see of her was the exquisite oval of her face like a cameo carved against the dark, indefinite background. Her eyes he could not see, for they were veiled by the delicate, blue-veined lids, but he had a glimpse of her breast like mother-of-pearl, and of her small hand clinging tightly to the protecting curtain. The rest of her, swathed in the rich folds of her brocaded gown, was merged in the shadows, her auburn hair hidden by the velvet cap. Just by looking at her face, and on that clinging hand, he knew that everything within her was urging her to flee, was warning her not to listen, not to allow her memory to recall that wonderful night in June, on the river, when the tall grasses bending to the breeze, and a nightingale in the big walnut tree sang a lullaby to its mate. Intuitively he knew that she wished to flee, but that a certain something held her back, forced her to listen-a certain something that was a spell, an enchantment, or just the arms of her sister-pixies that clung around her and would not let her go.

"Don't let us talk about the past, Peter," she murmured at last involuntarily, with a pathetic note of appeal in her voice.

"I mean to talk about it, Rosemary," he retorted quietly, "just this once more. After that I will fall out of your life. You can cast me out and I will become one of the crowd. I won't even take your hand, I will try not to see you, not even in my dreams. Though every inflection of your voice makes my bones ache with longing, I shall try not to listen. Just now I held you while we danced; you never once looked at me, but I held you closer than any man ever held woman before. I held you with my soul and heart and body-just now and for the last time. And though you never looked at me once, Rosemary, you allowed me to hold you as I did-not your body only, but your soul-and whilst we danced and your sweet breath fanned my cheek you belonged to me as completely as you did that night on the river, even though you have pledged your word to Jasper. Though why you did that," he added, with a quaint change of mood, "God alone knows."

"Jasper wants me," she murmured. "He loves me. He sets me above his ambition-"

Peter Blakeney gave a harsh, mirthless laugh.

"Dear old Jasper," he said, "even he would laugh to hear you say that. Ambition! There's no room for ambition in the scheme of Jasper's life. How can a man be ambitious when all the beneficent genii of this world presided at his birth and showered gifts into his lap? It is we, poor devils, who have ambitions-and see them unfulfilled."

"Ambitions which you set above your love, above everything," Rosemary broke in, and turned to look him straight in the eyes. "You talk of love, Peter," she went on with sudden vehemence, while the sharp words came tumbling out at last as if from the depths of her overburdened heart. "What do you know of love? You are quite right, I did lay in your arms that night, loving you with my whole being, my soul seeking yours and finding it in that unforgettable kiss. My God! How I could have loved you, Peter! But you? What were your thoughts of me the next day, and the next day after that, whilst I waited in suspense which turned to torture for a word from you that would recall that hour? What were your thoughts? Where were you? I was waiting for you at the Lascelles as you had promised you would come over from Oxford the very next day. You did not come-not for days-weeks--"

"Rosemary!"

"Not for days-weeks--" she insisted, "and I waited for a sign-a letter--"

"Rosemary, at the time you understood!"

"I only understood," she retorted with cold irony, "that you blamed yourself for having engaged my young affections-that you had your way to make in the world before you could think of asking a girl to share your poverty-and so on-and so on-every time we met-and in every letter you wrote-whilst I--

"Whilst you did not understand, Peter," she went on more calmly. "Whilst you spoke of the future, of winning fame and fortune--"

"For you, Rosemary!" he cried involuntarily, and buried his head in his hands. "I was only thinking of you--"

"You were not thinking of me, Peter, or you would have known that there was no poverty or toil I would not gladly have shared with the man I loved."

"Yes! poverty-toil-on an equal footing. Rosemary; but you were rich, famous: already you had the world at your feet--"

"And you did not care for me enough, Peter," she said with a note of fatality in her voice, "to accept wealth, comfort, help in your career from me--

"Peter Blakeney the cricketer," he declaimed with biting sarcasm; "don't you know, he is the husband of Rosemary Fowkes now. What a glorious career for a man, eh, to be the husband of a world-famous wife?"

"It would only have been for a time," she protested.

"A time during which youth would have flown away on the wings of life, taking with it honour, manhood, dignity--"

"And love?"

"Perhaps."

There was silence between them after that. The last word had been spoken, the immutable word of Fate. Peter still sat with his head buried in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees-a hunched up figure weighed down by the heavy hand of an inexorable past.

Rosemary looked down at the bent head, and there, in the shadow, where no one could save the immortal recorder of sorrows and of tears, a look of great tenderness and of pity crept into her haunting eyes. It was only for a moment. With a great effort of will she shook herself free from the spell that for a while had held possession of her soul. With a deliberate gesture she drew back the curtain, so that her face and figure became all at once flooded with light, she looked down upon the kaleidoscopic picture below: the dusky orchestra had once more begun to belch forth hideous sounds, and hellish screams, the puppets on the dancing floor began one by one to resume their gyrations. Several among the crowd, looking up, saw and recognized Rosemary: she smiled and nodded to them, waved her fan in recognition. She was Rosemary Fowkes once more, the most talked-of woman in England, the fiancée of Jasper Tarkington, queen of her set, admired, adulated, the comet of the past two seasons.

"There's that tiresome George Orange," she said in her coldest, most matter-of-fact tone. "He is making desperate and ludicrous signs. I strongly suspect him of making straight for this box. Shall we try to give him the slip?"

Her quiet voice seemed to act like an anodyne on Peter's jangled nerves. He straightened out his tall figure, quietly pulled the chairs away, to enable her to pass. She, too, rose and prepared to go. It seemed difficult not to say another word, or to look him once more straight in the eyes; and yet to speak words now, after what had just passed between them, seemed more difficult than anything. His hand was on the door handle. The other side of the door people were moving up and down, talking and laughing. Another second or two and she would pass out of his sight-pass out of his life more effectually even than she had done when she gave her word to Jasper Tarkington. Another second. But just then she raised her eyes, and they met his.

"Rosemary!" he said.

She shook her head and smiled gently, ironically perhaps, indulgently also as on a rebuked child.

"I had better go now, Peter," she said quietly. "I feel sure George Orange is on his way to drag me to his wife's box."

Just for another second he did not move.

"It is no use, Rosemary," he said, and in his turn smiled as on something very dear, very precious, wholly unattainable. "It is no use, my dear."

"What is no use, Peter?" she murmured.

"Thinking that all is over."

"In six months' time, if I am alive," she rejoined coolly, "I shall be Jasper Tarkington's wife."

"I know it, dear. Jasper is my friend, and I would not harbour one disloyal thought against him. But you being the wife of an enemy or of my best friend is beside the point. I cannot shut you out of my life, strive how I may. Never. While I am as I am, and you the exquisite creature you are, so long as we are both alive, you will remain a part of my life. Whenever I catch a glimpse of you, whenever I hear the sound of your voice, my soul will thrill and long for you. Not with one thought will I be disloyal to Jasper, for in my life you will be as an exquisite spirit, an idea greater or less than woman. Just you. If you are happy I shall know it. If you grieve, Heaven help the man or woman who caused your tears. I have been a fool; yet I regret nothing. Sorrow at your hands is sweeter than any happiness on earth."

It was quite dark where they stood side by side in this moment of supreme farewell. Each felt the inevitableness of it all-the fatality. Pride on either side had built a barrier between them: honour and loyalty would consolidate it in the future. Too late! Everything was too late!

Peter bent his knee to the ground and slowly raised the hem of her gown to his lips. But Rosemary did not move: for that one instant her limbs had become marble, and in her soul she prayed that her heart, too, might turn to stone.

Then Peter rose and opened the door, and she passed out into the world again.

CHAPTER V

Outside in the corridor Rosemary met Sir George Orange, who claimed her then and there and dragged her willy-nilly to his wife's box. She never looked back once to see what Peter was doing. He had become merged in the crowd, and, anyway, this was the end.

She found herself presently being talked to, flattered, adulated by the distinguished Roumanian who turned the full battery of his mellow eyes and his persuasive tongue upon her, bent on making a breach in the wall of her prejudices and her thinly veiled enmity.

She told no one, not even Jasper, the gist of her conversation with Naniescu. He had put a proposal before her-a proposal which meant work for Rosemary Fowkes-the Uno of the International Review. He had proposed that she should go to Transylvania, study for herself the conditions now prevailing in the territory occupied by Roumania, and publish the result of her studies in the English and American Press. And this was just the sort of work that Rosemary longed for, now, more than at any other time of her life. Naniescu had played his cards well. He had known how to flatter, insidiously, delicately, this popular writer who had captured the public fancy, and whose influence with pen and personality was paramount with a vast section of review and newspaper readers in England. What he had proposed could in no way hurt the most delicate scruples of an over-sensitive conscience, and the proposal came as a veritable godsend to Rosemary at this moment when her whole soul was in a turmoil of remorse, longing, and rebellion. That her love for Peter Blakeney was not dead, she had known well enough all along, but she had little dreamed until this hour how completely it still possessed her, what power his glance, his touch, his nearness still had over her. She had thought of her love as a heap of smouldering ashes, and lo! it had proved itself to be a devastating fire that burned fiercely beneath.

And Peter?

Peter had set the future above the present; his pride above his love, and she, wounded to the quick, had allowed ambition and pride to throw her into Jasper Tarkington's arms. It was all done now. Irrevocably done. But even at the moment when she most bitterly regretted the past, she was resolved to keep her word loyally to Jasper. Sitting beside him in the car that took her home from the Albert Hall ball, she allowed her hand to rest contentedly in his. His arm was round her, and her cheek rested against his shoulder. She did not speak, for she was very tired, but she listened, unshrinking, to the tender words which he whispered in her ear. Dear, kind Jasper! He had thoughts only for her. From the moment when she finally promised that she would be his wife, he had loaded her with delicate attentions and exquisite gifts. Every word he spoke was soothing and restful, so different from Peter's tempestuous outbursts, his unrestrained, passionate eloquence that would leave her limp and bruised, unable to understand his next mood, his sudden indifference to everything save his own future pursuits.

CHAPTER VI

It was only a couple of days later that Rosemary broached to Jasper Tarkington the subject that was uppermost in her mind. She had lunched with him at the Ritz, and they walked together across St. James's Park to her flat in Ashley Gardens It was one of those rare days of June which make of England one of the most desirable countries to be alive in. The air was soft, with just that delicious feeling of moisture in it that gives additional fragrance to the scent of the hawthorn: it vibrated with the multitudinous sounds of bird-song, a twitter and a singing and a whistling that thrilled the ear with their heavenly melodies.

Rosemary Fowkes was very nearly as tall as her fiancée, and Jasper Tarkington had a slight stoop which brought his eyes on a level with hers. Scoffers were wont to say that Tarkington's stoop was nothing but affectation; it certainly was a characteristic of him as is a monocle with some men. His whole appearance was one of super-refinement: he essentially gave the impression of a man who had seen so much of the world that he had become surfeited with it, and thoroughly weary. The weary expression was never absent from his eyes, which were very dark and set rather close together, and though he was quite a young man-still on the right side of thirty-there were a good many lines round them-as well as round his expressive mouth and firm chin. He had slender, beautifully shaped hands which, when he walked, he kept behind his back holding a malacca cane that was adorned with a green tassel. There is no doubt that there was a hint of affectation about Jasper Tarkington's appearance and manner, although in conversation he spoke with true Anglo-Saxon directness. He was always dressed with scrupulous correctness, and affected the Edwardian rather than the ultra-modern modes. On the whole an arresting personality, whose kindly expression attenuated the somewhat harsh Wellingtonian features, and the hard outline of the narrow hatchet face.

Rosemary Fowkes, walking beside him in her irreproachably cut tailor-made looked like a young Diana, radiant with youth and health. Her skin, her eyes, her hair, the jaunty little hat she wore, the trim shoes and neat silk stockings appeared strangely out of harmony with the stooping figure of this disillusioned man of the world, with that vague air of Buckingham Palace about his grey frock coat and silk hat.

It was whilst walking through the park that Rosemary spoke to her fiancé about Naniescu's proposal. Jasper listened attentively and without interrupting her, until she herself paused, obviously waiting for him to speak. Then he said:

"And you have fallen in with General Naniescu's views?"

"Yes!" she replied, after an instant's hesitation. "The whole thing appeals to me very much, and I am flattered by the confidence which the Roumanian Government apparently has in my judgement. And of course," she added, "I am not bound in any way."

"Have you made any definite promises to Naniescu?"

"Not quite definite. I wanted first of all to consult your wishes."

"Oh, my dear!" Tarkington interjected, and for one instant a light of youth and folly illumined his tired eyes. "Did I not promise you when you made me so immeasurably happy that you should be absolutely free to follow your career in whatever manner you choose? I am far too proud of you to wish to hamper you in any way."

"You have always been the dearest, kindest, most considerate creature on God's earth," Rosemary rejoined, and in her eyes there came a look so soft, so tender, so womanly, that the man on whom it fell hardly dared to meet it. "But you are not forgetting, are you, Jasper," she went on earnestly, "that politically we don't always see eye to eye, you and I?"

"So long as we see eye to eye in other things," he said, "what does it matter? When I asked you, my dear, to be my wife, I knew that I would not be mating with a silly doll. I am not fatuous enough to imagine that you would change the trend of your beliefs in order to harmonize them with mine."

Rosemary made no reply for the moment. Probably had they been alone she would have put out her hand and given his a grateful and understanding squeeze. As it was, the tears gathered in her eyes, for Jasper had spoken so naturally, and at the same time so nobly, that her heart was more than ever touched by those splendid qualities in him which his actions and his words were constantly revealing to her. Perhaps she was nearer to being in love with Jasper Tarkington at this hour that she had been since first he asked her to be his wife; and when the glory of this June afternoon, the twittering of birds, the scent of syringa and lilac in the air brought back with nerve-racking insistence memories of Peter's voice and Peter's touch, it was by mentally comparing the character of the two men as she knew them that she succeeded in casting those memories away.

"You are wonderfully good to me, Jasper," she sighed.

"One cannot," he retorted simply, "be good to that which is most precious in life: one can only worship and be grateful. But now tell me something more about your plans. I feel a little bewildered, you know, at the suddenness of them."

"I have not yet made any definite plans," she replied, "and as I told you, I have made no definite promise to General Naniescu. As a matter of fact, I intend writing him a final acceptance or refusal to-night."

"But you incline towards an acceptance?"

"Frankly, yes!"

"That would mean--?" he queried.

"That I start for Budapest within the next few days."

"What about your passport?"

"General Naniescu assured me that he would see to that."

"But you would not stay long in Budapest?"

"No, only a couple of days. I shall go straight on to Transylvania. I have been there before, you know."

"No, I did not know."

"Peter's mother was a great friend of mine. You know I was a motherless kid, and she took me under her wing on many, many occasions. At one time I travelled with her a good deal, and she took me several times with her when she went to Transylvania to stay with her relations. I know them all. They are dears."

"And, of course, they are extraordinarily hospitable over there," Tarkington admitted dryly.

"Hospitable to a fault! Mrs. Blakeney's sister, who is Countess Imrey, was kindness itself to me when I was in Transylvania two years ago for the International. In any case, I should go to her first. The Imreys have a beautiful chateau not far from Kolozsvár."

"I am afraid we must call it Cluj now," Jasper interposed with a smile.

"Yes," Rosemary retorted hotly. "Aren't those little pin-pricks damnable? Changing the name of a city that has been Hungarian for centuries, and that has been the centre of some of the most epoch-making movements in Hungarian history. It is mean and petty! You must admit, Jasper," she insisted, "that it is mean and far more galling to a proud, if conquered, nation than other more tangible deeds of oppression. Why, even the Germans when they took Alsace-Lorraine from France did not re-name their towns!"

Jasper Tarkington smiled at her vehemence.

"Naniescu, I perceive," he said, "has set himself a difficult task."

"He has," she admitted with a merry laugh. "But I left him no illusions on the subject. He knows that at the present moment, and with all the knowledge which-as I reminded him-I gathered at first hand two years ago, I am just as severe a critic of his government as I was then. He, on the other hand, declares that if I will divest myself of every prejudice and go to Transylvania with an open mind, I shall understand that Roumania is acting not only in her own, very obvious, interests, but also in the interests of European peace. Well," Rosemary concluded gaily, "I am going to accept General Naniescu's challenge, and I am going to Transylvania with an open mind. I am to have a perfectly free hand. Not a word in any article I choose to write is to be censored: he declares that he will show me the truth, and nothing but the truth, and that his government is only too ready to accord me every facility for investigation and for placing the case before the British public."

She paused to draw breath after this long peroration. As she walked so freely along, the eyes of many a passer-by were cast with undisguised admiration on the graceful girlish figure, the face aglow with youth and animation, the sparkling eyes, the lips which Nature had so obviously framed for a kiss. Jasper Tarkington said nothing for the moment; when she had finished speaking he sighed, involuntarily perhaps, and his tired eyes took on a still more wearied look. Was it that he felt he could not altogether follow this exquisite woman along the path of ambition which she trod with so youthful a step? Was he just a little too old, a little to blasé, to share all that enthusiasm, that pride, that burning desire to live every moment of the span of life, to fill every hour with deeds and spoken thoughts which would abide when youth had gone?

Who shall say? Jasper Tarkington had never been communicative; his best friends knew little of his life, and though he, too, in his day had used his unquestioned mental gifts for political journalism, he had never been the ardent propagandist that this beautiful apostle of lost causes desired to be. His silence now acted as a slight damper on Rosemary's enthusiasm.

"I am sorry, dear," she said gently. "I always seem to forget that you and I are in opposite camps over this one thing."

"We shan't be that for long," he retorted lightly, "if Naniescu's hopes are fulfilled."

Strangely enough, just as he spoke he saw General Naniescu and M. de Kervoisin, who were entering the park at Queen Anne's Gate as they themselves were coming out of it. The three men raised their hats, and Rosemary gave Naniescu and his friend a pleasant nod.

"I don't think," Tarkington said after a moment of two, "that our friend Naniescu will be very fond of me after this."

"Why?" On the contrary, "he should be grateful that you have not tried to oppose him in any way."

"I am going to oppose him in one way, though," Jasper resumed earnestly. "I don't intend to interfere with his plans or yours, my dear, as I said before; but there is one thing I am going to ask you, Rosemary."

"What is it, dear?" she asked impulsively. "I am so glad you are going to ask me for something. All the giving has been on your side up to now."

"Not so fast, little one. You mayn't be ready to do what I want."

"Is that likely?" she retorted. Then added with gentle earnestness: "There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for you, Jasper."

"Will you marry me," he asked abruptly, "before you go away?"

She did not reply immediately, for in truth she was very much taken aback. Her engagement to Jasper Tarkington was very recent, and up to now he had not once spoken of a definite date for the marriage. She felt herself placed in an awkward position, for the fact that only a few seconds ago she had assured him that there was nothing she would not do for him. And now this request for an immediate marriage. She certainly was not prepared for it. Everything in her urged her to refuse. The memory of that hour in the box at the Albert Hall, her talk with Peter, her realization that Peter still held her heart, still ruled over her thoughts; everything, in fact, except a sense of gratitude urged her to refuse. And yet she could not-not after what she had said, not after all that Jasper Tarkington had done for her. While all these thoughts were whirling in her brain as she walked along, mechanically now, all the spring gone out of her step, something of the joy of living gone out of her spirits, she vaguely heard Jasper's quiet, gentle voice.

"You mean so much to me, Rosemary," he was saying, "that life here in England while you were God knows where, in tribulation, perhaps, perhaps in danger, needing me too, perhaps without knowing it, would be unendurable. I could not do it. I should follow you, anyway, and come as near to you as I dared, yet without the right to look after you as closely as I would wish. Well, my dear, you are far to womanly and kind to inflict such torture upon me. For it would be torture, and I would go under through it all. I don't know if you quite understand, but--"

There was an unusual vibration in his voice; it seemed as if, for once, passion would get the better of his habitual restraint. Tarkington always spoke slowly and directly, but for once words appeared to be failing him. However, just then they turned into Victoria Street, and the noise and bustle of traffic, his meticulous care of Rosemary while they crossed the road, brought him back to the prosiness of life. Nor did he speak again till they had reached the quietude of Ashley Gardens.

"Will you come up?" Rosemary asked, pausing at the entrance of one of the blocks of flats.

He shook his head.

"I think I would like you to think it all over quietly," he said. "I want you to remember that when I am asking you to hurry on our marriage, I only do it because I want to have the right to look after you. I won't interfere with you in any way whatever. I give you my word that as my wife you will be every bit as free as you are now-more so, really, because in that part of Europe a married woman can claim an independence which convention absolutely denies to a girl. In Budapest you will meet people of your own nationality, and of your own set. I could not bear the thought that your loveliness would leave you a ready prey to gossip or malice. There now," he added, with a self-deprecatory smile, "I have said more than I meant to. My first excuse is that you are more than life to me, and as you are so precious, I foresee dangers where perhaps none exist. My second is that I am pleading for my own happiness-I was almost going to say for my life. you are not like other women, Rosemary; you are above the petty conventions of trousseaux and crowded weddings. As soon as I have your answer I will get the special licence and we'll be married in your parish church without fuss and ceremony. So think it over, my dear, and let me have your answer as early to-morrow morning as you can. Remember that I shall scarcely live until I have your answer."

She made no reply; only put out her hand, which he took in his. There was no glove on it, and for a moment it seemed that in spite of passers-by, in spite of the conventional atmosphere of this part of London, he would raise that little hand to his lips. His eyes rested on her with a look of passionate desire; so intense was his gaze that suddenly she felt almost afraid. Rosemary had never seen Jasper's eyes look quite like that. As a rule they were so gentle, sometimes mildly ironical, at others only weary. But now it almost seemed as if, in order to bend her will to his, he was striving to exert some kind of power that was outside himself, as if he had called to his aid forces that would prove more invincible than those that were within him. The spell-it seemed like a spell-only lasted a couple of seconds; the next instant his look had turned to one of infinite tenderness. He patted her hand and reiterated gently:

"Think it over, my dear, when you are alone."

Instantly she felt the tears gathering in her eyes. His gentleness, his tender care of her, appealed to all that was truly womanly in Rosemary Fowkes. Self-reliant, brilliantly clever, independent in thought and actions as she was, she responded all the more readily to a man's desire for the right to protect as well as to cherish. Her independence had found its birth in loneliness. Fatherless, motherless in very early life, she had soon enough shaken herself free from any trammels that well-meaning relations desired to put over her actions. Her genius had consolidated her independence, but it had never stifled those vague longings for submission and self-abnegation which are the sublime satisfaction of a true woman's soul.

After Jasper Tarkington left her, and when she was alone in her flat, Rosemary Fowkes turned to the one thing that had never failed her in the great moments of her life. She turned to prayer. On her knees, and with her heart filled with longing and a sorrow that she dared not face, she prayed for help and for guidance. She had no one to turn to but Him who said with infinite understanding and love: "Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden and I will refresh you."

In the midst of worldly joys, satisfied ambition, hopes for the future and pride in the past, Rosemary Fowkes would to-night have felt desperately lonely and lost in bewilderment before a divided duty-duty to self, duty to Jasper-but for the comfort of prayer, the thought of all that lay beyond this world of ours, a world that is so sordid and petty even at its best.

CHAPTER VII

The next two or three weeks were like a dream for Rosemary Fowkes. She left herself no time to think. The future beckoned to her with enticing arms, holding prospects of activities, of work that would fill the mind to the exclusion of memory. That evening when she rose from her knees, she rose with a resolve, and never for one moment after that did she allow herself an instant of regret. She wrote a line to Jasper to tell him that she would do as he wished; she was prepared to marry him as soon as his own arrangements were completed.

She also wrote to General Naniescu, agreeing to his proposal. She reserved to herself complete freedom of action to send any articles or reports she chose to English or foreign Press; all that she desired from him was a confirmatory letter, promising that nothing she ever wrote would pass through the censor's hands. This he at once sent her. Nothing could be more fair, more straightforward. Rosemary's chivalrous mind responded whole-heartedly to Naniescu's generosity, and the feeling that it would probably be in her power to do real good, not only to individuals but to peoples, acted as a soothing balm upon her bruised heart.

On the other hand, nothing could have exceeded Jasper's kindness and consideration during the days immediately preceding her marriage It almost seemed as if his super-sensitive soul had received a faint inkling of what was going on in Rosemary's mind. Nothing appeared too onerous, no sacrifice too great where Rosemary's comfort and desires were at stake, and at times-such are the contradictions of a woman's nature-she felt almost impatient with him for his magnanimity, almost obsessed by the unselfishness of his love.

She only saw Peter Blakeney once before she and Jasper left for Budapest, and that was on the day of her wedding. By one of those involuntary blunders so peculiar to dim-sighted lovers, Jasper Tarkington had asked Peter to be his best man. What it was that had induced Peter to accept, Rosemary could not conjecture. His impulses had always been strange and unaccountable, and this one was more unaccountable than most. Perhaps he merely wished to pander to his own mad desire to see her once again, perhaps it was just a semi-barbaric instinct in him that pushed him to self-torture. Rosemary by now had sufficient hold over herself to meet him calmly; not one line in her beautiful face, not one look in her haunting eyes, betrayed what she felt, after the wedding ceremony, when she accepted Peter's warmly expressed good wishes for her happiness. Even her sensitive ear could not detect the faintest note of irony or bitterness in his voice. After that he said a few words about the projected journey to Hungary, about which Jasper had spoken to him. She would be seeing his relatives there-the Imreys, the Heves. Elza Imrey was his mother's sister and such a dear, and Philip used to be a jolly boy; but Rosemary knew them all. She knew she would be made very welcome. Peter ended by speaking with great earnestness about his little cousin Anna Heves; her father, who had been Mrs. Blakeney's only brother, was dead, and Peter had an idea that Anna was not altogether happy.

"She has left home for some reason I can't quite fathom," he said, "and lives now at Kolozsvár-I mean Cluj. She writes to me sometimes, and when I know the exact day when you will be in Cluj, I will write and tell her to go and see you. I suppose you will put up at the Pannonia?"

Rosemary nodded and Peter went on talking about little Anna, as he called her. "I know you will be kind to her," he said. "You remember her as a child, of course; in a way she is still a child, and so pretty and enthusiastic. Give her a kiss from me when you see her."

Which Rosemary, of course, promised to do. Then she gave him her hand, without saying anything, for she could not trust herself to speak much, and he kissed it just above the wrist, but more like a knight doing homage to his lady than a lover who gazed, perhaps for the last time, on the woman he worshiped.

It was after the marriage ceremony that the dream-land in which Rosemary had moved these past days became more intangible, more of a spirit-world than before. The brief days in a dreary hotel at Folkestone would have been unendurable but for her state of mind, which almost amounted to semi-consciousness. Then came the weary journey to Budapest, the sleepless night in the train, the awful meals in the crowded, stuffy restaurant-car, the ceaseless rub-a-dub-dub, rub-a-dub-dub of the wheels that bore her away farther-ever farther from that bygone world which had become the might-have-been. And through it all, like a ray of light, so persistent that it ceased to impress, was Jasper's constant, unwearying care of her. He never seemed too tired to minister to her wants, to arrange cushions for her, a footstool, to open or close the window, the thousand and one little attentions, in fact, which most travellers are too self-engrossed to render.

And as Rosemary sat in her corner seat during those two wearisome days gazing out of the window with eyes that failed to take in the beauties of successive landscapes, her mind gradually became at peace with her heart. Her youth, her buoyancy of spirits, reasserted themselves, made her envisage life in all its brightest aspects, as it presented itself before her with cornucopia filled to the brim with all that made it worth the living. Work and a noble mate! What more could heart of woman desire? And Rosemary closed her eyes, and in a quickly fleeting dream sighed for the one thing that would have made her life a paradise, and-still dreaming-she felt hot tears of regret trickle slowly down her cheeks.

She woke to feel Jasper's arms around her and his lips kissing away her tears.

CHAPTER VIII

Budapest had been baking all day under a merciless sun in late July. But at this hour the coolness of a clear moonlit evening sent everyone out of doors. The Corso was crowded.

Rosemary Tarkington, on the terrace of the café sat sipping delicious coffee and lazily watching the throng. Now and then she would look straight out before her, and her eyes would lose all sense of fatigue as she gazed on the incomparable panorama before her: the ornate palace of the Hapsburgs, and the cathedral of St. Matthias, and on the left, towering above all, high upon the rock, the great grim fortress that for over a century had held the Turks at bay and saved Europe from the hordes of Islam. One by one tiny lights began to wink and to blink in the houses that rose tier upon tier on the slopes across the river, whilst down below gaily illuminated boats flitted to and fro upon the turbulent waters of the Danube, carrying a burden of merry-makers home from the shady island of Ste. Marguerite close by. The whole scene before Rosemary's eyes was one of unrivalled picturesqueness and animation. No town in Europe presents quite so enthralling a spectacle, and one whose charm is still further enhanced by the strains of those half-sad, half-voluptuous Hungarian melodies which come to the ear from out the shadows, or from the passing river boats, gentle as a caress, soothing to nerves and senses by their sweet melancholy rhythm, or exhilarating when they break into their peculiarly harmonious syncopated cadences.

Rosemary had specially elected to put up at the Hungaria rather than in one of the more modern, recently built hotels. For her the "Hungaria" was full of associations, of joyous times spent there when she was still a schoolgirl in the days before the war. She had travelled in Hungary and Transylvania under ideal conditions with Mrs. Blakeney, Peter's mother, seeing the best this romantic country had to offer, welcomed always with that large-hearted hospitality peculiar to these kindly people. But memory recalled more strenuous times, too, those in the early days of her journalistic career, when her heart was filled with pity for the sufferings of a proud and ill-starred country, whose fairest lands had been flung like rags by thoughtless politicians as a sop to those who had been her associates in the war until the hour when self-interest prompted them to throw in their lot with the other side.

"You must be very tired, Lady Tarkington," a pleasant voice said close to her elbow.

"Not tired," Rosemary replied, "but rather dazed. The journey over from England is slower and much more fatiguing than it used to be."

Captain and Mrs. Payson were sitting beside her at the table. Recently attached to the British Military Mission in Hungary, Captain Payson and his young wife lived at the "Hungaria." It had been a great pleasure for them to see Rosemary again, whom they had known for several years, and after supper they had all foregathered on the terrace over their coffee. Some few minutes before this Jasper had elected to take a turn on the Corso, to stretch his legs and to smoke a cigar, but Rosemary felt too lazy to move, and she like to talk to the Paysons, who were genial and intellectual, and with whom she had a great deal in common in the way of associations and friends.

"The place has not altered much," Rosemary went on after a while. "The people here are always gay and cheerful-in spite of-of everything."

"Yes," little Mrs. Payson assented lightly. "Give then their music, their delicious wines and perfect cooking, and nine out of ten Hungarians won't care if they are ruled by King or Emperor, by foreign tyrant or Bolshevist ruffian."

"I always think Ruth is wrong when she says that." Captain Payson put in earnestly. "The Hungarians are sportsmen, as we are, and they are taking their punishment like sportsmen. They are not going to let the world see how much they suffer. In that way they are very different from the Germans."

"They behaved with unparalleled folly," Rosemary remarked.

"Yes," the captain retorted, "and with commendable loyalty. The Hungarians are a nation of gentlemen, just as the British. They, like ourselves, are worshippers of tradition. They are royalists in their hearts, almost to a man. Just thing what their feelings must be whenever they look across the river and gaze on that gorgeous palace over there, whence their anointed King has been driven by petty foreign politicians who scarcely knew where Hungary was situated on the map."

Before Rosemary could pursue the subject she caught sight of her husband forging his way towards her between the crowded tables of the terrace.

"Naniescu is down below," Jasper said as soon as he had reached his wife's side. "I told him you were up here, and he said he wished to pay his respects. He is talking to some friends for the moment, but he will be here directly."

"Then Ruth and I had better run," Captain Payson said lightly. "He and I are always on the verge of a quarrel when we meet."

He and his wife rose and took their leave; there was much talking and laughing and promises to meet on the morrow. When they had gone Rosemary said to her husband: "I would rather not have seen General Naniescu to-night. I am very tired, and honestly I don't feel at my best."

"I am so sorry," Jasper replied at once, full of contrition. "I did my utmost to put him off. I knew, of course, that you must be very tired. But he leaves Budapest early to-morrow morning. He is going to Cluj--"

"Cluj?" she asked, puzzled, then laughed lightly. "Oh, ah!" she went on. "I always forget that dear old Kolozsvár is Cluj now."

"Naniescu was anxious to see that our passports were quite in order, and as this is important--"

"You did quite right, dear," Rosemary rejoined gently, "as you always do. I don't suppose the general will keep us long-though he is a terrible talker," she added with a sigh.

A moment or two later the handsome Roumanian came up to Rosemary's table.

"Ah, dear lady," he said, and with habitual elaborate gesture he took her hand and raised it to his lips. "What a joy it is to see that you have fulfilled your promise and that you are here at last."

He sat down at the table but declined Jasper's offer of a liqueur or cup of coffee.

"I am only here for a moment," he said, "Overwhelmed with work and with engagements. But I thought it would save you trouble if I just looked at your passports and saw that they were entirely in order."

"That is more than kind," Rosemary rejoined, whilst Jasper went immediately to fetch the passports. For a moment or two Rosemary remained silent and absorbed. An indefinable something had caused her to shrink when she felt General Naniescu's full lips upon her hand-something hostile and portentous. The next moment this feeling had gone, and she was ready to chide herself for it. Naniescu was earnest, persuasive, elaborately polite in manner and florid of speech just as he had been in London, when first he put his proposal before her, and certainly there was not a hint of anything sinister about him.

"I am looking forward to my visit to Transylvania," Rosemary said quite gaily.

"You will find every official there ready to welcome you, dear lady," Naniescu assured her. "You need only express a wish, to find it met in every possible way. And if you should do me the honour of requiring my personal services, needless to say that I should fly immediately to obey your commands."

Rosemary shrugged her pretty shoulders.

"I don't anticipate any such call upon your valuable time," she said coolly.

"Ah, one never knows. You, dear lady, are going amongst a strange people," he added with a sigh. "People whose supposed grievances have made bitter."

"I have old friends in Transylvania, and will feel as safe with them as I should in my flat in London."

"You will stay the whole time with the Imreys?" the general asked.

"Who told you I was going to stay with them?" she retorted quickly.

"You yourself, dear lady," he replied, unperturbed, "or did I merely make a shrewd guess? Anyway, on that unforgettable evening at the Albert Hall, when first I had the honour of an introduction to you, I saw you dancing with Mr. Blakeney. The Countess Imrey is his mother's sister-you told me that you had friends in Transylvania-the inference surely was obvious. I trust I have not offended you," Naniescu went on in his most mellifluous tone, "by the suggestion."

"No, no," Rosemary replied, already vexed with herself for having unwittingly provoked the Roumanian into one of those elaborate speeches which irritated her and gave her a vague feeling that malicious irony lurked behind so much blandness. "Mrs. Blakeney was a dear friend of mine; she and I travelled a great deal together, and I stayed more than once with the Imreys, not only at Kis-Imre, but in their beautiful house at Kolozsvár."

"Ah, then," the general rejoined, "if you know the house at Cluj, you would-in the scarce probable likelihood of your wishing to command my services-know where to find me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I am living in the Imreys' house now."

"But-how can that be?" Rosemary retorted, somewhat puzzled, for she knew that in this part of Europe the idea of letting their house to strangers would never occur to proud, wealthy people like the Imreys, as it does so readily to those of their caste in England. But when General Naniescu, with an indifferent shrug, replied dryly: "Oh, the house was a great deal too big for the occupation of a small family. On public grounds we cannot allow the many suffer for the whims of a few," Rosemary frowned, no longer puzzled. She felt rather than saw that the Roumanian's dark, mellow eyes rested on her for an instant with a look of quiet mockery. But it was a mere flash. The next moment he was as suave as before, and said with that perfect deference which he had always affected when speaking to her about her work:

"That question, dear lady, will be one which I earnestly hope you will approach with an open mind, and on which your brilliant intellect will, I trust, shed the light of truth."

Jasper's return with the passports brought on a fresh train of thought. Naniescu pronounced them to be in perfect order. He added a special note and signature to the visa which had been obtained from the Roumanian Consul in London. Rosemary was feeling very tired and longed to go to bed, but Naniescu stayed on, talking desultorily to Jasper about politics and social conditions, all matters which Rosemary did not feel sufficiently alert to discuss. Her thoughts wandered away and she scarcely heard what the two men were saying; she was, in fact, just meditating on a polite-form of abrupt leave-taking when something that Naniescu said arrested her attention.

"My Government," the Roumanian was saying, obviously in reply to a remark from Jasper, "is quite alive to the evil wrought by those pernicious articles which appear from time to time in English and American newspapers. . . ."

"Then why doesn't your censor stop them?" Jasper queried bluntly.

"He would, my dear Lord Tarkington," Naniescu rejoined blandly, "he would. But those devils are so astute. How they manage to smuggle their articles through the post I for one cannot for the life of me make out."

"Ah," Rosemary put in with a smile, as quietly ironical as Naniescu's had been a while ago, "you still carry on a strict censorship, then? You do not believe in liberty of speech or of the Press."

"We do, dear lady, indeed we do. But unfortunately the English and American Press are so easily captured by sentimentality. Put a case before them of supposed wrong, however preposterous and palpably false, and they will revel in it, print it with capital head-lines, and so capture the imagination of their sentimental, unthinking readers that these will no longer listen to the voice of reason or of truth. We are too proud-or perhaps not clever enough-to combat such barefaced propaganda; a strict censorship may be a crude weapon, but it is the only one at our command. What would you? A man who is attacked defends himself as best as he can."

"But in this case your weapon is failing you?" Jasper queried in his quiet, incisive way. "Whoever sends those articles to England and America is apparently too clever for you."

"For the moment-yes," Naniescu admitted. "But," he went on more lightly and at last rose to take his leave, "I fear my irresponsible prattle is keeping Lady Tarkington away from the rest she so much needs. Dear lady, pray accept my humble homage, and my earnest wish that your stay in our poor country will afford you all the delight that you anticipate."

He raised Rosemary's hand to his lips with the same show of gallantry that marked his every action in her presence. Just before he finally released it he looked up with deep earnestness into her eyes:

"Let me once more assure you, dear lady, that as far as you are concerned every word you write will be transmitted in its entirety and with all possible speed to its destination. All that you need do is to send your articles and letters in a sealed packet undercover to me. I give you my word of honour that you will be satisfied."

CHAPTER IX

Until the moment of her arrival in Cluj, Rosemary had felt nothing but exhilaration whenever she thought of her work and of the good which she proposed to do, thanks to the facilities so magnanimously accorded her by Naniescu. Just for one moment at Budapest, when she first met the handsome Roumanian, she had been conscious of a slight feeling of mistrust, an instinctive dislike of the man's fluent speech and affected gestures. But on reflection she had persuaded herself that this sudden aversion was bound to arise at first contact with those elaborate manners which pass for gallantry in most of the Latin and Slav countries of Europe. The contrast between Naniescu's exaggerated politeness and Jasper's unobtrusive consideration had naturally reacted on her sensibilities to the detriment of the Roumanian.

Anyway, the sensation soon wore off. She had a very happy time in Budapest. The Paysons were charming; she met several friends, both English and Hungarian, who made her very welcome, and Jasper was, as usual, thoughtfulness itself. The journey across Hungary filled her with that gentle melancholy which those limitless expanses of earth and sky engender in the mind of imaginative people. It was close on harvesting time, and to right and left of the permanent way the great fields of corn stretched out like a sea of ruddy gold to the purple line of the horizon far away. Rosemary loved to gaze on these measureless stretches of country, whereon for mile upon mile nothing showed above the line of waving corn save, at rare intervals, the thatched roof of a tiny homestead peeping from behind a clump of grey-green willow, or an isolated well, with one gaunt arm stretched skywards, around which a herd of young horses had halted for the midday rest. Her eyes followed with loving intensity the winding ribbon of the dust-laden road, bordered by tall, slender poplars or twisted acacia trees, and at intervals the great patches of vivid green amidst the gold, where row upon row of water-melons turned their huge, shimmering carcases to the warmth of the sun.

A faint perfume of heliotrope and mignonette hung in the air, and just for one moment Rosemary's dreamy gaze caught a glimpse of an exquisite mirage on the far distant horizon-a vision of towers and minarets and of a cool, shady stream painted with fairy brush upon the moisture-laden atmosphere. It was a phantom picture that vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but upon the watcher's super-sensitive mind it left in its swift transit an impression as of a magic land, a paradise the gates of which had for one brief second been opened by celestial hands, so that she might glimpse the garden of Eden beyond-the world of happiness and of love which for her must ever remain elusive and unattainable.

The arrival at Cluj was dreary and disappointing. From Budapest she herself had telegraphed to the hotel she knew so well, and had sent a letter at the same time asking the proprietor to have a hot supper ready for herself and Lord Tarkington. The hotel appeared unfamiliar when she stepped out of the little cab which had brought them from the station. The smiling hall-porter who used to greet Mrs. Blakeney with respectful familiarity on arrival was no longer there; an out-at-elbows, ill-dressed, unwashed porter took charge of their luggage. The proprietor, he said, was not in the house, and he himself was in charge of the place. He bluntly explained in broken German that under the new management no meals except early morning coffee were served in the hotel, the restaurant being now under separate ownership. The lady and gentleman could get something to eat there, no doubt.

It was all very cheerless, and to Rosemary very strange. The gay little town of Kolozsvár, usually so full of animation at this late evening hour, seemed already asleep. The streets were ill-lighted; there was an air of desolation and melancholy about this place. The hotel itself had become stuffy, dirty and ill-lighted. The furniture looked dilapidated, the bed-linen was coarse and the rooms none too clean. Rosemary spent a wretched night; but she was a hardened traveller and had before now put up with worse inconveniences that these. There was always the comforting thought that it was the only night that she would spend in Cluj. The next day Count Imrey's carriage and horses (he was not allowed to have a motor-car) would be taking her and Jasper to Kis-Imre, where a big welcome and every conceivable luxury awaited them both.

All that she was waiting for now was to see Anna Heves; little Anna, as Peter called her, the pretty, enthusiastic child to whom Rosemary had promised to give a kiss for Peter's sake. And in the morning, just as Rosemary had finished putting up her hair and slipped into a dressing-gown preparatory to going in to breakfast with Jasper, there was a knock at the door and Anna came in. Sweet, enthusiastic Anna, who gazed at her shyly with Peter's eyes and then smiled with Peter's smile. She would have been pretty, too, but for the unhealthy pallor of her cheeks and the dark rings that circled her eyes-Peter's eyes!

"I am so ashamed, Miss Fowkes," Anna murmured shyly; but at once Rosemary broke in, stretching out her arms:

"Aren't you going to kiss me, Anna?"

With a pathetic little cry the girl ran into Rosemary's arms, and, her head buried on her friend's shoulder, she burst into tears. Rosemary let her cry for a moment of two; her own eyes were anything but dry, for with a quick glance she had taken in the girl's changed appearance, also the shabby clothing, the worn boots, the unmistakable air of grinding poverty and, worse still, of insufficient food. Poor little Anna! If Peter saw her now!

After a few moments the girl raised her head and dabbed away her tears. Rosemary led her to the sofa, made her sit down beside her, and took both her thin little hands in hers.

"To begin with you must not call me Miss Fowkes, Anna," she said. "I was always Rosemary, wasn't I?"

Anna nodded, and a wan little smile struggled round her lips.

"And, you know, I am married now," Rosemary went on. "Hadn't you heard?"

Anna shook her head. She could not yet trust herself to speak.

"Of course," Rosemary said gaily, "how stupid of me. Jasper and I were married very quietly in London, and we are not people of such importance that your Hungarian papers would chronicle the fact. My husband is Lord Tarkington, the best and kindest of men. I'll tell him presently that you are here. He would love to see you."

"No, no, Rosemary dear!" Anna broke in quickly, "don't tell Lord Tarkington that I am here. I-I never see strangers now. You see, I have no decent clothes, and--"

"Jasper would look at your sweet little face, Anna, and never notice your clothes. And you are not going to call my husband a stranger, are you?"

Then, as Anna was silent, and with head bent appeared to be staring into nothingness, Rosemary continued lightly, even though her heart felt heavy at sight of the havoc wrought in this young thing by miseries at which she could still only guess.

"By the way, little 'un," she said, "I don't yet know what you are doing in Kolozsvár-or Cluj-tiresome name, I never can remember it! Your cousin, Peter Blakeney, told me I should find you here, and that he had written to tell you I should be at the Pannonia to-day; but that is all I know. Where is your mother?"

"She is still in Ujlak, of course," the girl replied more calmly, "looking after the place as best she can. But, of course, it is very hard and very, very difficult. They have taken away so much of the land, some of the best pasture, over twelve hundred acres; mother has only about two hundred left. There is not enough for the horses' feed. Mother had to have ten brood mares destroyed this spring. It was no use trying to keep them, and she could not bring herself to sell them. Imagine mother having her mares killed! It would have broken her heart, only she has had so much to endure lately she--"

Once more the girl broke down; a lump in her throat choked the bitter words. Rosemary frowned.

"But, then, why are you not at home with your mother, Anna? she asked.

"I earn a little money here, and Marie is at home. She is younger than I, you remember, and she was always mother's favourite."

"How do you earn money, Anna? At what?"

Anna hesitated for a moment. She looked up and saw Rosemary's eyes fixed questioningly upon her, and those eyes were so full of kindness that the girl's reticence, even her bitterness, melted under the warmth of that gaze.

"I help in the shop of Balog, the grocer," she replied simply.

"Balog, the grocer? You?"

The cry of surprise, almost of horror, had come involuntarily to Rosemary's lips. She thought of Mrs. Blakeney, the exquisite grande dame who, after her marriage to Peter's father, the eminent scientist, had won her position in English society by her charm, her tact and that air of high breeding which is becoming so obsolete these days. She thought of Peter himself, who had inherited so much of his mother's charm and all her high-souled notions of noblesse oblige, of what was due to birth and descent. Did Peter know what little Anna was suffering under this new regime brought about by a treaty of peace that was to bring the millennium to all the peoples of Europe? With a sudden impulse Rosemary put her arms once more round the shrinking little figure.

"Anna," she said earnestly, "I think you are absolutely splendid! I admire your pluck more than I can say. But surely, surely you could find more congenial work than selling groceries!"

She paused a moment, her active brain at once turning to projects that had little Anna's welfare for their aim. Little Anna could not go on selling groceries in an obscure Roumanian town. It was unthinkable! Surely Peter did not know. And how could Rosemary face him with the news that she had found little Anna selling groceries at Cluj?

Something must be done, and quickly, to alter such an awful state of things. While she remained silent, thinking, and Anna, equally silent, fidgeted with long, thin fingers the tassel of her friend's dressing-gown, Rosemary became conscious that Jasper was watching her from the doorway of the next room. How long he had been standing there she did not know. She looked at him over Anna's bent head, and, as usual, she read in his expressive face a divination of her thoughts. It almost seemed as if, with a slight nod of his head, he was actually approving of what she had not yet put into words. Then he stepped back into the other room and quietly closed the door.

"Listen, little one," Rosemary said eagerly. "I am here at the invitation of the Roumanian Government; that is to say, General Naniescu, who, I understand, is military governor of Transylvania, has asked me to come over here and study the conditions, both social and political. I shall be writing several articles for English and American papers, and I simply must have a secretary for my ordinary correspondence, and--"

Anna shook her head.

"I don't know how to type," she said rather curtly, "and I can't do shorthand."

"Neither of which is necessary," Rosemary retorted.

Anna looked her straight in the eyes. "You don't imagine," she said quietly, "that if your articles revealed even a particle of the truth they would ever be allowed to pass the censor, and if they concealed the truth you would not expect my father's daughter to associate herself with them."

"That's a brave patriotic speech, Anna," Rosemary rejoined with a triumphant little laugh, "but you need not be the least afraid. My articles will contain the truth, and the censor will have not power over them. I give you my word."

But Anna was unconvinced.

"Rosemary dear," she said earnestly, "don't think me ungrateful or obstinate. Just imagine what it would mean to me to give up this awful grinding routine that wearies me at times to such an extent that I go into the cathedral and beg and pray to God that I might soon die and escape from it all. But you know, dear, when one's country is as unfortunate as ours has become, one must do one's utmost to help and serve her, mustn't one?"

"Why, of course," Rosemary assented, puzzled by the girl's strange earnestness, the glow of ardent patriotism that all at once emanated from that drooping, slender figure; "but I don't quite see how you are serving your country by selling groceries in Balog's shop."

"No! no! not by that," Anna went on eagerly. "Oh, I know that I can trust you, Rosemary, and you can't imagine what a relief it is to me to have someone to talk to. I have not spoken like this to a soul for nearly two years. And sometimes I feel as if I must choke. But one dare not talk to anyone these days, for government spies are everywhere. You never know who will betray you; the concierge of your house, the woman who washes the stairs, or the beggar to whom you give alms. Oh! I could tell you things---However all of us who are suffering unspeakably under our new tyrants are determined that the outside world shall hear the truth, but there is such a strict censorship that one dare not send anything through the post except what is absolutely banal and meaningless."

The girl paused a moment, her eyes wandered searchingly around the room, rested for an instant first on one door, then on another, as if in fear that those spies whom she so dreaded were lurking behind them, then, satisfied that she was alone with her English friend, whom she knew she could trust, she said abruptly:

"You remember my cousin, Philip Imrey?"

"Of course."

"He always had a great talent for writing. When he was quite a boy he used to write poetry and little stories. He is only nineteen now; next year he will have to do his military service in the Roumanian army, and that is a perfect hell for every Hungarian! Just think, Rosemary, if an Englishman had to serve in the German army! Isn't it unthinkable? But still, that cannot be helped! We are the vanquished race, and we have to pay the price. But we are determined that the nations of the West shall know the truth! So Philip and I, between us, thought of a plan. We thought of it for two years, and it took some time to organize. At last I obtained what I wanted, mother's consent that I should come to Cluj to earn my living, and a post in Balog's grocery shop. Balog sends Transylvanian goods regularly to Budapest: mustard, cheese, vegetable seeds; I have to pack them. Now do you understand?"

Rosemary nodded. "Yes, I think I do! Philip writes those articles which appeared in the Evening Post and caused such an outburst of sympathy for the Hungarians of Transylvania throughout Great Britain. And you--?" she added, and her eyes full of tenderness and compassion rested with undisguised admiration on the shrinking little figure of Anna Heves.

"He rides over from Kis-Imre," the girl continued simply, "and brings me the articles which he has written, and I consign them inside the grocery parcels to the firm at Budapest, who, of course, are in entire sympathy with us, and post them on to England. Oh! it is splendid, Rosemary dear," the girl continued with glowing eyes, "to be able to do all this. Now you see, don't you? that I could not possibly give it all up."

"Yes, Anna, I do see that. But you are running terrible risks, little 'un."

"I know I am, and so does Philip; but you don't know how happy it makes us. The days when an article of his goes to Budapest is a fete day for us both. It is usually a Saturday when the parcels are sent off, and," the girl went on with pathetic naivete, "on the Sunday morning when I go to Mass, I no longer bother God with my troubles and with senseless prayers, I just thank Him, and thank Him for letting me do something for Hungary."

Rosemary said nothing for the moment. Indeed, what could she say? To try and dissuade this young fanatic from all her high-souled foolishness was an attempt foredoomed to failure. Rosemary had far too keen a knowledge of human nature, and held far too high an opinion of patriotism as a virtue not to understand the intense happiness that this constant sacrifice brought into Anna's dreary life. To have suggested that the girl give up this joy-these constant risks-would have been futile.

"You are a splendid, brave thing, Anna!" was all that she could say, and her voice sounded quite harsh as she spoke, because she was fighting against emotion.

She gazed with real admiration on the poor wizened little figure of this girl, in whose soul burned a flame of ardent patriotism. Anna had counted the cost of what she was doing; with her eyes open, envisaging every risk, she was accomplishing quietly and unostentatiously what she believed to be her duty to her poor native land. A heroine of the peace, she risked more than the thousands of heroines of the war had done-save perhaps one. Like Edith Cavell, she faced and risked death for an ideal, happy in her quiet way for the privilege of doing it, enduring a life of grinding routine, of dreary monotony more trying for the young to bear than active sorrow or physical pain.

The two girls had not spoken for some time, they sat side by side on the sofa with hands clasped, and eyes fixed upon one another. Anna, with nerves weakened by privations, was on the verge of giving way to an emotion which would have eased the tension that for the past months was threatening to break down her spirit. Rosemary, on the other hand, felt for the moment almost ashamed of her robust health, her virile brain, the contentment-if not happiness-in life which was her portion since she had married Jasper, and her compassionate heart longed for the power to comfort and to help this gentle, high-souled girl who looked at her with Peter Blakeney's eyes, and whose lips when she smiled were so like his. Anna was running her head against a stonewall. Rosemary felt that inevitably she would sooner or later be crushed in the process. Her thoughts flew to her husband, the man on whom she knew that she could always rely when knotty problems of life threatened to be beyond her powers to unravel. Jasper would be of good counsel: selfless, generous to a fault, his unerring tact would perhaps find a way into the innermost recesses of Anna's heart, and find the means to save the child from further fanatical folly without wounding the susceptibilities of her high-mettled patriotism.

"And now, Anna," Rosemary said after that moment of silence which had sealed a bond of sympathy between herself and Peter's kinswoman, "you are going to have a cup of hot coffee with me and Jasper. No! No!" she went on determinedly, and took hold of the girl's wrist. "I shall not let you go till you have seen Jasper. He will just love you, and you and he will get on splendidly together. You two fine creatures are made to understand one another."

She dragged the obviously unwilling Anna with her into the next room. Jasper was there, waiting. His hand was on the bell-pull at the moment, and his kind, grave, eyes at once sought those of Anna, who, reluctantly, allowed herself to be drawn toward him.

Rosemary effected a quick introduction. In a moment Jasper's kind words had gained the victory over Anna's shyness; less than two minutes later they were seated side by side at the table, while Rosemary ordered coffee of the slatternly chambermaid who had come in answer to the bell.

It was wonderful how splendidly Jasper and Anna got on; he seemed in a few seconds to have caught the knack of gaining the girl's confidence. She became animated, quite pretty, with shinning eyes and full red lips that had lost for the moment their pathetic droop. She did not refer to her cousin, Philip Imrey, or to the dangerous game he and she were playing together, but she talked of her mother and of Ujlak, of the horses and the farm and the difficulties that beset the Hungarian landowners at every turn.

"I dare say that to a great extent it is our fault," she was even willing to admit in response to gentle criticism from Jasper. "We did not make ourselves beloved by the peasantry; they spoke a different language from ours, theirs was a different religion, and they were the alien race. We did little, if anything, for them. But tell me," she went on, and fixed her shrewd glance upon Jasper, "do you think that you landowners over in England, who do so much for your tenantry and your villagers, cricket-clubs, football, concerts-oh! I don't know what else, but things that you pay for and that they enjoy-well! do you think that in their hearts they love you any better than the Roumanian peasantry loved us Hungarians? And do you really believe that if you were in trouble, as we are now, and they were given a certain power over you, they would use it to show their gratitude for past generosity? Do you really believe that, Lord Tarkington?" she insisted.

And Jasper, with a smile at her vehemence, could only shrug his shoulders.

He was evidently very much taken with little Anna.

CHAPTER X

It was a week later and Jasper and Rosemary had been spending that time at Kis-Imre. No one who has not travelled in that part of the world can form a conception of the large-hearted hospitality that welcomes the stranger in a Hungarian chateau.

And Rosemary at once took the Imreys to her heart. She had known them before, of course, in the days before the war, when they dispensed that same wonderful hospitality, light-heartedly, gaily, as a matter of course.

But most of that had become a thing of the past. So much of it had gone, been irretrievably lost in the cataclysm of war and alien occupation. The will to give was still there, the love of the stranger, the boundless hospitality, but giving now meant a sacrifice somewhere, giving up something to give to others. All the sweeter, all the more lovable for being tinged with sadness. To Rosemary, Elza Imrey now was a woman' before that she had been just like a child, naïvely proud of her home, her table, her horses, without a hint of ostentation in her display of the rich gifts the good God had showered upon her. Now Elza's large, prominent blue eyes had become a little dim with constant weeping, and her mouth, when at rest, drooped slightly at the corners. Elza was still a very handsome woman, with her hair of ruddy gold like the cornfields of her native land, but all around the temples there was now a sprinkling of silver, a sprinkling that softened the face as powder does when applied lightly to the hair.

Though in outward appearance she was very unlike her sister, yet she constantly reminded Rosemary of Mrs. Blakeney; it was a question of movements, a gesture here and there, and also the tone of the voice. Elza, too, like her sister, had a magnificent figure, and the perfect hands, arms and wrists peculiar to her race. She had suffered, of course: badly during the war, terribly since the peace. At all times a maîtresse femme, it was she who had carried on the administration of her husband's estates, she who used to interview bailiffs, lawyers, tenants. She had always been looked up to by the local officials and by the surrounding peasantry as the head of the house. Maurus Imrey had always been neurasthenic, and the privations of the war, and the humiliations consequent on the alien occupation of his country, had exasperated his nervous system and further embittered his quarrelsome disposition. In the happy days before the war his contribution to the management of his estates consisted in grumbling daily at his chef and swearing unremittingly at those of his servants who came to him for orders in anything pertaining to the house. Malicious tongues were wont to say that Maurus Imrey had gipsy blood in his veins; more likely it was an Armenian strain. Certain it is that his face and hands were swarthy, his nose hooked and his eyes very dark and piercing; characteristics which he had transmitted in a softened degree to his son Philip. But he was a man of culture for all that. He had read a great deal and thought over what he had read. Jasper Tarkington found him at the outset an interesting, if not very genial, companion.

Then there was Philip, worshipped by his mother, adored by his father, handsome, a splendid dancer, an accomplished musician. Philip was very attractive; if there was gipsy blood in his veins it had given him nothing but physical beauty and the highly developed musical talent of that race. He had dark, curly hair, and large mellow eyes, fringed with long lashes that would have been a gift of the gods to a girl. Jasper at first sight pronounced him effeminate, but Rosemary-knowing what she did about him-would not allow this for a moment. How could a boy be called effeminate who staked his life time and again, every time he rode into Cluj with those newspaper articles of his in his pocket?

But this, of course, Jasper did not know.

CHAPTER XI

Elza Imrey talked very freely with Rosemary, and often referred to her husband having taken the oath of allegiance to the King of Roumania. It was all because of Philip. "What I am working for," she said, with the light almost of a fanatic in her eyes, "and what I shall work for so long as I have breath left in my body, is to save Philip's inheritance. The Roumanians are lying in wait for us, watching for an excuse to expel us from Transylvania. Many have had to go. Nothing would induce them to be false to the oath that they had sworn to the anointed King of Hungary. So they had to go. Sometimes at twenty-four hours' notice, bag and baggage, turned out of the home their forbears had owned for hundreds of years. But I would not do that. I had to think of Philip. The Roumanian occupation is now an accomplished fact, and we are too helpless, too friendless, not to accept it. But we must be very careful. One false step and we are done. Imagine how I tremble every time Maurus lets himself go. You know how unguarded he always is in his speech."

Rosemary felt an actual physical pain in her heart when she thought of this devoted mother's brave struggle to guard her son's inheritance, and how little she guessed that Philip himself was jeopardizing his future and risking his life in a cause that she was proclaiming hopeless. Those rides to Cluj! The meeting with Anna Heves! The dispatch of those newspaper articles of his! And Government spies lurking everywhere!

But during meals all unpleasant subjects were vetoed. Rosemary would have none of them, and her wishes, as the honoured guest, were law in this hospitable house. These good people, with their mercurial temperament, had a wonderful gift of casting aside trouble and giving themselves over to the pleasures of the moment. And so at dinner in the evenings the gipsy band not yet driven forth out of the neighbouring village would discourse sweet music, the tender, sad Hungarian refrains that appeal to the stranger almost as much as they do to the native.

Rosemary, who was an exquisite dancer, longed to tread the measure of the csàrdàs, the Hungarian national dance, which begins with a dreamy, languorous slow movement, and then suddenly breaks into a wild, mad whirl, wherein the dancer's eyes glow with excitement, their cheeks burn like fire, and their breath comes and goes through quivering, parted lips. Surely the merriest, maddest, most intoxicating dance devised by a passionate people-probably for the letting off of some inward steam that must find vent in such rapturous movements from time, or it would consume them with its glow.

"I think Lady Tarkington is quite splendid," Maurus Imrey said to Jasper, in the intervals of beating time with hand and foot to the ever-quickening measure of the dance. "Hey, you confounded gipsy!" he cried, shouting to the swarthy, perspiring leader of the band. "Quicker! Quicker! Can't you hear me speak? Do you think you are playing a funeral march?"

"I think," Jasper put in, with his quiet smile, "if the musicians put on anymore speed, Rosemary for one will be crying 'Mercy!'"

But for the moment Rosemary showed no sign of crying any such thing. Her nimble feet had quickly caught the quaint, syncopated rhythm, and Philip was a magnificent teacher. Perhaps there was some truth in saying that he had inherited a strain of gipsy blood, for indeed when he danced the csàrdàs there was something barbaric about his movements. They were full of grace and perfect in rhythm, but all the time they gave the impression of wild roamings through desert lands, of a will that brooked to fetters and was a law unto itself. Rosemary gave herself wholly to the pleasure of being whirled round, turned and twisted, sometimes lifted off her feet. All intellectuality fell away from her for the time being: she was just like a young and beautiful animal in enjoyment of the senses kind Nature had given her, the sound of that intoxicating music, the feeling of unfettered movement, the scent of dying roses in huge vases, that sent their sweet indefinable fragrance through the heat-laden air.

Faster, ever faster! Little hoarse cries escaped her throat as Philip seized her with one arm round the waist, and, lifting her off her feet, twirled her round and round till the golden lights of the shaded candles swam like the trail of comets before her eyes.

Faster! Always faster! She could hardly see now out of her eyes; all that she saw was Philip's dark, curly hair waving around his forehead. The music seemed now a part of the universe, not played by one band of musicians, but the very atmosphere itself vibrating and resounding, forcing her to tread the measure and not to leave off, to go on-and on-and on-always hearing the music-always lifted off her feet and whirled round and round-—

Then suddenly everything ceased all at once. The music, the movement, everything. Rosemary would have fallen, giddy, dazed, but for the fact that Jasper, quick as lightening, had caught her in his arms. Her instinct was to laugh.

"What happened?" she asked, rather wildly.

Then only did she look about her. First she saw Jasper's face bending over her, but he was not looking at her: he was gazing straight across the room. Rosemary's eyes followed his gaze. And all at once she gave a gasp, which she smothered instantly by clapping her hand to her mouth. The whole aspect of the room had changed. The gipsies seemed to have shrunk into a dark corner, with their instruments tucked hastily under their arms; they seemed to be trying to make themselves invisible. Two of them had crawled under the piano; only their feet, in shabby, down-at-heel shoes, protruded under the folds of rich brocade that covered the instrument.

And in the centre of the room there was a group of men, some half-dozen, in the uniform of the Roumanian army. One of them had his hand on Philip's shoulder. Philip stood in the midst of them; his dark face was still flushed with the dance, his curly hair clung to his streaming forehead. He was still panting with the movement and excitement of a moment ago, and his eyes, dark and glowing, wandered ceaselessly from one soldier's face to another.

Under the lintel of the great double doors that gave on the hall a couple of men servants stood, scared.

Rosemary's ears were buzzing and she saw everything through a veil; the room had not yet quite ceased whirling about her, but through the din in her ears and the hammering in her head she heard the ominous words: "Resistance will do you no good. You had best come quietly." They were spoken in Roumanian, which Rosemary understood.

Then there came a cry like that of a wounded beast, and Maurus Imrey jumped to his feet. With head down he charged into the soldiers just like an infuriated bull. Of course, he was seized at once, dragged back, forced down into a chair, where, with arms gripped by the soldiers, he launched forth a torrent of invective and abuse, and now and then, when he succeeded in freeing one of his arms, he hit out to right and left with his fist.

One of the soldiers, who appeared to be in command, spoke to him with cold deliberation:

"You are behaving like a fool, M. le Comte," he said. "For let me tell you that if you interfere with my men in the execution of their duty I will take you along, too."

Maurus's answer to this sound piece of advice was a fresh torrent of vituperation. He shook himself free from the hands that held him down, raised a menacing fist, and cried hoarsely:

"If you dare to touch me, you miserable--"

But suddenly stronger arms than those of the soldiers were thrown around him and forced him back into the chair. They were his wife's arms. Elza Imrey throughout all this had thought of nothing but the danger to Philip. The humiliation of this descent upon her house, the insolent attitude of the soldiers, this bringing home the fact of alien occupation and alien government, hardly affected her. Her one thought was Philip. The danger to Philip doubled and trebled by his father's ungoverned temper. And, my God, if he should strike one of the soldiers! So she held Maurus down, held her hand across his mouth; and Rosemary could hear her whispering in a thick, choked voice:

"Maurus, in God's name! Maurus, keep quiet! Maurus, for Philip's sake, hold your tongue!"

He struggled desperately, but she held him as only a mother can hold that which threatens her child. The soldier looked on with a sardonic smile. When Maurus at last was forced into silence, he shrugged his shoulders and said dryly:

"You are very wise, madame, to keep M. le Comte's temper in check for him. My orders are that if any resistance is offered to take all three of you along. I need not tell you that after that you two will be sent packing out of the country, and your son--"

A cry from Elza broke into his complacent speech. At once she became humble, cringing, all the pride of the aristocrat was submerged in the devastating anxiety of the mother. She still held Maurus down, for she dared not loosen her hold on him, but she turned a tear-stained face, pathetic-looking in its expression of appeal, toward the Roumanian.

"You must not take any notice of his lordship, captain," she said, trying in vain to speak lightly and to steady her voice. "You-you have known him for years, haven't you? You remember-he was always a little excitable-you used to amuse yourselves-you and your brother officers-by making him angry with one of the peasants, and seeing the men's terror of him? You remember," she reiterated, with the same pathetic effort at conciliation, "when we were at Tusnàd and you were in garrison at Sinaia, you used to motor over for luncheons and balls and--"

"It is not a part of a soldier's duty, madame," the young soldier broke in curtly, "to remember such incidents. If M. le Comte will cease to insult my men, we will leave him in peace. Otherwise you both come with me."

He turned sharply on his heel and spoke with one of his men. Apparently he was willing to give Maurus Imrey time to make up his mind what he would do. Rosemary still could hear Elza's voice thick and hoarse with anxiety:

"Maurus, in the name of Heaven--" The same refrain, the same reiterated prayer for submission, the one thing that would help to make Philip's lot easier. They could not do anything to Philip, of course. What had the poor lad done? Nothing. The mother racked her brain, thinking, thinking what he had done. Nothing. He had taken the oath of allegiance to the new King. Next year he would do his military service, a perfect hell; but Philip had never grumbled. And he had never joined in with those senseless political groups who met at night in out-of-the-way places about Cluj and dreamed dreams of freeing Hungary one day, Philip had never done anything so foolish. This cloud, therefore, would blow over. It was all a mistake, a misunderstanding. With silence and submission it would all blow over.

But Philip all along had never said a word. The first inkling that he had of this sudden danger that threatened him was the grip of a heavy hand upon his shoulder. Breathless with the dance, he had not made a movement or uttered a word of protest. His great, dark gipsy eyes wandered defiantly from the captain's face to those of the men, but he asked no questions. He knew well enough what had happened.

Two days ago he had ridden over to Cluj with certain newspaper articles in his pocket. He had given them to Anna. Together the cousins had spent one of those happy days which seemed to compensate them for all the risks they ran. Well, he had been suspected, spied upon and followed. The strain of fatalism which ran through his veins with the gipsy blood of his forbear bade him to accept the inevitable. Slowly his dark face became composed, his lips ceased to twitch, and the roaming glance of his dark eyes became fixed. Rosemary, looking up, saw the glance fixed upon her. In it she read the word: "Anna!" Philip was pleading to her mutely, desperately, for Anna. And this intuition which came to her when she met Philip's glance gave her the power to shake off the torpor that had invaded her limbs when the dance ceased so suddenly and she had fallen backwards into Jasper's arms.

Like Philip himself, she saw what had happened. The spies, the ride to Cluj, the articles given to Anna. And now the arrest of Philip and the deadly peril that threatened the girl.

"Can we do anything?" she whispered hurriedly to Jasper, and with quick, nervy movements she patted her hair into place and readjusted her tumbled gown.

Jasper shook his head. "We should do no good by interfering," he said gravely.

But Rosemary was in no mood to listen. She remembered Naniescu and his promises, the powers he had given her, the request that she should speak the truth. She felt that she was a force to be conciliated, and here was the moment to test her own power.

Without another word she ran out of the room and then through the great hall to the outer vestibule, where stood the telephone. While she took down the receiver and hurriedly gave the number of the Imrey palace at Cluj, she prayed in her heart that a few minutes' respite would be granted her before the soldiers marched Philip away.

"Hallo! Hallo! His Excellency General Naniescu! Lady Tarkington wishes to speak with his Excellency at once!! Say it is urgent-most urgent. Yes, Lady Tarkington, the English lady at Kis-Imre. No, no, never mind the name, please. Just say the English lady from Kis-Imre."

Another moment or two of agonizing suspense, then Naniescu's mellow voice. Thank God! He was at home, and she was through to him.

"General Naniescu? Lady Tarkington speaking! Thank you, I am well-very well, yes, my first article goes early next week. Yes, quite happy so far. General Naniescu, Philip Imrey has been summarily arrested. . . . I don't know. . . . There's a captain in charge. No, he did not say. . . . Yes, I am sure it is a mistake, but the mistake may prove fatal unless---Yes, yes! You will? Really? To-morrow morning? You are kind. I hardly liked to ask you. Of course, I shall be here. Will you speak to the captain yourself now? I thank you with all my heart. Will you hold the line? I'll send the captain to you. I don't know how to thank you. No, nothing else to-night; but I am looking forward to thanking you myself to-morrow morning. About ten o'clock. Yes! Thank you a thousand times. Good night!"

She had hardly finished speaking when she heard the tramping of feet coming from the drawing-room and then across the hall, and glancing round, she saw the soldiers filing out two by two, with their captain beside them and Philip in their midst. There was no other sound except this tramping of feet. No protests, no shrieks. Philip in the midst of the soldiers, and behind them Elza creeping along, silent, watchful, her great eyes fixed upon what she could see of her son-the dark, curly hair and sometimes the top of his shoulder.

Rosemary waited until the captain was quite close to her. He saluted and was about to pass, when, like a triumphant goddess, she turned and faced him.

"His Excellency the Governor, on the telephone." she said curtly, and held the receiver out to the young soldier. "He desires to speak with you."

The Roumanian, obviously very much taken aback, looked at her for a moment or two, frowning before he took the receiver from her. The group of soldiers had halted, waiting for further orders. Behind them Elza hovered, her white face and golden hair alone visible in the gloom.

After that instant's hesitation the captain put the receiver to his ear.

"Yes, Excellency. No, Excellency. Yes, Excellency." Then a long, long wait, while the captain stood with the receiver against her ear, and Elza came nearer, watching, hoping, mutely questioning; and Rosemary, with glowing eyes and an enigmatic smile, put a finger up to her lips. Finally: "I quite understand, Excellency. Quite! Absolutely!" And the captain hung up the receiver.

Then he turned to Elza, who had drawn close to Rosemary, quite close; he clicked his heels together and touched his képi with his right hand.

"By order of his Excellency General Naniescu," he said, "Count Philip Imrey is free to remain under this roof. He will give his word of honour that he will not attempt to leave the castle until after the arrival of his Excellency in the course of the morning."

And thus the incident was closed. Philip gave the required parole, and with more clicking of heels and salutes the young captain marched out of the house, followed by his men. Then only did Elza break down, when she put her arms round Philip's shoulders and sobbed her heart out against his breast. He appeared more dazed than relieved, and kept his eyes fixed on Rosemary, whilst with his long, thin hand he stroked and patted his mother's hair. Rosemary gave him an encouraging glance. "It was for Anna's sake," her glance said mutely. "In any case, Anna will be safe."

And the incident being closed, she went back to the drawing-room. Jasper held out a hand to her, and when she placed her hand in his he raised it to his lips. She took it as a sign of his approval, and bending down, she gave him her forehead to kiss. He just took her face between his two palms and gazed long and intently into her eyes.

He had often done that before; he loved to take hold of her face, to feel the soft velvety cheeks against his hands, and Rosemary would turn her pixie eyes to his and in one glance express all the affection, the sincere regard and fervent gratitude which she felt for him. But somehow this time it all seemed different, more intense, almost terrifying. To a sensitive woman a man's passion, if she cannot respond to it, is always terrifying; and of course, Rosemary's nerves were stretched now almost to breaking point. Else why should she be conscious of a sense of fear?

Jasper's gaze was not so much searching her soul as striving to reveal his. Something in him seemed imprisoned, and he was asking her to set that something free. A force, a power, greater even than his love, so great that love itself became its slave. And this Rosemary could not understand. She had experienced something of the same sensation that afternoon in London when he had asked her to marry him before she left for Hungary. Then, as now, she had caught a glimpse of a whirlpool of passion which seethed beneath her husband's grave, gentle manner. Then, as now, it had seemed to her as if he were trying to exert some supernatural power outside himself, to rouse an echo of his own passion in her heart. And with that glimpse into the depths of a man's soul came the knowledge that never would it be in her power to give soul for soul or passion for passion. And yet the day would come-she felt it, knew it at this moment-when the man, wearied of sentimental doles, would demand her whole surrender-body, brain, soul, everything, soul above all-which she would not be prepared to give.

Strange that this realization, this vague feeling akin to fear, should come to her again at this moment, when both she and Jasper were only minor actors in the drama that had just drawn to its close. Like most great moments in the inner life of the soul, it only lasted for one brief flash. It left its indelible mark on Rosemary's memory, but it lasted less than one second. The very next she tried to recapture it, but it was gone. Jasper looked grave and kind, as he always did, busy now with getting her comfortably ensconced in a capacious arm-chair, with plenty of cushions behind her back. Elza came in with Philip, and Maurus roused himself from his apathy to hurl invectives against those damnable, impudent Roumanians.

And the gipsy musicians, reassured, crawled out of their hiding-places, and their leader, shouldering his violin, began to play a dreamy melody. One by one the others fell in in harmony, the 'cello, the bass, the clarinet, and the inimitable czimbalom. "There is but one beautiful girl in all the world" was the tune that they played; its soft, languorous cadence rose and fell in the air wherein the dying roses once more sent up their voluptuous fragrance. Forgotten was the danger just past, the peril still ahead. Music, the never-failing expression of emotion in these romantic people, soothed their nerves and uttered the words which would not rise to their lips. Elza sat with Philip's hand in hers. Rosemary, with eyes fixed far away, caught herself gazing on the memory picture of a dark recess in a box in the Albert Hall, with the noise and whirl of a big social function about her, but with the complete isolation there in the darkness; and through the deafening noise memory conjured up a man's voice that murmured with passionate earnestness: "It is no use, my dear, thinking that all is over."

CHAPTER XII

The morning was as clear as crystal, the sky of a translucent turquoise blue. Away on the right the masses of soft-toned purple hills stretched their undulating lines like waving veils, hiding the mysteries of the horizon.

Rosemary had thrown open the windows of her bedroom and stepped out upon the balcony. With arms outstretched she drank in the intoxicating air, laden with the scent of heliotrope and lilies. She had the delicious feeling of having accomplished something, of having tested her power and found it absolute. Naniescu, on the telephone, had been almost apologetic when she told him about Philip's arrest. He declared that there was some mistake, and that he himself would come over in the morning and inquire into the matter. Rosemary was young enough to feel a naïve pleasure in her work. That Philip Imrey was restored then and there to his mother's arms was her work, the outcome of her position in the journalistic and political world. And the knowledge that this was so was as intoxicating as the fragrant air on this perfect late July morning.

A moment or two later she heard the pleasant noise of the rattling coffee-cups in the room behind her. She turned in, ready to embrace the little housemaid who looked after her so cheerfully. In fact, Rosemary was in a mood to embrace the whole world. Contrary to her usual happy way, however, the little housemaid did not look up when Rosemary came in. As a rule she would run and kiss the gracious lady's hand, according to the pretty custom of her country. To-day she just rattled the coffee-cups, and Rosemary noticed that her hands were shaking and that she turned her head very obviously away.

"What is it, Rosa?" Rosemary asked in her best Hungarian, of which she had learned quite a good deal at different times. "Why don't you come and say good morning?"

The kind voice and the necessity to respond to the gracious lady's inquiry broke down the barrier of Rosa's self-control. She raised her apron to her eyes and burst into a flood of tears. The next moment Rosemary was by her side, her arms round the girl's shoulders.

"Rosa!" she said, "Rosa! what is it? Tell me, little thing. What is it? Who has made you cry?"

But Rosa only went on sobbing, and murmuring between her sobs: "Oh, gracious lady! gracious lady! What a calamity! What a dreadful calamity!"

After a few seconds of this Rosemary began to lose patience. She was English and practical; Rosa's continued sobbing and incoherent mutterings got on her nerves. She gave the girl a good-humoured shake.

"What calamity, Rosa?" she queried. "Bless the girl! I'll smack you, Rosa, if you don't speak."

Now this was a language that Rosa understood far better than a string of kindly inquiries. She had been smacked by her mother, almost as soon as she was born, she had been smacked by her elder sister, by her grandmother, by her aunt and by her father while she grew up, and when she started service in the chateau and was silly or tiresome she had been smacked by the gracious Countess. Being smacked did not hurt, but it acted as a tonic, and braced up Rosa's slackened nerves. The threat of it by the gracious English lady at once dried the well of her tears, she wiped her nose and eyes with her apron and murmured:

"The gracious Count Philip-they have taken him away."

At first Rosemary did not take it in. She did not trust her ears, or her knowledge of Hungarian. She must, she thought, have misunderstood Rosa, or else Rosa was talking like a fool But Rosemary's grasp tightened on the girl's arm, her fingers buried themselves in the young, firm flesh.

"What do you mean, Rosa?" she queried. "What do you mean about the gracious count? Who has taken him away?"

"The soldiers, gracious lady," Rosa murmured.

"What soldiers?" which was a foolish question on Rosemary's part-and she knew it. There were no soldiers now in Transylvania except the Roumanian soldiers. But somehow the thing would not penetrate into her brain-she felt that, too, and wanted to give it time to sink in slowly, slowly.

Rosa now ventured to look the English lady in the face. Her big, blue eyes were still swimming in tears.

"The Roumanian soldiers, gracious lady," she said, "the ones who came last night."

"But they went away again last night, Rosa," Rosemary explained deliberately and patiently, "they went away and the gracious Count Philip remained at home, he went to bed as we all did. Anton must have waited on him, as he always does."

But Rosa gave a deep sigh and gulped down a fresh flood of tears that threatened to choke her.

"Anton did wait on the gracious count when he went to bed. But soon after midnight the soldiers returned. Feri the night watchman at the gate, had to let them in. They ordered him not to make a noise, only to rouse the gracious count's valet. So Feri went to call Anton, as quietly as he could, for the soldiers kept threatening him that if he made a noise they would beat him. Poor Anton nearly fainted with terror-you know, gracious lady, Anton always was a coward. What would you?" Rosa added with a shrug. "A gipsy."

"Yes! Yes!" Rosemary urged impatiently. "Go on, girl, go on."

"The soldiers would not even allow Anton to dress himself. Just as he was he had to go and rouse the gracious Count Philip. The soldiers were threatening to burn the house down if anyone made a noise, but I am sure that Feri and Anton were too scared to think of screaming. The gracious count jumped out of bed: the soldiers stood by while he dressed, but they would not allow him to take anything with him except just the clothes he put on-no money-not his watch-not a letter-nothing. Feri says that the soldiers were in the house and out again in less than a quarter of an hour. They took the gracious count with them, but four of them remained behind; they made Feri and Anton sit together in the lodge and kept guard over them until an hour ago. Then they went away and Anton ran in with the news. Oh! you should have seen the gracious countess! It was pitiable-pitiable, though she said nothing and she did not cry. By God! My God! What is to become of us all?"

The girl started wringing her hands, and her voice became loud and shrill with the sobs that would no longer be suppressed.

"Be quiet, Rosa, be quiet!" Rosemary said once or twice quite mechanically. She had taken it all in at last: the trick, the awful treachery, the cruelty of it all. She stood there beside the sobbing girl, with hands tightly clenched and a deep frown between her brows. She wanted to think. To think. Something would have to be done, and done quickly. But what? Naniescu? What role did he play in this mean trickery? Rosemary was a woman who thought straight and acted straight: so consistently straight, in fact, that she never could visualize treachery in others. In the wide, wide would that attitude of mind is called the attitude of a fool. Yet Rosemary Tarkington was anything but a fool. Perhaps she was lacking in the intuition of evil: certain it is that at this moment she would not allow herself to think that Naniescu was a party to the abominable deed. The young officer, perhaps, or the local commandant who might have a grudge against the Imreys. But Naniescu? No!

She sent the girl away; Rosa's round, pink face with the round, blue eyes and round-tipped nose was getting on her nerves. The girl was comical in her grief, and when Rosemary looked at her she felt an uncontrollable desire to laugh. And this would have horrified Rosa. So she sent Rosa away.

A moment or two later Jasper came in, ready for breakfast. Once glance at this face and Rosemary knew that he, too, had heard the news.

"What do you think of it?" Rosemary asked after she had given him a morning kiss.

"My darling," Jasper replied in his cool, British manner, "I only think that you are making a grave mistake in throwing yourself headlong into the politics of these out-of-the-way countries. . . ."

"It is not a question of politics, Jasper," Rosemary broke in, protesting.

"I know, my dear, I know. Your warm heart prompts you to interfere there where prudence would dictate the wiser course of closing one's eyes. You would not be the adorable woman that you are if you acted differently. But, believe me, my darling, it is not wise. You will only run your lovely head against a stone wall, and in the end do no good. You must let these people fight out their quarrels in their own way. They are not our kind; we don't understand them. My firm conviction is that you will only do harm by interference. Mind you, I haven't a doubt that young Imrey has done something stupid. They are a hot-headed lot, these Hungarians, especially the young ones, and, of course, they don't like the present regime. The government in power has a perfect right to protect itself against conspiracy and rebellion, even though we outsiders may think that those conspiracies are futile, and the measures of repression unduly harsh. Leave them alone, my dear," Jasper concluded more lightly, with a shrug, "and have a cup of hot coffee."

He settled himself down on the sofa and tried to draw her down to him. But Rosemary was not in the mood for sentiment. Reason whispered to her that Jasper was right-he was always right, worse luck!-she knew that Philip Imrey had acted foolishly-very, very foolishly-and that, as a matter of fact, in this case the commandant (or whoever was responsible for Philip's arrest) was entirely within his rights. She certainly, as an impartial spectator of events, brought here for the express purpose of seeing the truth and nothing but the truth, could not in conscience make capital of this incident. She had come out here determined not to act on impulse, but to judge coolly and without bias, and thus to consolidate her reputation as one of the foremost women journalists of the day. With Sir Philip Gibbs as her master, and model, she could not go back on the ideal of justice and impartiality which she had set herself. But she did want to save Philip Imrey from the consequences of his own folly. And, above all, she wanted to know what had become of Anna.

"I cannot leave them alone, Jasper," she said slowly "I cannot. All this petty tyranny makes my blood boil."

Jasper sighed somewhat impatiently. "I know, my dear, I know," he reiterated vaguely.

Rosemary did not continue the discussion for the moment; Jasper was so right in everything he said, and Philip Imrey had been desperately foolish. Now she blamed herself for not having worked on Anna's mind and dissuaded her from lending herself to her cousin's mad schemes. She mentioned Anna's name to her husband, but Jasper, knowing nothing of the girl's dangerous activities in Balog's grocery stores, could not, of course, see that Anna was in any kind of danger.

"But," Rosemary argued, "Anna and Philip are first cousins, they see a great deal of one another--"

"Do they?" Jasper ejaculated. "But even so, my dear, you surely are not going to suppose that the Roumanian Government is going to lay hands on all Philip Imrey's relations, just because he has run his silly head into a noose."

"No! No!?" Rosemary protested vaguely.

But she could not say anything more on the subject of Anna. Anna had told her everything in confidence: "I know I can trust you, Rosemary," the child had said, and Rosemary could not betray that confidence-not even by speaking of it all to Jasper-not even by hinting at it. If the peril became more imminent-if Anna herself was in danger-then perhaps. But not now.

Rosemary tried to swallow some breakfast, just to please Jasper, for his kind, grave eyes looked quite sad, and she did not want to add to his anxiety. But her thoughts were dwelling on Elza.

"I wonder if she could bear to see me," she said presently.

"You can always ask," was Jasper's wise suggestion.

Rosemary found Elza Imrey outwardly quite calm and resigned. That woman had a marvellous fund of common sense and self-control. What she suffered no one should know. Only when she read true understanding and mute sympathy in Rosemary's eyes, she gave an answering look which contained such a depth of sorrow and anxiety that Rosemary's heart was overwhelmed with pity. In these few hours Elza had aged twenty years. Anton had brought the news across from the lodge to the chateau in the early morning as soon as the Roumanian soldiers had gone away. The gracious countess had received the news with extraordinary indifference, was the verdict on the incident below stairs; Rosa was crying her eyes out, all the men-servants went about cursing and swearing and threatening to kill someone, but the gracious countess had not shed one tear. When she had heard Anton's report, she asked a few questions: what suit had the gracious count put on? did he take an overcoat? what shoes did he wear? and so on; but never a tear. Then she said: "Very well, Anton, you may go!" and that was all. No! No! It was not natural. But then these great ladies! . . . One never knew!

No one ever did know to what height a mother's heroism could go. Elza, with her heart nearly broken, thought only of what was best for Philip.

"Of course, he has done nothing!" she reiterated over and over again, "so they can't do anything to him."

Then her voice would break on a note of pathetic appeal; she would seize Rosemary's hands and search the depths of her English friend's eyes, with the look of a poor stricken animal begging for sympathy.

"Can they?" she asked, and Rosemary would shake her head, not trusting herself to speak. It was no use now rending the mother's heart, adding another load of anxiety to the heavily burdened soul. Elza would know soon enough. Soon enough! And she could do nothing even if she knew now.

Maurus was shut up in his own apartments, tearing up and down like a beast in its cage, raging and swearing. That was his temperament, Elza said philosophically, with a shrug; the Armenian blood in him. (She never would admit the gipsy strain.) Fortunately the servants were all Hungarian; faithful and discreet. They knew him. When he was in one of those moods they fled from him; but not one of them would betray him. Now he was threatening to kill every Roumanian that ever crossed his path. Well, fortunately there was no one to hear him-only the servants, and they would hold their tongues.

"Maurus won't understand," Elza explained to Rosemary, "that our chance is submission. If they turn us out of here it will be the end of Philip's inheritance. We must save that at all costs. What is the sacrifice of a little pride when it means so much for Philip's future. Things can't go on as they are-not for long, and if only I can keep Maurus quiet, we shall have Philip back here in a week."

Then she harked back on the old refrain. "He has done nothing. They can't do anything to him. Can they?"

CHAPTER XIII

Naniescu arrived soon after ten-o'clock. Rosemary heard the hooting of his motor when it turned in at the gate, also the general bustle, clatter, running about that ensued. Her rooms, with the balcony overlooking the park, were on the other side of the house, so she saw nothing of this; but somehow, after the arrival of his Excellency, the stately chateau appeared to have lost something of its dignified quietude. Loud voices resounded from end to end of the galleried hall, footsteps that sounded almost aggressive echoed along the corridors.

Jasper had gone down some time ago for a stroll in the park, while Rosemary dressed. She was sorry now that she had not asked him to be sure to come back so as to support her in her interview with Naniescu. However, this wish was only a momentary weakness. She had been accustomed for years past to stand on her own feet, to act for herself, and to take swift decisions without outside advice. So now, with a careless shrug, she turned back to the important task of dressing; this she did with deliberate care, then surveyed herself critically in the glass, and, having satisfied herself that Rosemary Tarkington was in no way less beautiful than Rosemary Fowkes had been, she settled herself down in her boudoir with a book and waited.

A very few minutes later one of the men came to announce that his Excellency General Naniescu desired to pay his respects to Lady Tarkington.

He came in looking breezy and gallant. He kissed Rosemary's hand, sat down on the chair she indicated to him, inquired after the state of her health, her journey, her work, all in a mellifluous voice and in execrable English. In fact, for the first five minutes of this momentous, visit he was just a pleasant, cheerful man of the world, exchanging banalities with a pretty woman.

"Et ce cher Tarkington?" he queried. "How is he?"

"My husband will be in, in a moment or two," Rosemary replied, trying to bring the conversation round to the all-important subject. "He will, of course, make a point of not failing to see you." She made a slight, insignificant pause, then she went on more seriously: "I can assure you, M. le General, that Lord Tarkington's interest in our dear host and hostess is just as keen as mine."

"Of course, of course," Naniescu rejoined vaguely, with a sweep of his well-manicured hand. "They are very foolish people, these Imreys. And that young man! Dear lady, you have not an idea what trouble we have with these Hungarians! They are all a little toqué! What you call so admirably in your picturesque language: they have a bee in their bonnet. What?"

He laughed, very pleased with himself for what he apparently considered a little joke.

"A bee in their bonnet," he reiterated, still waving his white, podgy hands about. He set his teeth together and made a sound to represent the buzzing of bees. "Buzz-z! Just like that! But bees," he added curtly, "are apt to be tiresome. Is it not so?"

"You choose to look upon the matter lightly, M. le General," Rosemary rejoined, with a touch of impatience, "but to these unfortunate people the summary arrest of their only son is anything but a light matter. On the telephone last night--"

"Oh, the telephone!" the general broke in with an affected sigh. "A marvellous invention! What? But it is difficult on the telephone to give those little nuances which are the essence of conversation. It was wonderful to hear your melodious voice on the telephone last evening. I was not expecting to hear it, and it was delightful! Like a spirit voice coming from a place unseen to soothe me to pleasant dreams."

He tried to capture her hand, and when she snatched it away with obvious irritation he gave a soft, guttural laugh and gazed with a look of bold admiration into her eyes. Rosemary felt her temper rising, and nothing but her knowledge that this distinctly unpleasant personage had supreme power over those she cared for kept her impatience in check.

"General Naniescu," she said, quietly determined, "you must forgive me if I cannot enter into your playful mood just now. The only son of my very dear friend is under arrest for an offence of which he knows nothing, and, moreover, he was arrested under circumstances that are entirely unjustifiable, seeing that this country is not, I presume, under martial law."

"Not under martial law, certainly, dear lady," Naniescu was willing to admit, and did so with a certain measure of seriousness, "but under strict disciplinary law, framed by a suzerain state for the protection of its own nationals in occupied territory. But let that pass. You graciously informed me over the telephone last night that young Imrey was arrested, and I gave orders to the captain in charge for his immediate release. As I intended to come over here in the course of the morning, I was willing to let the matter stand until I had investigated it myself."

"Count Philip Imrey was released at ten o'clock yesterday evening, and rearrested in the middle of the night; he was not even given the chance of saying goodbye to his parents, or of providing himself with the necessary clothing and money. I imagine, M. le General," Rosemary went on coldly, "that this was done by your orders, or at any rate that you were not kept in ignorance of it."

For the fraction of a second Naniescu hesitated; then he said cynically:

"Yes; certainly I knew of it. I may even say that it was done by my orders."

Rosemary suppressed a cry of indignation.

"Well, then?" she exclaimed hotly.

But Naniescu, not in the least taken aback, only retorted blandly:

"And how am I to interpret that enigmatic query, dear lady?"

"As a challenge to justify your actions," was Rosemary's bold reply.

Then, as he gave no immediate answer but allowed his mellow dark eyes to rest with a distinctly mocking glance on her face, Rosemary felt at a disadvantage. She was obviously not in a position to demand explanations from a man who belonged to the governing classes in his own country. With every belief in the power of the press, Rosemary had far too much common sense not to realize that a man in Naniescu's position would not put up with being dictated to, or cross-examined, by a stranger, however influential he or she might be. So once again she swallowed her resentment, determined that whatever chance she had of helping the Imreys should not be wrecked through want of tact on her part. Diplomacy, good temper, and, if necessary, seeming complaisance, would be more likely to win the day than any attempt at threatening.

"Monsieur le General," she resumed, after a while, "I know that you will forgive me for my seeming ill-humour. I have witnessed so much sorrow these last few hours that I suppose my nerves are rather jarred. I know, of course, that it is not my place to criticize the measure which your Government chooses to impose on a subject race. As a suzerain state Roumania has a perfect right to defend what she believes to be her own interests, and in a manner that she thinks best. Will you forgive me the sharp words I allowed to slip just now?"

And with a return of that charm of manner which even more than beauty held most men in thrall, Rosemary put out her hand. The gallant Roumanian, without a trace of mockery now in his large, dark eyes, took it in both his own; then he stooped and kissed the dainty finger-tips.

"And now," Rosemary went on resolutely, "that I have made amende honorable, will you allow me to plead the Imrey's cause in all earnestness-in the name of humanity, Monsieur le General? The boy is only nineteen."

The general leaned back in his chair, his well-manicured fingers gently stroking his silky moustache, his eyes no longer attempting to conceal the satisfaction which he felt at seeing this exquisitely beautiful woman in the role of a suppliant before him. Now when she paused he gave an indifferent shrug.

"Dear lady," he said, "my experience of this part of the world is that boys and girls of nineteen who give up jazzing and have not started making love, but who choose to meddle in politics, are veritable pests."

"But Philip Imrey does not meddle in politics," Rosemary protested.

"Are you quite sure of that?" he retorted.

As he said this his eyes became quite small, and piercing like two little flaming darts; but though his sudden challenge had sent a stab of apprehension through Rosemary's heart, her glance never faltered, and she lied straight out, lied boldly without hesitation, without a blush.

"I am quite sure," she replied.

And the only compunction she felt over that lie was when she realized-as she did at once-that the Roumanian did not believe her.

"Little Anna Heves did not confide in you?" he asked, with perfect suavity.

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said, dear lady. Anna Heves and Philip Imrey are two young hotheads who have given us an infinity of trouble. For a long time we could not find out how certain pernicious articles, injurious to the good reputation of Roumanian, found their way into the English and American press. Now we know."

"Your spy system seems more efficient than your censorship," Rosemary retorted bitterly.

"That is beside the point."

"Yes; the point is that those two are mere children."

"I dare say the judges will take that into account and deal leniently with them."

"With them?" Rosemary exclaimed, and suddenly a new terror gripped her heart. "With them? You don't mean--?"

"What, dear lady?" he queried suavely.

"That Anna--?"

"Anna Heves, yes; the late Baron Heves' daughter, now a saleswoman in the shop of Balog the grocer. I often wondered how she came to demean herself in that way. Now I understand."

"But surely, surely," Rosemary protested, striving in vain to steady her voice, which was quaking with this new, this terrible anxiety, "you have not arrested Anna Heves? The child has done nothing--"

Naniescu put up his hand with a gesture of protest.

"Dear lady," he said, with quiet irony and in a tone one would use to an obstinate child, "let me assure you once and for all that the accusations against Philip Imrey and his cousin do not rest upon assumptions, but upon facts. Anna Heves was arrested and she will be brought to trial because she was found-actually found, mind you-smuggling newspaper articles, defamatory to the Government of this country, for insertion in foreign journals. English sense of justice is reputed to be very keen; your own must tell you that it is hardly fair to bring the battery of your charms as a weapon to break down my sense of duty. I lay, as always, my homage at your feet, but I should be a traitor if, whilst gazing into your adorable eyes, I were to forget what I owe to my country."

Gradually he dropped the irony out of his tone, and his voice became once more mellifluous and tender while he leaned forward, almost touching Rosemary's knees with his, and striving to hold her glance with the challenge of his own. Rosemary shrank back. Suddenly something of the truth had dawned upon her. Not all of it just yet. It was only presently-in a few more days-that she was destined to realize the extent to which this man-half Oriental in his capacity for lying-had hoodwinked and cajoled her. It was his mien, the thinly veiled insult that lurked behind his suave speech and expressive eyes, that suddenly tore the veil from before her own. And yet reason fought for a moment against this wave of aversion. The man was right, unquestionably right. Philip and Anna had been very foolish. And, what is more, they were technically guilty of treason: there was no getting away from that; and Rosemary could not shut her eyes to the fact that the very lives of those she cared for were in the hands of this soft-toned liar. At one moment she longed passionately for Jasper, the next she would dread his coming, for she knew well enough that he, with his straight matter-of-fact mode of thinking, would inevitably give Naniescu his due, insist that the general was within his rights, and advise his wife to keep clear of these imbroglios, which were so contrary to the lenient, sportsmanlike English attitude toward a beaten enemy.

On the whole she felt glad that Jasper was not here. He would hate to see her plead. Yet plead she must. There was nothing else to do. She must plead with fervour, plead with all the strength that she possessed, all the eloquence that she could command.

"In the name of humanity!" That was her chief plea; and with anxious eyes she searched the man's face for the first trace of pity.

"Anna and Philip are so young," she urged. "Mere children."

But Naniescu smiled, that fat, complacent smile of his which she had quickly learned to loathe.

"You would not like me," she said at one moment, "to send an account of it to all the English and American papers. Two children, one under eighteen, the other not yet twenty, arrested in their beds at dead of night, brought to trial for having smuggled a few newspaper articles through the post. If you do not deal leniently with them--"

"Who said we would not deal leniently with them?" Naniescu broke in blandly. "Surely not I. I am not their judge."

"General Naniescu," she retorted, "I have been in Transylvania long enough to know that your powers here as military governor are supreme. Leniency in this case," she urged insistently, "could only redound to your credit, and to the credit of the country which you serve."

"But frankly, dear lady, I don't see what I can do. The case has passed out of my hands-"

"Send these children home with a caution, Monsieur le General," Rosemary went on pleading. "That is what we would do in England in a like case."

"To hatch more treason," he retorted, with a shrug. "Give us more trouble-more buzzing of bees and pestilential backbiting--"

"No!" she protested hotly. "Not for that, but to be immensely grateful to you for your generosity, and show their gratitude by striving to work for the good of their country, hand in hand with yours."

"Ah, what noble sentiments, dear lady!" General Naniescu said with a sigh, and clapped his white, fat hands together. "I wish I could believe that some of them will sink into those young hotheads."

"They will, general, they will." Rosemary asserted eagerly. "If you will send those two children back to their parents, I will not leave Transylvania until you yourself are satisfied that I have brought them to a reasonable frame of mind."

"A hard task, dear lady," Naniescu said, with a smile.

"I would undertake a harder one than that," Rosemary rejoined, with an answering smile, "to show my appreciation of your generosity."

"Words, dear lady," he said softly. "Words!"

"Try me!" she challenged.

He made no immediate reply, and suddenly his eyes again narrowed as they had done before, and their piercing glance rested upon Rosemary until she felt that through those heavy lids something inimical and poisonous had touched her. She felt a little shiver running down her spine, an unaccountable sense of apprehension caused her to glance rapidly toward the door, where she hoped to perceive Jasper's comforting presence. She was not afraid, of course, nor did she regret her enthusiasm, or her advocacy of the children's cause; but she had the sudden, vague feeling that she had come to the brink of an abyss and that she was staring down into unknown depths, into which unseen forces were urging her to leap.

Slowly Naniescu's eyes reopened and the mellow expression crept back into them; he gave a sigh of satisfaction, and settled himself down once more comfortably on the cushions of the chair.

"I am happy indeed, dear lady," he began, "that you yourself should have made an offer, which I hardly dared place before you."

"An offer? What do you mean?"

"Surely that was your intention, was it not, to do something in return for the heavy sacrifice you are asking of me?"

"Sacrifice?" Rosemary queried, frowning. "What sacrifice?"

"Sacrifice of my convictions. Duty calls me to very insistently in the matter of those young traitors whom you, dear lady, are pleased to refer to as children. I know that I should be doing wrong in giving them the chance of doing more mischief. I know it," he reiterated emphatically, "with as much certainty as I do the fact that they will not give up trying to do mischief. But-"

He paused and fell to studying with obvious satisfaction Rosemary's beautiful eager eyes fixed intently upon him.

"But what, Monsieur le General?" she asked.

"But I am prepared to make the sacrifice of my convictions at your bidding, if you, on the other hand, will do the same at mine."

Rosemary's frown deepened. "I don't think I quite understand," she said.

"No," he retorted; "but you will-soon. Let me explain. You, dear lady, have come to Transylvania wrapped in prejudice as in sheet-armour against my unfortunate country. Oh, yes, you have," he went on blandly, checking with an elegant gesture the cry of protest that had risen to Rosemary's lips. "I am even prepared to admit that nothing that you have seen in these first few days has tended to pierce that armour of prejudice. Well, well!" and the general sighed again in that affected way of his. "You have one of your wonderful sayings in England that exactly meets this case: 'East is East,' you say, 'and West is West.' This is the East really, and you Occidentals will never think as we do. But I am wandering from my point, and you, dear lady, are getting impatient. Having admitted everything that you would wish me to admit, I now will come forward with my little proposition-what?"

"If you please," Rosemary replied coldly.

"The children, as you are pleased to call them," Naniescu went on with slow deliberation, shedding his affected manner as a useless garment no longer required to conceal his thoughts, "the children have done us an infinity of mischief, in the eyes of the British and American public, by the publication of articles defamatory to our Government; for this they have deserved punishment. Now, I propose to remit that punishment if you will undo the mischief that they have done."

"I?" Rosemary exclaimed, puzzled. "How?"

"By publishing newspaper articles that will refute those calumnies once and for all," the general said blandly. Then, as Rosemary recoiled at the suggestion as if she had been struck in the face, he went on cynically: "You are such a brilliant journalist, dear lady, endowed with a vivid imagination. It will be easy for you to do this for the sake of those two young traitors in whom you take such a kindly interest. You may, in your articles, begin by stating the truth, if you like, and say that my Government invited you to come over to Transylvania in order to investigate the alleged acts of tyranny that are supposed to be perpetrated against the minority nationals. Then you will proceed to state that after impartial and exhaustive inquiry you have come to the conclusion that practically all the charges brought against us are unfounded, that with the exception of a few inevitable hardships consequent of foreign occupation, the minority nationals in Transylvania are enjoying the utmost freedom and security under the just laws of an enlightened country. You will-"

But here the flow of the worthy general's eloquence received a sudden check in the shape of a rippling outburst of laughter from Rosemary. He frowned; not understanding her mood, his knowledge of women being superficial, his thoughts flew to hysteria. He had known a woman onceAs a matter of fact there was something hysterical about Rosemary's laughter. She checked it as soon as she regained control over herself. It was as well that she could laugh, that her sense of humour, never absent in an Englishwoman of intellect, had at once shown her the folly of giving way to the indignation which had been her first impulse. Frankly she could not see herself as an outraged tragedy queen thundering forth an emphatic "Never!" to the Roumanian's impudent proposals; and when Naniescu marvelled at the strange moods of women and vainly tried to guess what there was in the present situation to make this pretty woman laugh, he little knew that Rosemary was laughing at an imaginary picture of herself, with head thrown back and flaming eyes, and gestures that rivalled those of the general himself in their elegant and expressive sweep.

"You must forgive me, Monsieur le General," she said presently, "but your proposition is so funny!"

"Funny, dear lady!" he protested. "Frankly I do not see-"

"No," she broke in, "you would not."

"Will you be so gracious as to explain?"

"No," Rosemary went on lightly, "I don't think I will. You would not understand-even then."

"Then," he said coolly, "there is nothing left for me to do but to take my leave, and to deplore that you should have wasted so much of your valuable time in conversation with a clod."

He rose, and bowing low, he put out his hand in order to take hers, but Rosemary did not move.

"You cannot go, Monsieur le General," she said firmly, "without giving me a definite answer."

"I have given you a definite answer, dear lady. It is my misfortune that you choose to treat it as ludicrous."

"But surely you were not serious when you suggested--"

"When I suggested that the mischief wrought by two traitors should be remedied by one who takes an interest in them? What could be more serious?"

"You seriously think," she insisted, "that I would lend myself to such traffic? that I would put my name to statements which I could not verify, or to others that I should actually believe to be false? Ah ça, Monsieur le General, where did you get your conception of English women of letters, or of English journalists?"

Naniescu put his finger-tips to his breast, then spread out his hands with a broad gesture of protest.

"I was wrong," he said suavely, "utterly wrong. I admit it. Forgive me, and permit me to take my leave--"

"Monsieur le General--"

"At your service, dear lady."

"Young Imrey," she pleaded, "and Anna Heves!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I am truly sorry for them," he said unctuously; "but surely you do not think seriously that I would lend myself to any traffic where the safety of my country is concerned. Ah ça, dear lady," he went on, not only mocking the very words she had used, but even the inflexion of her voice. "Where did you get your conception of a Roumanian officer or of a Roumanian gentleman?"

"It is you who proposed an infamous traffic," she retorted, "not I."

"Pardon me," he protested. "All that I suggested was that the mischief done should be remedied in the simplest way, before those who had wrought it could hope for pardon. The mischief was done through the public Press; it can only be made good through the public Press, and only through the medium of one as influential as yourself. My suggestion has not met with your approval. Let us say no more about it."

Before she could prevent it he had taken her hand and raised it to his lips. She snatched it away as if her finger-tips had come in contact with something noxious; the indignation which she had tried so hard to keep under control flamed for an instant out of her eyes; and Naniescu, seeing it, gave a soft, guttural laugh.

"I had a suspicion," he said cynically, "that the situation was not entirely ludicrous. And now," he went on, "have I your permission to take my leave?"

He bowed once more, hand on breast, heels clicking, and was on the point of turning to go when an impulsive cry from Rosemary brought him to a halt.

"That is not your last word, General Naniescu?"

"Indeed," he replied with utmost gallantry, "but the last word rests with you, dear lady. I am ever at your service. Only," he continued very slowly and very deliberately, "let me assure you once and for all that young Imrey and Anna Heves will appear before the military courts on a charge of treason unless a series of articles written in the spirit I have had the honour to outline before you, and bearing your distinguished name, appear in-shall we say The Times?-within the next month. But, just to show you how greatly I value your regard, I will be as lenient as my duty permits. I will even allow those two young traitors to return, temporarily, to their homes. Philip Imrey and Anna Heves will be brought here in the course of a day or two. They will be free, within certain limitations, to move about among their friends. I need not add, dear lady, that you, on the other hand, are absolutely free, without any limitations, to come and go as you choose. On the day that the last of your brilliant articles will have appeared in The Times Imrey and his cousin will receive a free pardon from the Government which they have outraged."

He paused a moment, then raised one hairy, manicured finger and added with theatrical emphasis:

"But not before."

Rosemary had listened to his long speech without moving a muscle. She stood straight as a sapling, looking unflinchingly at the man, striving to shame him, yet knowing that in this she would not succeed. There was no room for shame or compunction in that bundle of conceit and depravity.

Fear, too, appeared to be one of the tortuous motives which had suggested this ignominious "either-or." How far the Roumanian Government was a party to the mishandling of Transylvania, Rosemary had not yet had the opportunity of ascertaining.

She strongly suspected Naniescu of having over-stretched his powers, and of dreading an exposure at Bucharest more, perhaps, than in London or New York. Now, when he had finished speaking, and while his mellow eyes still rested with gentle mockery upon her, she could not keep back the final taunt which she hoped would sting him as much as his urbanity had stung her.

"What proof have I," she queried slowly, "that if I fulfil my share of the bargain you will not in the end repudiate yours?"

He smiled, quite undisturbed.

"You mistrust me. It is only natural," he said unctuously. "But what can I do?"

"Write me a letter," she replied coldly, "embodying your terms for the release of Philip Imrey and Anna Heves, and your promise to keep to the bargain if I accept those terms."

"Will that satisfy you?" he asked.

"It would hold you to your word, at any rate. For if it did not--"

He gave his soft, throaty laugh, and a glimmer of satisfaction shot through his eyes.

"You Englishwomen are truly marvellous," he observed. "So business-like. Everything in black and white-what?"

"Preferably," she rejoined drily.

"Well, then, you shall have the letter, dear lady," he concluded blandly. "And I promise you that I shall so tie myself down to my share of this interesting transaction that you will not hesitate any longer to fulfil yours."

And the next moment, even while Rosemary turned towards the window in order to look for one brief moment, at any rate, on something clean and pure, Naniescu had gone, softly closing the door behind him and leaving in his wake a faint odour of Havana cigar and eau de Cologne, and an atmosphere of intrigue which Rosemary felt to be stifling. She threw open the window and inhaled the clean air right down into her lungs. Her thoughts were still in a whirl. The situation was so impossible that her brain at present rejected it. It could not be. Things like this did not occur. It was not modern. Not twentieth century. Not post-war. Civilized men and women did not have interviews such as she had just had with this smooth-tongued Roumanian. There was something medieval about this "either-or," this impasse to which in very truth there was no issue.

Rosemary now started pacing up and down the room. She was alone and could indulge in this time-tried method of soothing jangled nerves. With both forefingers she tapped her temples, as if to stimulate the work of a jaded brain. Issue? There must be an issue to this impasse. She was a British subject, the wife of an English peer. She could not be bullied into doing things against which her sense of honour rebelled. She could not be made to lend her name to falsehoods, knowing them to be falsehoods. Of course not. Of course not. She could not be compelled. That was a fact. An undisputable, hard, solid fact. What then? Well, then there were Philip and Anna, who would be brought before the military courts on a charge of treason. And the military courts would condemn them-to what? To death? No! No! No! Not to death! Philip and little Anna: children whom she knew and loved! Condemned to death! Shot! like Edith Cavell, or Captain Fryatt! Shot! But that was in war time! Now the world was at peace! The Treaty of Versailles was the millennium that would bring peace on earth, goodwill toward men! Peace! This was peace! Foolish, thoughtless children could not in peace time be shot as traitors!

Tap-tap went Rosemary's fingers against her temples. Peace, ye gods! Philip and Anna had rendered themselves liable to human justice, and human justice in this half-forgotten corner of God's earth knew but one law-revenge! Philip and Anna would be condemned-and shot, unless she, Rosemary Tarkington, gained a free pardon for them at the price of truth, honour and the welfare, perhaps, of thousands of innocents.

And as gradually this awful alternative penetrated into the innermost recesses of her brain, the girl looked wildly about her like an animal suddenly fallen into a trap. Her knees all at once gave way under her, and she fell up against the sofa, with arms outspread upon the cushions. With head thrown back, she gazed unseeing up at the ceiling, and this time it was a real hysterical outburst that caused her to laugh and to laugh, until laughter broke into a sob, and burying her face in her hands she burst into a flood of tears.

CHAPTER XIV

Rosemary, being very human and very young, felt all the better after she had had a good cry. Better mentally, that is to say. Physically she was tired, hot, overstrained; her eyes ached, her limbs ached, her head ached, but mentally she felt better.

Presently she struggled back to her feet, dabbed her eyes with cold water, put powder on her nose and a comb through her hair. She did not want to look a sight when presently Jasper came back from his walk and she told him all that had happened.

By the way, where was Jasper?

Rosemary was just aching to review the whole situation with him. No need now for secrecy with regard to Philip and little Anna's foolish conspiracy. Soon the whole world would know of it, friend and foe alike. And Jasper would be able to help, of course, or at any rate to advise. He had done so much for the Roumanian Government in the past, there was just a chance they might do something at his request-out of gratitude.

Gratitude? Rosemary smiled ironically to herself at thought of connecting so gentle an emotion with men like Naniescu. Still, Jasper might think of something, of some way out of the situation, which Rosemary still persisted in thinking unreal. It was, of course, the climax of a plan formed as far back as the Five Arts' Ball at the Albert Hall, when Naniescu first proposed to her that she should come to Transylvania. To get her here, then to close on Philip and Anna a trap which had no doubt long ago been set, and finally to use them as a lever in order to force her, Rosemary, to write those articles which would sooth the vanity of Roumanian bureaucrats and throw dust in the eyes of the sentimental public.

As if in response to Rosemary's wish for his presence, Jasper presently walked in, courteous, chivalrous, full of apologies for having left her to face Naniescu alone.

"I must have been dreaming," he said contritely, "while I wandered out of the park, for, all of a sudden, I found myself away upon the mountain-side, thinking of you. Your dear face peeped at me through the trees, and then I realized that I was leaving you in the lurch, and that you might be wanting me-and I not there! Can you, I wonder, forgive me?"

He sat down beside her on the sofa and took her hand, and one by one he kissed each rosy finger-tip.

"Wherever I am, little one," he said softly, "I always see you. Your presence beside me this morning was so real that I was never wholly conscious that you were not actually there. Will you forgive me?" he asked again.

Rosemary turned to him with a smile. There was no one in the world quite so kind as Jasper; his kind, grave eyes were fixed on her with such a look of adoration that instinctively Rosemary nestled closer to him like a trusting child, and on an impulse she told him everything: the arrest of Philip Imrey and of little Anna, and Naniescu, and his mind appeared to wander, as if he were thinking of something else, and Rosemary harkened in vain for a word of indignation from him when she told him about Naniescu's abominable "either-or." Yet she studied his face very closely, those fine aristocratic features with their somewhat affected wearied expression, and the dark eyes set closely together like those of an eagle or a hawk. He said nothing. He only looked as if he were thinking hard. Pondering over something that puzzled and worried him. Rosemary wondered what it was. And later on, when she pressed him with questions, he seemed to drag himself back to the present situation with a great effort of nerve and will, and even then he did not appear to have a firm grasp of it. He put irrelevant counter-questions, and once or twice answered at random. His chief concern seemed to be that she, Rosemary, knowing the foolish game Philip and Anna were playing, had not succeeded in putting a stop to it.

"The girl appeared sensible enough," he said almost irritably. "I believe she would have listened to you. That sort of thing is just romantic nonsense. It never does any good, and more often than not it brings trouble on the innocent rather than on the guilty. The same thing applies to the Germans, the Austrians and to the Hungarians. They have been beaten and they have got to take their punishment. All these political intrigues are just folly!"

Of course Jasper was right. Of course he was sensible, and just and clear-thinking. But while Rosemary paid ungrudging tribute to his judgement, she felt more and more chilled by his total lack not only of sympathy but even of attention, as if the matter of Philip and Anna's life and liberty hardly interested him. Now Rosemary hardly liked to ask him for advice, for fear he might tell her to assent to Naniescu's wish-and to write those articles against which her sense of right and wrong, of truth and professional honour rebelled.

She could almost hear Jasper saying:

"You can get quite near the truth in your articles and satisfy Naniescu and you will save those two hotheads from the consequences of their own indiscretion. Believe me you would be doing far more good that way to this miserable country than Philip ever did with his ill-considered articles."

Perhaps Jasper had actually said all this. Rosemary could not be sure. For the last few minutes her mind had been absent from her body. It had flown over mountains and seas, right across the great plains of Hungary and the fields of waving corn, to a small, dark corner in the crowded Albert Hall, with noisy jazz music buzzing in the distance like phantom melodies, with laughter and chatter all around, glittering jewels, fantastic clothes and waving fans; and here Rosemary's mind came to a halt and insistently beckoned to memory. She recalled every moment of that night, every incident stood out like a picture before her now: the dance with Peter, and then the box with the heavy curtains that shut her right out of the world-alone with Peter. She recalled every line of his face, those fine white hands made to wield brush or pen rather than a cricket-ball, the fair, curly head, the tense dark eyes.

What sympathy she would have got from Peter if only he were here! His judgement, perhaps, would not have been so sound as Jasper's: Rosemary would not feel that she could rely on Peter to say or do only what was right, what was just and reasonable. He would be guided by his heart and not by his head; he would be wrong, no doubt-utterly wrong-in his judgements, in his advice. But oh! he would be so human, so full of pity, so understanding! And for the first time since her marriage to Jasper, Rosemary allowed herself to think of Peter, to long for Peter, to mourn that which Peter had meant in her life: youth, humanity and enthusiasm.

And suddenly she was brought back to Kis-Imre and to the reality of the present situation by a direct question put to her by Jasper:

"Why didn't you tell me, dear, that Peter Blakeney was in Transylvania?"

Jasper had put the question quite gently and kindly. He never put on with Rosemary any airs of martial authority, nor was there even a hint of reproach in his tone. But the question did bring Rosemary's mind back in a second from the Albert Hall to Kis-Imre. She frowned, very much puzzled, and turned to look straight at Jasper. He, too, appeared to have come back to Kis-Imre from the land of nowhere. He still had on a puzzled and pondering expression, but with it a certain look of hardness, which he seldom had when his wife was nigh.

"Peter Blakeney?" Rosemary asked slowly. "What in the world do you mean?"

"Don't look so scared, little one," Jasper rejoined, his stern face breaking into a smile. "As a matter of fact the whole thing has puzzled me to such an extend that I am afraid I must have appeared very unresponsive just now--" He paused, and, leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees, and instead of looking as if he wished to avoid making her feel uncomfortable by staring directly at her.

"A moment ago," he resumed presently, "as I was crossing the hall, General Naniescu came out of the smoking-room into the outer vestibule. He did not see me, and I was just debating in my mind whether I would speak to him when he turned to a young officer who was evidently in attendance, and what he said to him was this: 'Ring up Mr. Blakeney at once and tell him I will see him about the business at five o'clock his afternoon; you may tell him that on the whole I think I have been successful."

"Impossible!" Rosemary exclaimed impulsively.

"So I thought at the time," Jasper rejoined. "Therefore I recrossed the hall and spoke a few words to Naniescu. He appeared vexed when he saw me, and I distinctly saw him make a sign to the officer, who did not then go to the telephone, although a moment ago Naniescu had ordered him to ring up at once. I kept the general talking for a few minutes in the hall. He did not refer to his conversation with you, nor did he refer in any way to Peter."

"You must have misunderstood the name," Rosemary insisted.

"I thought so at first, but I had confirmation of it later on. Naniescu very obviously and very clumsily maneuvered me toward the dining-room, the doors of which were wide open. As soon as he had got me into the room he closed the doors. Now, I happened to have very sharp ears, and although Naniescu talked to me at the top of his voice I distinctly heard what was going on in the hall. The officer called up the Hotel New York at Cluj, after which there was a pause. I tried to take my leave of the general, for I wanted to come up to you, but he would not let me go. He talked incessantly and always at the top of his voice on all sorts of irrelevant topics. He dragged me to the window at the farther end of the room to show me the view. He tried to persuade me to go out with him for a turn in the park. Finally fortune favoured me; my sharp ears caught the ring of the telephone bell. I gave Naniescu the slip and just had the door open when I heard the officer say quite distinctly in French:

"'Is that you, Mr. Blakeney? Mr. Blakeney, his Excellency will see you--' At this point," Jasper went on, "Naniescu with a loud guffaw took hold of my arm and made some facetious remark which I did not catch. However, he had made it so obvious that he did not wish me to hear the telephone message, and, on the other hand, I had heard the officer name Peter so distinctly that I allowed myself to be dragged back into the room, and made no further attempt to pry into Naniescu's-or Peter's-secrets."

"But this is all nonsense," Rosemary broke in warmly. "Peter is not in Transylvania. I am sure he is not. He would have told me. He would have let me know. It is some other Blakeney whom Naniescu was calling up."

Jasper shrugged. "Perhaps," he said quietly.

"I am sure," Rosemary insisted.

Jasper said nothing more after that, and Rosemary was conscious of a feeling of irritation against him because he was so obviously convinced that Peter was in Transylvania and in secret communication with that odious Naniescu. How could he imagine such a thing? Peter! Peter with the lovely Hungarian mother! Peter? Nonsense! But Rosemary could not sit still. She jumped to her feet and began fidgeting about the room, arranging her dress, her hair, fidgeting, fidgeting. She would not look at Jasper, and she was determined not to say anything more. He would discover his mistake soon enough, and if she said anything now she might use words, phrases, expression which later on she would regret.

Peter intriguing with a Roumanian! Nonsense! And yet her nerves were terribly on edge, more so now than they were after her interview with Naniescu. And she could not bear to look at Jasper. She was afraid that she would hate him for his thoughts about Peter. Fortunately after a little while the luncheon-bell sounded. Jasper jumped to his feet. He too seemed relieved that the subject of Peter could now be conveniently dropped.

"Will you see Elza?" he said abruptly.

"Elza?" Rosemary asked. "Why?"

"Naniescu and his suite are in the house," Jasper replied drily. "They will stay to lunch. I don't know what Elza will feel about it."

"She will feel as I do," Rosemary retorted hotly, "that the man's presence at her table is an outrage."

"But he told me that Philip and Anna will be allowed to come home."

"Yes. Provisionally. Until I--"

"Elza need not know about that," Jasper broke in hurriedly. "That is why I thought you would see her. She need not know that Philip's release is only-conditional--"

Rosemary thought the matter over for a moment. As always, Jasper was right. Elza need not know. Not yet.

"Shall I go to her now," she said, "and tell her?"

"I think it would come best from you. It will be such news for her, poor thing."

"Poor darling!" Rosemary sighed; then she added more coldly: "But what about me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Am I expected to sit at table with that mealy-mouthed Roumanian?"

Jasper smiled. "How else would you explain the situation to Elza?" he asked.

All this had brought about a fresh train of thought, and Rosemary was quite thankful that Jasper was showing such sympathy for Elza. He was quite right. Elza need not be told that the release of Philip and Anna was only conditional. There was a month still ahead before Elza need be told the truth.

"Will you keep Naniescu talking," Rosemary said finally, "while I see Elza?"

She looked quite cool and self-possessed now, beautifully dressed, one row of perfect pearls round her neck, circles of diamonds in her ears, a great lady conscious of her own beauty. "How wonderful you are!" came as an involuntary exclamation from her husband's lips, and his dark, deep-set eyes lit up with a sudden flash of passionate admiration as they rested on the vision of loveliness before him.

Then together they went out of the room, Rosemary just a step of two in front of her husband. She still could not bear to look at him, and when she caught his look of bold admiration she coldly turned her head away. Obedient to her wish, he went downstairs to keep Naniescu talking, while she went to break the good news to Elza. But walking along the stately gallery that led to her hostess's rooms, Rosemary's thoughts were not with Elza, her lips were murmuring almost audibly:

Peter intriguing with a Roumanian?

What nonsense!

Jasper must be mad!

CHAPTER XV

The moment that Rosemary came into the room she guessed that Elza somehow or other had heard the news. She had tears in her big, kind eyes, but they were tears of emotion, not of sorrow or anxiety.

"Philip is coming home with Anna!" she cried as soon as she caught sight of Rosemary.

"Who told you?" Rosemary asked.

"General Naniescu sent his captain to tell me. I only knew it five minutes ago. But oh, my dear, they have been such five minutes!"

Rosemary kissed her with tender affection. She did not feel somehow as if she could say much.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Elza went on while she put a few finishing touches to her toilet. "And has not Naniescu been kind? Of course I knew that they could not do anything to Philip because he has done nothing, and I don't believe that Anna did anything either. But you know, my dear, these days some awful mistakes do occur. But," she added lightly, "I have so often experienced it in life that men are not nearly so cruel as they are credited to be. One is so apt to pass judgement on insufficient evidence. Give a man the chance of doing a kind act, that is my motto, and he will nearly always do it."

Fortunately Elza was rather fussy for the moment, fidgeting about the room and obviously trying to calm her nerves, so she did not notice Rosemary's silent, unresponsive way.

"When do you expect Philip and Anna?" Rosemary said at last.

"This afternoon," Elza exclaimed, her words rang out like a little cry of joy. "And you know Maurus is so happy that he has actually gone down in order to say something civil to Naniescu, who, of course, is staying for lunch. Well," she added after a moment or two, when she had gathered up her keys, her rings, her handkerchief, and given a final tap to her hair, "shall we go down too?"

Without a word Rosemary followed her. She felt as if she must choke. Elza's happiness was going to be the most severe trial of all during this terrible month that lay ahead of her.

"Oh, and I was almost forgetting," Elza resumed, while she tripped lightly along the gallery towards the stairs, "the smaller joy beside the greater-the greatest one! I have heard from Peter Blakeney."

"From Peter?"

"Yes. He is at Cluj, at the New York. He is over here about some arrangement he wants to make for a cricket match or something silly of that sort-you know what Peter is: quite mad about that silly cricket. I had a letter from him this morning, but when it came I had no thought for anything except Philip. I must let you read it presently. I don't really know what he says, but if he is at Cluj we are sure to see him very soon."

She prattled on as merry as a bird. She seemed twenty years younger all of a sudden-her step was light and springy, her eyes were bright, her voice was fresh and clear. Rosemary kept on repeating to herself:

"She need not know for at least three weeks. She need not know, and I must pretend-pretend-at any cost. She will know soon enough, poor darling."

And Rosemary did manage to pretend; for the next three hours she was just an automaton, wound up to play a certain part. To everyone she had to pretend-to Elza, to Maurus, to that odious Naniescu, and even to Jasper. The worst of all was pretending to Jasper, for from this she got no reprieve. Jasper's kind, anxious eyes were on her all the time, but she would not let him see that she was anxious about Peter. Somehow the episode about Peter had made everything so much worse. Not that she harboured the thought for a moment that Peter was intriguing with Naniescu. That, of course, was out of the question. He had come to arrange something about a cricket match, and, of course, he had to see Naniescu about it, get his permission, and so on. There were ten chances to one that Peter had written to her and told her all about it, and that his letter had gone astray. No, no, no! There could be no thought of an intrigue between Peter and these Roumanians; but Rosemary felt that Jasper thought there was, and was vaguely pitying her because of some unknown treachery on Peter's part. It was odious!

And with it all Elza's obvious happiness was almost intolerable to witness, and even Maurus departed from his habitual ill-temper to exchange facetious remarks with Naniescu. Time seemed leaden-footed. The interminable luncheon dragged on wearily, as did the hour of coffee and liqueurs, of endless small talk and constant pretence. But even the worst moments in life must become things of the past sooner or later, and when Rosemary began to feel that she could not stand the whole thing any longer, she found that Naniescu and his officers were actually taking their leave.

After luncheon Jasper was quite charming. He had thought the whole matter over, he said, and decided that it was in his power to make a personal appeal to the King in favour of Philip and Anna. He had certainly rendered more than one signal service to Roumania during and after the war, and he thought that in these countries personal influence counted a great deal. At any rate, there would be no harm in trying, and he would start for Bucharest immediately. He had spoken about the proposed journey to Elza and Maurus, alleging official business, and Elza had already arranged that he should be driven into Cluj in time for the afternoon express. Rosemary's heart was at once filled with gratitude; she felt angry with herself for having mistrusted him. She threw herself whole-heartedly into the preparations for his journey, lolled her troubled soul with the belief that it would prove to be the happy issue out of this terrible situation. When it was time for him to go she wished him God-speed with more fervour and affection than she had shown him for days.

"Bar accidents," he assured her, "I shall be back in a fortnight. If I have definite good news to report I will wire. But even if you don't hear from me, I shall be back, as I say, in fifteen days."

"I shall count the hours until your return," she said.

"And in the meanwhile," he urged with deep earnestness, "you will do nothing without consulting me."

She smiled at this want of logic, so unlike her methodical husband.

"I could not consult you, dear," she said. "You won't be here."

"No, no, I know," he insisted; "but I want you to promise that you will leave things as they are until my return. I don't want you to give anything away to Elza, or to Philip or Anna. Promise me."

"Of course I'll promise," replied readily. "God knows I don't want to be the one to break the awful news to them."

"Or to Peter," he added gravely.

"Peter?"

"I want you to promise me-to promise, Rosemary, that you will not speak of this miserable affair to Peter Blakeney."

Then, as she seemed to hesitate, vaguely puzzled at his desperate earnestness, he again insisted:

"Promise me, Rosemary, whatever you may hear, whatever you may see, whatever may be planned by Elza or anybody else, promise me that you will not speak of it to Peter."

"But Jasper," she exclaimed, "why? Of course I will promise, if you wish it, but frankly I don't understand why you insist, so solemnly too," she added, trying to assume a lightness of heart which she was far from feeling. Then she went on more gravely: "I could trust Peter as I would myself."

"You can put it down to nerves," Jasper said, with the ghost of a smile, "to intuition or foreboding, or merely to jealousy and my wretched character, to anything you please, my dear one. But promise me! Promise me that everything in connexion with this miserable affair will remain just between you and me. Let the others talk, guess, plan. Promise me that you will never speak of it with Peter. Promise me, or I will throw up the sponge, remain here to look after you, and let Naniescu do his worst with the lot of them."

Thus, alternately demanding, entreating, threatening, he extracted the promise from her, even though her heart cried out against what she felt was treachery to Peter. Jasper's insistence filled her with a vague sense of foreboding not unmixed with fear; and yet, the very next moment, as soon as he had her promise, he became tender, soft, loving, as if trying to make her forget his solemn earnestness of a while ago. He took her in his arms and gazed into her eyes with an intensity of longing which made her own heart ache with self-reproach.

"If God there be," he whispered softly, as if to himself, "it was cruel of Him to make you so beautiful-and so desirable."

Again his mood had changed. Tenderness had turned into passion, fierce, almost primeval, and he held her now more like a man defending the greatest treasure he possessed on God's earth than like a husband taking affectionate leave of his wife.

"If I should lose you, Rosemary," he murmured, "because of this."

She tried to laugh and to speak flippantly. "Lose me?" she said. "You have little chance of doing that, my dear, for this or any other cause. Naniescu has not the power of life and death over me," she added more seriously.

There was something about Jasper at this moment that she could not entirely fathom. Twice before she had seen him in these moods of violent passion akin almost to savagery, when she felt utterly helpless and absolutely in his power. She had the feeling that when he was in one of these moods he was capable of any violence against her if she dared to disobey or resist. Not that Rosemary was afraid; she had never in her life been afraid of anyone; but she had always been mistress of herself, and at this moment, held tightly by the man to whom she had sworn love and fealty, she felt like a slave of olden times in the grip of her lord.

"You-you will care for me some day, Rosemary?" he asked with passionate earnestness. "Say that you will some day, when all this-all this is forgotten, and we are back again in England, free to live our own lives, free to love. You will care for me then, Rosemary, will you not? For I could not live beside you for long, feeling all the time that you did not belong to me with your whole soul. You have such haunting eyes-eyes such as pixies and fairies have-maddening eyes. I should go crazy presently if I failed to kindle the love-light in those eyes."

He kissed her eyes, her mouth, her throat. Rosemary would have struggled, would have screamed if she dared. Fortunately a knock at the door and the entrance of one of the menservants, who came to fetch milord's luggage, put an end to a situation which Rosemary found very difficult to endure. After the man had gone the spell appeared to be broken. Jasper became once more the courteous, grave man of the world he had always been. The episode of a moment ago did not seem to have occurred at all, as far as he was concerned, and while Rosemary felt her teeth chattering and the palms of her hands were covered with a cold sweat, Jasper moved about the room and spoke to her about his proposed journey, his certain return in a fortnight, as if nothing had happened.

CHAPTER XVI

The carriage which took Jasper to Cluj brought back Philip and Anna. After that the house was full of animation, like a beehive in May. Rosemary only saw the two young people for a moment. She felt a stranger in this family gathering, and her heart was so heavy that she soon found a pretext for going up to her room. Later on she pleaded a headache. Kind and hospitable as were these dear people, Rosemary felt that they must wish to be alone amongst themselves after the terrible time they had all gone through. They would have so much to talk over that the presence of a stranger, even so welcome as one as Rosemary Tarkington, must of necessity be irksome. It was clear to her from the first that Philip and Anna knew little, if anything, of the conditions attached to their release. Philip talked lightly of their being under surveillance for a time, and then added quite gaily that he would gladly lead the life of a hermit in Kis-Imre and never go outside the gates until the present clouds blew over. He gave himself up wholly to the joy of watching his mother's happiness and seeing her dear eyes beaming on her returned boy. Altogether he was more like a schoolboy who by a fluke has escaped punishment than a man conscious of a deadly peril that had not ceased to threaten him.

They all sat up talking late into the evening, and when Rosemary found herself at last alone in her room, trying to think things out before she went to bed, little Anna came up to her. The child looked hollow-eyed and grave; the joy that had been on her face when she first found herself in this second home of hers had all gone. She looked old, wan and tired out.

Rosemary put out her arms, and Anna ran up to her and snuggled up close to her, just like a child. For a long time she was quite silent, with her head against her friend's shoulder, her little thin hands held in Rosemary's kind, firm grasp. Now and again a hot tear would fall on Rosemary's hands. Anna was crying quietly to herself, and Rosemary waited until the girl was calm enough to speak.

"I don't understand the whole thing, Rosemary," were the first words that Anna spoke.

"What is it you don't understand, dear?" Rosemary asked.

"It is not like them to be lenient, is it?" the girl retorted, looking up with quick, eager inquiry into her friend's face.

"Oh, in this case," Rosemary rejoined vaguely, "you are both so young!"

Anna shook her head vigorously.

"That wouldn't worry them," she said, "after all the trouble they must have taken to track us down."

"You were caught in the act, I suppose?" Rosemary queried.

Anna nodded.

"Yes," she said. "And that was strange too. I had all my parcels ready-the usual ones for Budapest, and Philip's manuscript at the bottom of a box of vegetable seeds. Half a dozen soldiers and an officer came into the shop and walked straight up to the place where the parcels were stacked. They seemed to know all about everything, for the officer just ordered his men to undo all the parcels, and, of course, there was Philip's manuscript."

"There is nothing strange in all that, Anna," Rosemary said. "I have no doubt in my mind that you both have been watched for some time by secret service men, and at last they closed their trap on you."

But once more Anna shook her head.

"I can't explain what I mean," she said, and puckered her fine straight brows together. "It is a kind of intuition that came to me when I saw those soldiers walk in. I am absolutely convinced that we were not denounced by regular Government spies. They are too clumsy, and we were too careful. I am certain," she reiterated obstinately, "that we were not denounced by one of them."

"By whom, then?"

"Ah, that I don't know. It is an awful feeling I have. You know I never believed in all that so-called psychic nonsense which is so fashionable just now, but the feeling I have is not just an ordinary one. It is so strong that I cannot fight against it. It is a feeling that eyes-eyes-are always watching me and Philip-cruel eyes-eyes that wish us evil-that will us to do something foolish, unconsidered, something that will get us again into trouble, and for good this time."

"You are overwrought, Anna dear," Rosemary put in gently. "And no wonder! Of course, we all know that there are Government spies all over the place, and you and Philip will have to be doubly careful in the future' but here in Kis-Imre you are among friends. Your aunt Elza's servants are all of them Hungarian and thoroughly to be trusted."

Anna said nothing. She was staring straight out in front of her, as if trying to meet those mysterious eyes which were for ever watching her. An involuntary cry of horror rose to Rosemary's lips.

"Anna!" she exclaimed, "you don't think that I--"

But before she could complete her sentence Anna's arms were round her.

"Of course not. Of course not," the girl murmured tenderly. "Rosemary darling, of course not!"

"I never spoke about your affairs to a single soul, Anna," Rosemary said gravely. "I give you my solemn word of honour that I never even mentioned the thing to my husband until after your arrest, when, of course, all the facts became public property."

"I know, Rosemary, I know," Anna repeated. "I would trust you with every secret. I would trust you with my life-with Philip's life."

"And you did not trust anyone else?" Rosemary asked.

"I never breathed a word about it to a living soul, except to you and Peter Blakeney."

"Peter knew?"

"Yes, Peter knew."

"You wrote to him?" Rosemary insisted. "Ah, then I understand. Your letters were held up by the censor, and--"

"No, I never wrote to Peter what Philip and I were doing; but you know he arrived in Cluj the day before I was arrested. He came to arrange some cricket match or other between Roumanians and Hungarians. I don't know anything about cricket, but, of course, Peter was full of it. He came to see me at my lodgings quite unexpectedly. I was so surprised to see him, and so happy, as I am very, very fond of Peter. We talked till late into the evening, and somehow I had to tell him everything. But except for that one talk with Peter, and the one I had with you, I never breathed a word about what Philip and I were doing, not to a living soul!"

Rosemary said nothing for the moment. Indeed there was nothing much that she could say. Little Anna had got hold of the idea that some mysterious agency had been at work and brought about her and Philip's arrest. But, after all, what did it matter? Professional spies or insidious traitor? What difference did it make in the end? Anna was frightened because she feared a fresh denunciation. She did not know that her poor life was already forfeit, that she was just a mouse whom the cat had allowed to run free for a moment or two, and that she would be pounced upon again unless her friend Rosemary whom she trusted with her whole soul, bought freedom and life for her.

But it was not thoughts of Anna that sealed Rosemary's lips at this moment and left her mute, motionless, like an insentient log, with Anna's cold little hand held tightly in her own. Anna had not spoken of her activities or her plans to anyone except to Peter. And Jasper had extracted a promise from her, Rosemary, that she would not speak of Philip's or Anna's affairs to Peter. What connexion was there between Jasper's insistence and that other awful thought which, strive as she might, would haunt Rosemary's brain like a hideous ghoul risen out of hell? What mystery lurked in the denunciation of these children, in their release, in the alternative which Naniescu had placed before her? What hidden powers were at work, threatening her with shame and the children with death?

Rosemary felt stifled. Rising abruptly, she went to the window and stepped out on the balcony. The moon was up, a honey-coloured, waning moon that threw its cool, mysterious light on park-land and lake and the distant pine forest beyond. Immediately below the balcony a bed of tuberoses, with wax-like corollas that shimmered white and spectral, sent their intoxicating odour through the balmy air. And against the background of dense shrubberies a couple of fireflies gleamed and darted aimlessly, ceaselessly, in and out of the shadows. Rosemary, seeing them, was reminded of what Anna had said just now-that eyes were for ever looking at her, cruel eyes, eyes that were on the watch, spying, spying.

Suddenly she clapped her hand to her mouth, smothering a sharp cry that had risen to her throat; and instinctively she stepped back into the room and hastily closed the window.

"What is it, Rosemary darling?" Anna asked.

"Nothing, dearie, nothing," Rosemary replied quickly. "The smell of those tuberoses made me feel queer. That's all."

She could not tell Anna that while she watched the fireflies, and the air was so still, so still that not a blade of grass shivered, and even the leaves of the aspen were at rest, she had perceived a tremor amongst the laurel bushes and seen some of the tall branches held back by a hand, each finger of which was outlined by the silvery light of the moon. And above the hand she had sensed a pair of eyes that were looking up at her.

She tried to talk lightly with Anna, to infuse into her some of the buoyancy of mind which she was far from feeling herself. She was sure that Anna had a vague consciousness of the danger that hung over her and those she cared for; the only thing she could not know was that her fate and theirs lay in the hands of the friend whom she trusted. How would she-how would they all-bear the knowledge when it came to them, as come it must? How would she, Rosemary, face the reproach which, even if unspoken by them, would haunt her to the end of her life: "You might have saved us, if you would."

CHAPTER XVII

And it was that spectre which from that hour haunted Rosemary; it would not allow her to rest at night; it dogged her steps by day. When she walked in the park and the soft summer breeze stirred the branches of Lombardy poplars or the stately plumes of maize, ghostly voices would seem to be whispering all around her: "Life and liberty for Philip and Anna! Life and liberty for those two children who love and trust you, who know nothing of the fate that hangs over them!" And when she was in the house at meals or in the family circle, with Elza radiating happiness and even Maurus unbending, with Philip almost feverishly gay and Anna thoughtful, the eyes of all these kind, dear people whom she loved seemed full of reproach to the one woman who could save them-if she would.

Then Rosemary, unable to pretend any longer, would run up to her room; and she-one of the most sane, most level-headed women in this neurotic age-would throw herself on her knees and pray to be taken out of it all. Oh! to be out of it-underground-anywhere! Just to be out of it, not to see those smiles, that happiness, that contentment which she knew must presently end in a devastating catastrophe. To be out of it when the time came-in a few weeks-days-hours!

Hour followed hour, dull and leaden-footed. And they were all so happy at Kis-Imre! Suspecting nothing, knowing nothing, whilst Rosemary felt her self-control slipping away from her day by day. At times she felt as if she could not endure the situation and longer, as if she must tell one of them. Tell Elza or Maurus, or the children! Surely they should know! There comes a time when a doctor, knowing that his patient cannot recover, is bound in all humanity to tell him. Then surely it was Rosemary's duty to say to them all: "You don't know! You have not guessed! But you are doomed. Doomed! Philip and Anna to death! You Elza and Maurus to worse than death--limitless sorrow. Now you are just living on a volcano. In another few days-twenty, nineteen, eighteen-the flames will break through, the earth will totter under your feet, and everything you care for in the world will be engulfed. You will perish. Yes, you! All of you! And then you will know about me! How I might have saved you and did not. And you will hate me as no woman has ever been hated before. And I shall go forth into the vast wilderness which is called the world. And I, too, shall perish of sorrow and endless regret!"

She had not again seen those mysterious eyes which that evening, while little Anna was talking, had peered at her from behind the laurel bushes; and she was far too sensible to dwell on what might only, after all, have been the creation of overwrought nerves.

The time was drawing near for Jasper's return. "Fifteen days" he had said; and she knew that, bar accidents, he would keep his word. But she had no news of him, and after the first week she ceased to expect any. She would not own, even to herself, that she had already ceased to build hopes in that direction. Jasper had promised to wire as soon as he heard anything definite, so in this case no news was bad news. Dear, kind Jasper! he knew how miserably anxious she was! He would not keep good news from her-not one hour.

It was on the tenth day that Peter arrived at the castle. He had announced his coming twenty-four hours previously, and in a moment there was excitement from attic to cellar in the house. Everybody seemed to be arranging something, planning something. Tennis excursions, dancing! Peter was such a good dancer! They would have the gipsies over from Bonczhida. That was the finest band in the whole of Transylvania; and they would ask the Keletys over from Hajdu and the Fejérs from Henger, and perhaps Aunt Charlotte could be persuaded to come and bring Marie. There was some talk of private theatricals, of tableaux, a tennis tournament, perhaps a cricket match, English fashion. Peter was so clever at all that sort of thing! Rosemary was consulted about the cricket match and the tournament, for these were to be done on English lines! But the dancing and the acting and the picnics, these were to be truly and entirely Hungarian-pre-war Hungarian, the gayest, merriest things darling Rosemary had ever seen.

How much she had looked forward to Peter's coming, Rosemary did not know until after she had seen him. What hopes she had built on his mere presence, on his nearness, she did not own to herself until afterwards. He had not been in the house many hours before she realized that he had changed. Not changed for the worse, of course not-but changed.

He seemed younger, more boyish-more English in many ways. At one time the Hungarian strain had been very conspicuous in Peter-his tempestuous love-making, his alternating moods of fatalism and rebellion had always reminded Rosemary of those barbaric chieftains-his forbears about whom she loved to read-who had been up and fought the Turks, while the rest of Europe only trembled at thought of their approach.

But now Peter was much more like the conventional young English athlete: not very loquacious, very placid, ashamed of showing emotion or excitement, standing about for the most part with his hands in his trousers pockets contemplating the toes of his boots, and smoking innumerable cigarettes. He had not seemed like this at first. He arrived in the late afternoon, and Rosemary was downstairs in the paved courtyard when the carriage drove in through the gates, with its four spanking greys shining with lather, for the day had been very hot and the roads were dusty. Peter was on the box, having dislodged the coachman, who sat beside him, the groom being relegated to the cushioned seat of the victoria.

There was such a halloing and a shouting, everyone screaming a welcome, grooms rushing to hold the horses, the greys pawing and champing and shorting, that Rosemary hardly saw Peter when he threw the reins to the coachman, jumped down from the box, and was lost in a forest of welcoming arms that hid him completely from view.

It was only after dinner, when the whole company went out into the garden to get a breath of air, that Rosemary found herself for a few moments alone with him. It had been desperately hot indoors, and the noise of all these dear people all talking and laughing at the same time had been overpowering. Fortunately everyone thought it would be lovely in the garden, and still laughing and chattering they trooped out like a brood of chickens let out of a coop. Rosemary had wandered on ahead of the others, and presently she turned down the path that ran along the perennial border, now a riot of colour and a tangle of late lilies, crimson pentstemons and evening primroses.

Rosemary did not hear Peter coming. No one ever dressed for dinner at Kis-Imre, and Peter had his tennis shoes on, and the rubber soles made not the slightest sound upon the smooth gravel path. She had stopped to look at a clump of tiger lilies, when suddenly a wonderful sense of well-being seemed to descend upon her soul. It was as if she had stepped out of a boat that had been tossed about a stormy sea, and had all of a sudden set her foot upon firm ground. The first words he said were so like the foolish, lighthearted Peter she knew.

"You wonderful pixie!" he said, "I can't believe that it is really you!"

She did not immediately turn to look at him, but went on studying the markings on the lilies; then she said, as indifferently as she could:

"Why didn't you let me know sooner, Peter, that you were coming to Transylvania? In fact," she went on coolly, "you never did let me know at all. I first heard through-others that you were here."

"Who told you?" he asked.

"I think Jasper did first," she replied. "He had heard the news from General Naniescu."

Then only did she turn and look at him. She had to look up, because, though she herself was very tall, one always had to look up at Peter, who was a young giant. At this moment she certainly did not think that he was changed. He looked just the same, with his very boyish face and laughing grey eyes, and his fair hair that so often looked as if it had been Marcel-waved. He was looking down at her when she turned to him, and suddenly he said:

"You don't look happy, Rosemary!"

Of course she laughed and told him not to make silly remarks. How could she help being happy here with these dear, kind people? Never, never in all her life had she met with such kindness and hospitality. Peter shrugged his shoulders. He thrust his hands in the pockets of his flannel trousers and looked down at the toes of his shoes.

"Very well," he said lightly, "if you won't tell me, you won't. And that's that. But let me tell you this: though I dare say I am a bit of a fool, I am not quite such an ass as not to see the difference in you. You've gotten thinner. When I first arrived and shook hands with you, your hand felt hot, and your eyes--"

He broke off abruptly, and then with sudden irrelevance: "Where's Jasper?"

"Gone to--," she began, and suddenly came to a halt. When she promised Jasper not to breathe a word of Philip's and Anna's affairs to Peter, she had not realized how difficult this would be. Would she be breaking her promise if she now told Peter that Jasper was in Bucharest. He would ask questions, more questions which Rosemary's promise bound her not to answer.

"He has been called away on business," she said curtly.

Her hesitation had only lasted a second or two; she hoped that Peter had not noticed it. Anyway, when he asked: "To Budapest?" she replied, without hesitation this time: "Yes, to Budapest." And she added quite gaily: "He'll be back at the end of the week. You can't think, Peter, how I miss him when he is away! Perhaps that is why I am looking thin, and why my hands are hot."

"Perhaps," Peter assented laconically.

Then somehow the conversation flagged, and all the happy feeling that Rosemary had experienced when Peter first stood near her slipped away from her. She suddenly felt cold, although the evening was so hot that a little while ago she had scarcely been able to breathe. At some little distance behind her Philip's voice sounded cheerful and homely, and Maurus Imrey's throaty laugh and Elza's happy little giggle rang through the sweet-scented evening air. Poor Rosemary shivered.

"Shall we walk on," she asked, "Or wait for the others?"

"Let's walk on," Peter replied; then added in a clumsy, boyish fashion: "Rather!"

They walked on side by side. Rosemary, at a loss what to say next, had thrown out an inquiry about the cricket match. This set Peter talking. All at once he threw off his abrupt, constrained air, and prattled away nineteen to the dozen. The cricket match was going to be a huge success. Didn't Rosemary think it was a grand idea? Talk about the League of Nations, or whatever the thing was called! In Peter's opinion, there was nothing like a jolly good cricket or football match to bring people together. Make them understand one another, was Peter's motto. Of course, all these dagoes over here had got to learn to be proper sports. No sulking if they got beaten. Peter would see to that. Anyhow, the old General What's-his-name had been a brick. He had helped Peter no end to get the Roumanian team together, and had given them all free passes to Hódmezö, where the match would take place. Hódmezö was in Hungary, and old What's-his-name-meaning Naniescu-said he would rather the Roumanian team went to Hungary than that the Hungarian team came over here. Well, Peter didn't mind which. It was going to be a topping affair. He was going to captain the Roumanian team, and Payson was captaining the Hungarians. Did Rosemary know Payson? Jolly chap with a ripping wife-done splendid work in the Air Force during the war. He had something to do with the Military Commission on disarmaments. He was at Budapest now, and Jasper would probably see him while he was there. Payson was coming over to Hódmezö by aeroplane. Wouldn't that create a sensation. There was a splendid landing ground quite close to Hódmezö fortunately. Payson's wife was coming with him. She was so keen on flying. Ripping couple, they were! Didn't Rosemary think so? Oh! and Peter had had telegrams of good wishes from no end of people, and a jolly letter from dear old Plum Warner. Did Rosemary know Plum Warner? There was a cricketer if you like! No one like him, in Peter's opinion. The science of the man! Well, the dagoes should learn that cricket is the finest game in the world! Didn't Rosemary agree with him?

Rosemary gave monosyllabic replies whenever Peter gave her the chance of putting in a word. She could not help smiling at his enthusiasm, of course. It was so young, so English, so thoroughly, thoroughly fine! But somehow she could not recapture that lovely feeling of security, that sheer joy in having Peter near her, and she kept asking herself whether it was really Peter who had changed-who had become younger, or she who had grown old. In this youthful athlete with his self-assurance and his slang, she vainly sought the wayward, sometimes moody, always captivating Peter, whose tempestuous love-making had once swept her off her feet.

At one moment she tried to lead the conversation into a more serious channel: "How do you think Anna is looking?" she asked abruptly.

"A bit peaky." Peter replied lightly, "poor little mole! When you go back to England," he went on more gravely, "you ought to take her with you. It would do her all the good in the world. Take her out of herself, I mean."

"She wouldn't come," Rosemary replied earnestly.

"Don't you think so?"

"Why, Peter," she retorted, feeling exasperated with him for this air of indifference even where Anna was concerned, "you know Anna would not come. For one thing," Rosemary added impulsively, "I don't suppose she would be allowed to."

"You mean her mother wouldn't let her?"

"No," she replied laconically. "I didn't mean that."

"Well, then?" he retorted. Then, as Rosemary, shocked, angry, remained silent, holding her lips tightly pressed together, almost as if she were afraid that words would slip out against her will, Peter shrugged his broad shoulders and rejoined flippantly:

"Oh, I suppose you mean old What's-his-name-Naniescu-and all that rubbish. I don't think he would worry much. He has been a brick, letting Anna and Philip out like that. I expect he would just as soon see them both out of the country as not. Jolly good thing it would be for both of them! They would learn some sense, the monkeys!"

He paused and looked round at Rosemary. Then, as she seemed to persist in her silence, he insisted:

"Don't you agree with me?"

"Perhaps," she replied, with a weary sigh.

"Anyway, you'll think it over, won't you?" Peter went on. "I am sure you could fix it up with old Naniescu. He admires you tremendously, you know."

It was all wrong, all wrong. Peter used to be so fond of little Anna. "Give her a kiss for me," were almost the last words he had spoken to Rosemary on the day of her wedding. His own affairs evidently pushed every other consideration into the remotest corner of his brain; and cricket matches were apparently of more importance than the danger which threatened Anna and Philip. Nor had Rosemary any longer the desire to break her promise to Jasper. She no longer wished to speak to Peter about Anna and Philip, or about the horrible alternative which Naniescu had put before her. Peter-this Peter-would not understand. Jasper had not understood either-but he had misunderstood in a different way. Rosemary realized how right he had been to extract that promise from her. Was not Jasper always right? And was it intuition that had prompted him, after all, rather than an attack of jealousy of which Rosemary, in her heart, had been so ready to accuse him?

Suddenly she felt a longing to get away from Peter, from this Peter whom she neither knew nor trusted. "I'll go in now, I think," she said abruptly; "the dew is rising, and my shoes are very thin."

And she started to walk more quickly. Slowly the shades of evening had been drawing in. Rosemary had not noticed before how dark it was getting. The line of shrubbery behind the perennial border was like a solid wall; and on the other side of the path the stretch of lawn, with its great clumps of pampas grass and specimen trees, became merged in the gathering shadows. Beyond the lawn glimmered the lights of the chateau, and the veranda in front of the drawing-room was like a great patch of golden light, broken by the long, straight lines of its supporting columns. There was no moon, only an infinity of stars; and in the flower border the riot of colour had faded into the gloom, leaving just the white flowers-the nicotiana, the Madonna lilies, a few violas-to break the even mantle spread by the night.

From the direction of the chateau there came a loud call of "Hallo!" to which Peter gave a lusty response. A voice shouted: "We are going in!"

"Right-o!" Peter responded. "We'll come in too!"

Then suddenly he gave a bound, and in an instant had leaped the border and disappeared in the shrubbery beyond. Rosemary, taken completely by surprise, had come to a halt. From the shrubbery there came a loud cry of terror, then a swear-word from Peter, and finally a string of ejaculations, all in Hungarian, and of distressful appeals for mercy in the name of all the saints in the calendar. The next moment Peter's white flannels glimmered through the foliage, and a second or two later he reappeared lower down, coming up the path and half dragging, half pushing in front of him a huddled-up mass, scantily clothed in ragged shirt and trousers, and crowned with a broad-brimmed hat, from beneath which came a succession of dismal howls.

"What is it?" Rosemary cried.

"That's what I want to know," was Peter's reply. "I caught sight of this blighter sneaking in the shrubbery, and got him by the ear, which he does not seem to like, eh, my friend?"

He gave the ear which he held between his fingers another tweak, and in response drew a howl from his victim, fit to wake the seven sleepers.

"Mercy, gracious lord! Mercy on a poor man! I was not doing anything wrong; I swear by holy Joseph I was not doing anything wrong!"

The creature, whoever he was, succeeded in wriggling himself free of Peter's unpleasant hold. At once he turned to flee, but Peter caught him by the shoulder, and proceeded this time to administer something more severe in the way of punishment.

"Leave the man alone, Peter," Rosemary cried indignantly. "You have no right to ill-use him like that!"

"Oh, haven't I? We'll soon see about that!" Peter retorted roughly. "Now then, my friend," he went on, speaking in Hungarian to the bundle of rags that had collapsed at his feet, "listen to me. You have tasted the weight of my boot on your spine, so you know pretty well what you can expect if you don't tell me at once what you are doing at this hour of the night in the gracious count's garden?"

The man, however, seemed unable to speak for the moment; loud hiccoughs shook his tall, spare frame. He held his two hands against the base of his desperate contortions in a vain attempt to get his right shoulder out of Peter's grip.

"Peter," Rosemary cried again, "let the poor wretch go. You must! Or I shall hate you."

But Peter only retorted harshly: "If you weren't here, Rosemary, I'd thrash the vermin to within an inch of his life. Now then," he commanded, "stop that howling. What were you doing in their shrubbery?"

"I only wanted to speak with the gracious countess," the man contrived to murmur at last, through the hiccoughs that still seemed to choke the words in his throat. "I have a message for her!"

"That's why I caught you with this in your belt, eh?" Peter queried sternly, and drew something out of his pocket, which Rosemary could not see; he showed it to the man who promptly made a fresh appeal to the saints.

"The roads are not safe for poor gipsies, gracious lord. And I had the message--"

"Who gave you a message for the gracious countess?" Rosemary asked him gently.

"I-I don't know, gracious lady. A fine gentleman on a horse called to me when I was gathering wood over by the forest of Normafa. He gave me a letter. 'Take it,' he said, 'to the gracious countess over at Kis-Imre, but do not give it into any hands but hers, and only give it to her when she is alone.'"

"Where is the letter?"

"It is here, gracious lady," the man replied and fumbling with the belt that held his ragged trousers round his waist, he drew from underneath it a oiled and crumpled rag that effectively looked like a letter in a sealed envelope. Peter would have snatched it out of his hand, but Rosemary interposed.

"Peter," she said gravely, and stretched a protecting arm over the gipsy's hand, "the man was told not to give it in any hand but Elza's!"

"The man is a liar," Peter riposted harshly.

Just then Philip's voice reached them from across the lawn.

"What are you two doing over there?"

"Philip, is your mother with you?" Rosemary shouted in response.

"Yes! We are just going in."

"Ask her to wait a moment then."

"What has happened?" Elza called.

"Nothing, darling," Rosemary replied. "Send the others in and wait for me, will you?" Then she turned to the gipsy, and said kindly: "Walk beside me, and don't try to run away; the gracious lord will not hurt you if you walk quietly beside me."

And so the three of them walked across the lawn toward the chateau, Rosemary in front, and beside her the gipsy, whose long thin hands almost swept the grass as he walked with bent knees and arched back, throwing from time to time anxious glances behind him. But Peter was lagging behind.

When they were close to the chateau, they saw Elza coming down the veranda steps. Rosemary ordered the gipsy to wait, and ran to meet Elza; in a few words she told her what had occurred. Elza then came across the gravel path, and said to the gipsy: "I am the Countess Imrey. You may give me the letter!"

The man's back became more curved than ever; he nearly touched the ground with his forehead. In the darkness Rosemary seemed to see his long, thin body curling itself up almost into a ball.

"I was told," he murmured meekly, "to give the letter into the hands of the gracious countess only when she was alone."

Instinctively Rosemary turned to look for Peter. To her surprise she saw him just above her, going up the veranda steps. He had his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and he was whistling a tune.

The gipsy whom he had so maltreated a little while ago no longer seemed to interest him. Rosemary called to him rather impatiently:

"Peter!"

He paused and looked down at her. "Hallo!" he said coolly.

"Do you think it is all right for Elza to talk with this man alone?"

Peter shrugged his shoulders. "Why not?" he said, with a laugh.

Then he called out to Elza:

"I say, Aunt Elza, if the wretch should try to kiss you, sing out, won't you?"

Elza laughed good-humouredly.

"Of course I am not afraid," she said. "And I do want to know about this mysterious letter."

Rosemary would have liked to argue the point. She could not understand how it was that Peter took the matter so lightly all of a sudden. However, as Elza was playfully pushing her out of the way, whilst Peter calmly continued to stroll up the stairs, she only said with a final note of earnestness: "I shall be quite close, Elza. You have only to call, you know."

"I know, I know," Elza rejoined, still laughing. "You don't suppose that I am frightened of a gipsy, do you?"

She waited a moment or two until Rosemary was out of sight, then she turned back to the man, and said:

"I am alone now. You may give me the letter."

CHAPTER XVIII

Rosemary went slowly up the veranda steps. She did not feel that it would be loyal to pry into Elza's secrets, but at the same time she wanted to remain well within call. From where she was she could see Peter's broad shoulders blocking the French window which gave on the drawing-room. From somewhere in the house, both above and below stairs, came the sound of laughter and song.

A moment or two later she heard Elza's footsteps behind her on the gravel walk, and presently Elza was there, going up the veranda steps beside Rosemary. She did not say a word, and Rosemary asked no questions. She could see that Elza was preoccupied. She also noticed that the letter-or whatever it was-was not in Elza's hands.

Peter stood aside to allow the two ladies to step into the drawing-room. He asked no questions either, and Elza did not volunteer any information. It seemed as if the incident of the mysterious gipsy had never been. Later on Peter sat down at the piano and played a csàrdàs, for Philip and Anna to dance. They were beautiful dancers, both of them, and it was a pleasure to watch them swaying and bending to the syncopated cadences of the beautiful Hungarian music. Peter, too, had evidently that music in the blood. Rosemary had no idea he could play it so well. He seemed just as excited as the dancers, and accelerated the movements of the csàrdàs until little Anna called for mercy, and even Philip seemed ready to give in. For the time being Rosemary forgot her troubles in the joy of seeing those two enjoying themselves, and the delight of listening to Peter. What a pity, she thought, as she had often done, that he should waste all the poetry, the talent that was in him, and only devote his mind to cricket. She drew close up to the piano, to watch his slender fingers flying over the keys, and as she did so, her glance at one moment wandered to the small what-not in the corner by the piano. There, in the midst of a miscellaneous collection of cigarette boxes, ash-trays, match-boxes, lay a small automatic.

Peter caught her eye, which at the moment expressed a mute inquiry. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. He had a cigarette in a long holder in the corner of his mouth, but he contrived to murmur:

"Yes, the blighter; wasn't I right to thrash him?"

Rosemary looked across at Elza. She sat quite placidly, as she always did, close to her husband's chair, watching her Philip-her soul in her eyes. She was smiling, and now and then she turned to say a word or two to Maurus; but to Rosemary she still looked preoccupied, and once she caught Elza's large kind eyes fixed upon her with a curious, scrutinizing gaze.

An hour later when Rosemary was in her room and beginning to undress, there was a knock at her door, and Elza came in, with that kindly smile of hers still on her face, but with a troubled look in her eyes.

"May I come in for a moment, darling?" she asked.

Rosemary made her comfortable on the sofa, and sat down beside her. Elza took hold of both her hands and fondled them, stroking them up and down, and she began talking about Philip and Anna, and the dancing and the plans for future parties, and picnics and so on. Rosemary let her prattle on; it was her turn to scrutinize Elza's face closely. That something was troubling this dear, kind creature was obvious. She was, as it were, gathering her moral forces before she broached something unpleasant that she had come to say. It was no use brusquing the matter, and Rosemary entered into Elza's plans, discussed the coming dinner-parties, the proposed lists of guests, talked about Anna's future, and made some remarks about Peter.

This brought the main subject on the tapis.

"Where did you and Peter first see that gipsy?" Elza asked presently.

"He was hiding in the shrubbery," Rosemary replied, "behind the flower border. I didn't see him. Peter saw him and pounced upon him, and dragged him out on to the path."

"Funny he did not just go to the service door and ask for me, wasn't it?"

"That's what Peter thought. I am afraid he treated the poor wretch rather roughly."

"I am sorry he did that," Elza mused, and thoughtfully stroked Rosemary's slender fingers between her own. "The man really had a message for me."

"I know," Rosemary rejoined; "a letter."

"No, it wasn't a letter," Elza said, and looked Rosemary now straight between the eyes. "You know these gipsies are queer people. They have curious gifts of divination and prophecy. This man--"

She seemed to hesitate, her glance wavered, and once more she started mechanically stroking Rosemary's hands.

"But the man had a letter for you, Elza dear," Rosemary insisted. "I saw it in his hand."

"Oh, that was only a blind; and so was his story about the gentleman on a horse. He told me that he had come all the way from Ujlak to speak with me. Ujlak is where I was born, and my dear brother and Peter's mother. My sister-in-law lives there still. Anna was born there, and little Marie. It was my father's home and my grandfather's before him, and our ancestors' for many generations. Well, this gipsy came from there."

"In order to speak with you?"

"So he said."

"Well, and what did he have to tell you?" Rosemary asked.

"That he had had a vision. My father had appeared before him in a dream, and told him that he must start at once and seek me. He was to tell me that he whom I love best in all the world is in immediate danger of death."

Rosemary never moved; she was looking straight at Elza. Only when Elza paused, seeming to wait for some word from her, Rosemary said:

"That-wretched creature told you that?"

Elza nodded. She went on simply:

"I see by your face, dear, that he told the truth, not only in that, but in what he said was to follow."

"What was that?"

"He said that the stranger now within our gates knows of this danger, and would confirm what he said. Well, my darling, I only need look at your sweet face to see that that miserable wretch spoke the truth. He was inspired by a dream to come and speak with me. But I would not question him further. Those gipsies often lie, and they will tell you any tale in order to get a few coppers. But I saw your look when I told you what he said, and it is from you that I want the truth. What is the danger that threatens Philip?"

"Elza, darling--" Rosemary murmured.

"I am his mother, you know," Elza interposed, with her gentle, quiet smile. "I must know. He is all the world to me. And as soon as you knew that something threatened him, you should have told me, my darling."

Then, as Rosemary was still fighting with herself, alternately praying to God for guidance, and striving to swallow the tears that were choking her, Elza went on quite quietly:

"It is difficult for you, of course," she said, and patted Rosemary's cheek like an indulgent mother, "but it would have been better to tell me at first. I have had a very, very happy week since the children came home, but looking back on it now, I don't think that I was ever quite free from a vague sort of doubt. I was always a little uneasy, and whenever Philip kissed me, I could not help crying."

Elza had spoken in a curious, dreamy manner, her round blue eyes fixed somewhere on vacant space. But now she seemed to pull herself together, she looked once more at Rosemary, gave her an encouraging smile, and said in a perfectly quiet, matter-of-fact tone:

"Well, now tell me all about it. Philip's release and Anna's is only a temporary one. Is that it?"

Rosemary nodded. She could not trust herself to speak. Elza gave a little gasp, but her voice was still quite steady as she went on questioning Rosemary:

"What is the charge against them?"

"Philip wrote certain newspaper articles," Rosemary replied, and her voice sounded mechanical, like that of an automaton, "which have appeared in the English and American press. Anna used to send those through in the parcels she packed up in Balog's shop."

"I knew about those articles," Elza rejoined simply. "Everybody in Transylvania knew about them, but I did not guess that Philip had anything to do with them, or Anna. Then," she went on with a little catch in her throat, "it means a charge of treason against the State?"

"Yes!"

"Military tribunal?"

"Yes."

"And-if they are found guilty-a-sentence-of death?"

"No! No! No!" And Rosemary was on her knees with her arms round Elza's shoulders, her tear-stained face turned up to her, protesting vigorously, strenuously, that which she knew was false. But Elza's big, round eyes were tearless; she looked a little wildly perhaps, but quite kindly into the beautiful face that expressed such a world of love and sympathy. Then, gently but firmly, she disengaged herself from Rosemary's arms.

"Well now, my dear," she asked, very quietly, "all this being so, why did Naniescu let those children come home at all? Why should he postpone their trial, their-their punishment?"

Rosemary's head fell upon her breast.

"I don't know," she murmured.

But Elza put her podgy finger under Rosemary's chin, and forced her to look up.

"Don't lie to me, darling," she pleaded softly; "tell me the truth."

"I have told you the truth, Elza," Rosemary protested through her tears.

"Then I must believe you, if you say so. And yet it is all very mysterious. Why should Naniescu wait? Why should he play with those poor children, like a cat does with a mouse? You know, Rosemary darling, what they gipsy said in the end?"

Rosemary shook her head.

"He said that the stranger within the gates had the power to save my son from death. Have you that power, Rosemary?"

"No! No!" Rosemary protested wildly. "If it were in my power, don't you think that I would do anything in the world to save Philip and Anna?"

Elza nodded.

"Yes, dear," she said gently. "Of course I do think it; but when the gipsy said that, I could not help feeling hopeful, for he was right in everything else he said--"

Then suddenly she took Rosemary's face between her two hands, and she gazed into her eyes with a look of almost fierce intensity in her own, as if she would wrest a secret from the depths of the younger woman's soul.

"Swear to me, Rosemary," she said, and her gentle voice sounded raucous and harsh, "swear to me that there is nothing in the world that you can do to save Philip!"

And Rosemary, returning her gaze, replied steadily:

"I swear to you that it is not in my power to save Philip and Anna. If it were, I would do it."

Even then Elza did not cry. She just sat there quite, quite still, her big, round eyes quite dry, her mouth without a quiver, but sitting there so still, so still with her beautiful golden hair all round her face, the soft streaks of grey all about her temples, her fine features rigid, her podgy white hands resting on her knees; she looked such a tragic figure of despair that Rosemary could hardly suppress the cry of anguish that rose insistently to her throat.

"And so we can do nothing," Elza said, with a note of quiet finality in her voice.

"Don't say that, dear," Rosemary protested. "Jasper, as a matter of fact, has gone to Bucharest to try and see the King personally. The Roumanian Government owes some gratitude to my husband, as you know. I am quite sure that he will bring strong pressure to bear upon the authorities, and get a full pardon for Philip and Anna on the score of their youth."

But Elza slowly shook her head.

"You don't believe yourself, darling," she said, "in what you say. The children have committed the unpardonable crime of being born Hungarians, and of resenting foreign tyranny in their native land. The King himself would be kind, I am sure, but Bucharest is a long way off, and the bureaucrats over here do not know the meaning of the word 'mercy'."

"But we know the meaning of the word 'hope,' Elza dear," Rosemary said steadily, and struggled to her feet. "We are not going to give up hope. You talk about your gipsies having the gift of prophecy. Well, it is my turn to prophesy now. Philip and Anna are in God's hands, and you and I are going to pray so hard and so ceaselessly that God will help us, I am sure. I know," she added firmly.

Elza gave a short, quick sigh.

"Oh, yes," she said, "you are lucky, you English! Your religion means a great deal to you. But we, over here, are so different. We go to convent schools when we are too young to understand. Then we are all fire and enthusiasm, but we do not understand. After that we marry and live in those remote villages where the poor curé is only an illiterate peasant with whom we have nothing in common, whose habits are often such that we could not possibly make our confession to him. And so we soon forget what we learned in our childhood, and we come to trusting in ourselves rather than in God."

She rose and, with the same motherly gentleness which she always showed to Rosemary, she folded the girl in her loving arms.

"Good night, my dear," she said placidly. "I ought not to have kept you up so late. Good night, dear. Pray to your God for us all. The God of the English is more merciful, I think, than ours."

"Elza," Rosemary insisted, "promise me that you will not give up hope. Jasper comes back to-morrow. He may bring the best of news. Promise me that in any case you will not give up hope."

The ghost of a smile appeared on Elza's face.

"I will promise," she said, "not altogether to give up faith."

Rosemary kissed her tenderly. After that she escorted her as far as her room, and at the door she kissed her once more, and then she said, with solemn earnestness:

"Elza darling, will you believe me if I say that if I could give my life for those two children I would do it? If it were in my power to save them, I would. But it is not in my power to save them, to do anything, but to leave them in God's hands."

Elza returned her kiss with gentleness and affection.

"Dear, kind Rosemary," she murmured; "go to bed, dear, you must be so tired."

Then she quietly slipped into her room and closed the door. And Rosemary was left to face the night alone.

CHAPTER XIX

What puzzled Rosemary was the gipsy.

What was the mystery of that vagabond found lurking in the park at nightfall with a revolver in his belt? What connexion had he with the eyes that had watched Rosemary the night that she was talking with little Anna? And how had he come in possession of the inner history of Philip's and Anna's temporary release?

There was a mystery here. Somewhere. A disquieting, a terrifying mystery, not altogether to be accounted for by the spy system or other secret organization of the Roumanian Government.

All night Rosemary struggled with the puzzle. All night she wrestled with herself for the right to break her promise to Jasper and to lay all the facts of this case before Peter. She wanted to do this before Jasper's return, and, anyway, he must release her-he must-from that promise which placed her in a false and disloyal position towards Peter. When Rosemary fell asleep the dawn was breaking, and she had almost made up her mind to tell Peter everything.

But the next morning when she went downstairs she found the whole house in a turmoil. Servants rushing to and fro, Elza in close conversation with the chef, Maurus shouting contradictory orders across the galleried hall. Peter was in the drawing-room playing a jazz tune this time, and Philip and Anna were fox-trotting, infusing even into this ugly so-called dance some of their own native grace.

As soon as Rosemary appeared she was greeted with regular war-whoops of delight. In a moment she was drawn into the whirlpool of excitement. Philip and Anna dragged her to the sofa, and they and Maurus and Elza all talked to her at once, while Peter, with the inevitable cigarette in the corner of his mouth, continued to pound away at the jazz tune.

From the deafening hubbub of conversation Rosemary gathered, in the first instance, that the gipsy band from Bonczhida were coming over the next day, and the gipsies of Bonczhida were the finest in Transylvania. Then that the Keletys were driving over from Hajdu, and the Fejérs from Henger; that perhaps Aunt Charlotte would come too and bring Marie; that the Keletys were bringing the Poltys, and the Fejérs having the Kékesy boys staying with them would of course bring them along. They reckoned that there would be ten or a dozen couples to dance, and with the mammas and papas they would be thirty to supper. They expected most of the guests to arrive in time for luncheon, and in the afternoon they could have some tennis; then in the evening they would have a ball to which the officers from the garrison at Cluj had already been invited, and they had accepted by telephone. Among them were those who were going to play cricket with the Hungarians at Hódmezö under Peter's direction.

At this marvellous statement Peter came to a pause in the music with a crashing chord, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and throwing up his hands, exclaimed:

"Going to play cricket with the Hungarians under Peter's direction! Oh, blessed People! Ye ghosts of Fitzgerald, Pycroft, and of Lillywhite, do ye hear them and writhe up there in Heaven?"

Then he struck up the "March of the Men of Harlech."

"If anyone says anything more about cricket," he said solemnly, "I shall force them to play with warped bats and golf-balls on a ploughed field."

Not a trace of anxiety or even preoccupation on any of those dear, beaming faces. Elza was as excited as any of them, worried to death because the carp they had got out of the lake for this evening's supper were not really fat.

"They're no bigger than a good-sized goldfish," she said to Rosemary with a note of real tragedy in her voice, and her blue eyes at once looked anxious and troubled, as if the matter of the carp was the only thing that could worry her.

Rosemary made a great effort not to be a wet blanket in the midst of all this gaiety. In this she succeeded admirably. All she had to do was to smile and to nod her head, and now and then to cry out, "How splendid!" The others did all the talking, and when conversation subsided for a moment Peter came down with a fresh, crashing jazz tune.

Rosemary would have thought the whole scene a phantasmagoria-illusive images that would presently be dispelled-only that she had known these people ever since she was a child. She had studied their curious psychology, half barbaric, with all the primitive disregard of danger and the passion for pleasure, even at the point of death. She gave ungrudging admiration to Elza-Elza who had sat in her room last night, rigid, dry-eyed, a living statue of despair. What went on behind that smooth, white brow of hers? What projects? What hopes? And little Anna? Anna knew. Anna guessed. She had spoken of her fears to Rosemary. Spoken of eyes that watched her, of eyes that were willing her to do something foolish that would compromise her irretrievably this time. Elza and Anna! What an example of self-possession, of self-control! Rosemary was almost ready to persuade herself that something had happened to reassure them both-that, in fact, they knew the danger to be past.

Only that Elza avoided her glance, and that the dear soul, usually so placid, so stable, was just a thought more restless than usual, and her gentle voice would from time to time become shrill.

At last, genuinely tired and bewildered by so much noise, Rosemary jumped up and, laughing, declared that she must escape out of the bear-garden for a moment and get a breath of fresh air in the park. In order to reach the glass door that gave on the veranda, Rosemary had to go past the piano. Quite close. Peter looked up when she was near him, and she said to him as she went past: "They are very gay, aren't they?"

"Elza has a perfectly mad plan in her head," Peter replied, and struck a few loud chords so that no one save Rosemary should hear what he said. "For God's sake, if you have any influence over her, get her to give it up."

Then he shouted merrily: "I've had enough of those horrible American tunes. Who wants a csàrdàs?"

But he did not play a csàrdàs. For a moment or two his fingers wandered aimlessly over the keys, whilst his eyes followed Rosemary as she stepped through the glass door on to the sun-bathed veranda. And as Rosemary felt the sun, the clear, luscious air, the scent of flowers and of distant pines, envelop her as in a warm mantle, there came wafted to her ears the soft strains of that exquisite Hungarian love-song: "There is but one beautiful girl in all the world." The piano now seemed to sing under Peter's delicate touch and Rosemary paused and stood quite, quite still, letting the music sink into her, yielding to its voluptuous cadence, and allowing her thoughts, her desires, her longings, to soar upwards to that infinity to which music alone can convey the soul on its magic wings.

CHAPTER XX

Rosemary had wandered beyond the confines of the park, and roamed about in the woods, having lost all sense of time. When presently she came back to the reality of things she looked at her watch and saw that it was close on twelve o'clock. Luncheon at the chateau was at half-past. It meant stepping out briskly so as to be in time.

As soon as she reached the flower-garden, it struck her as strange that the château suddenly appeared to be so quiet. No sound reached her as she came near to the veranda steps, either of shrill, excited voices, or of laughter or song.

She found the family assembled on the veranda-Maurus, Elza, Philip and Anna. Only Peter was not there. A first glance at them all revealed to Rosemary what had occurred. Elza had told them what the gipsy had said. Maurus sat in his chair like a man in a trance, his dark face flushed, his hair towzled, his large, dark eyes staring out before him, with a look in them that was not entirely sane.

Philip, on the other hand, was pacing up and down the veranda floor, whilst Anna stood quite still, leaning against a column, looking for all the world like a little martyr tied to the stake, her small, thin hands clasped together, a faint flush on her cheeks. These two children looked excited rather than horror-filled. Anna's face suggested that of an idealist-not altogether resigned, but nevertheless eager to suffer for the cause. But Philip looked like a fighter, seeking for a chance to hit back, a combatant not yet brought to his knees.

Elza's round, blue eyes just wandered from one to the other of these faces all dear to her.

They were dry eyes, anxious eyes, but there was nothing in them to-day of that tragic despair which had been so heart-breaking to behold the evening before.

Rosemary's first thought had been: "They know. Elza has told them!" The second was "Elza has a plan. Peter said it was a mad one. A plan for Philip and Anna's escape." She wondered if they would tell her.

"I hope I am not late for lunch," she said, rather breathlessly, as she had been walking very fast. Then she added casually: "Where is Peter?"

"He is busy packing," Elza replied.

"Packing?" Rosemary exclaimed, puzzled. "He is not going away already?"

"Yes," Elza said, "to-night."

"But he did not say anything yesterday," Rosemary insisted, "about going away again so soon. Or even this morning."

"I don't think he knew yesterday," Elza rejoined. "It seems he had a telephone message half an hour ago. He says he must go."

Anna now appeared to wake out of her trance. Rosemary was standing close to her just then; she took Rosemary's hand gently in hers and said:

"You see, darling, it is like this: one of Peter's cricketers has telephoned to him to say that they have such a lot of trouble about their rooms at Hódmezö. Roumanians are not exactly popular in Hungary," she went on with a wan little smile, "and I suppose that hotel-keepers don't care to put them up. So Peter had to promise to go and put things right for his cricketers."

"He will come back, of course, after the cricket match," Elza concluded placidly. "But it is a great nuisance for him, packing and unpacking all the time."

Rosemary made no further remark. Everything seemed terribly puzzling. That Elza had told the children, had told Maurus, all she knew, was beyond the question. That Peter also knew everything, and that he knew and disapproved of some plan which Elza had made, Rosemary supposed, for the escape of Philip and Anna was, to her mind, equally certain. But even if Peter disapproved, how could he go away at this critical time, and leave Elza to plan and contrive alone, hampered by a half-crazy husband, and surrounded by spies? However, no one apparently meant to say anything more just then, and it was quite a relief when the luncheon-bell sounded and the little party on the veranda broke up and everyone trooped downstairs for luncheon.

Peter was already in the dining-room, waiting for the others. Elza in her kind, gentle way asked him about his packing, and whether she could help him to get ready. But Peter declared that he wanted nothing, only the carriage this evening to take him to Cluj.

He grumbled terribly at having to go away. He hated the idea of missing the ball and all the friends who were coming; but when Elza or Maurus tried to persuade him to stay, he was very firm. "I've got to go, Aunt Elza. You don't know what complications might occur if those Roumanians got to Hódmezö and were not properly treated. Good God!" he added, with mock horror, "it might land you all in another war! And all through my fault!"

Rosemary had never seen Peter so gay or conversational. He appeared entirely unconscious of the undercurrent of tragedy that flowed through Elza's pathetic attempts at conversation, and Maurus's equally tragic silences. He talked incessantly, chiefly about the cricket match and chiefly to Philip, who made desperate efforts to appear interested. Rosemary did her best, too, but she was anxious and puzzled, and frankly she did not believe in the story of the telephone message.

She tried now and then to catch Elza's eye, but in this she never once succeeded. Elza was avoiding her glance. She meant to say nothing about her plan-this mad plan of which Peter disapproved so thoroughly that he preferred to be out of the way. Did these dear, kind people mistrust her then, because of what the gipsy had said? Or was this reticence merely the natural outcome of a sense of supreme danger that mistrusted everything and everybody?

Rosemary felt the mystery deepening around her. She could not understand Peter.

Sometime after luncheon she found Elza and Anna sitting together in the small brick-built summer-house at the farther end of the lake. Rosemary had wandered as far as there with a book, anxious as she was to be out of the way. It was hot, and the air was very still, and the scent of tuberoses and heliotrope was almost too heady. In the perennial border a number of humming-bird moths were busy about a bed of sweet sultan; the soft whirring sound of their wings could be heard quite distinctly in the extreme stillness of this late summer's afternoon. From time to time distant sounds of village life came in quick, short waves to Rosemary's ear, as well as the sharp click of tools wielded by the gardeners at work somewhere in the park. Close beside the summer-house one man was busy hand-weeding the path. As Rosemary drew nearer, he looked up for an instant, and then he shuffled rapidly away. In the long, stooping figure, the dirty rags and the dark skin, Rosemary thought that she recognized the gipsy of the previous night. It was just like Elza, she thought, to give the poor wretch work on the estate.

When Rosemary saw Elza and Anna sitting together in the summer-house, her instinct was to pass discreetly on, with just a hasty, cheery word, but Elza called to her.

"Come and sit here a minute, Rosemary darling," she said. "Anna and I want to tell you everything."

Everything! Rosemary without a word stepped into the little pavilion. Anna pulled a wicker chair forward between herself and Elza, and Rosemary sat down, a little anxious, a little fearful, wondering what these dear, enthusiastic hotheads had devised, and how she herself would act when she knew. Elza at once took hold of her hand and fondled it.

"You asked me last night, darling," she began, "not to give up hope, didn't you?"

Rosemary nodded acquiescence.

"And I promised that I would not give up faith," Elza went on quietly. "Well, I have kept my faith all through last night, which was very trying. With the dawn, hope came to me, and after that I once more felt in charity with all the world."

Rosemary gave Elza's podgy white hand a tender squeeze. "Dear!" she whispered.

"We have a plan, darling," Elza said triumphantly. "A splendid plan! To-morrow night Philip and Anna will be in Hungary, safely out of the way."

Rosemary had known all along what was coming. She looked at Anna, who gave an excited little nod.

"Tell Rosemary, Aunt Elza," she said. "All from the beginning. There's no one in the world you can trust as you can Rosemary."

"Listen then, darling," Elza said, speaking quite quietly at first, then allowing excitement to get hold of her voice, making it tremble while she spoke, and husky with eagerness, while her command of the English tongue became less and less pronounced.

"It has all been made possible by this cricket business, for which I thank God and Peter Blakeney. As I told you this morning, Peter's cricket people are all coming here to-morrow for the ball. They have to be at Hódmezö the following day for the cricket. So they will bring their luggage, and make a start from here after the ball-I suppose about midnight-in three motor-cars which the Governor, General Naniescu, has himself placed at their disposition. Hódmezö is, as you know, in Hungary, just the other side of the frontier. It will be about four or five hour's drive from here, as there is a short cut-quite a good road-which avoids Cluj. In two of those motor-cars the cricket people themselves will go; they are mostly young Roumanian officers and men of the better class. General Naniescu has, of course, given them all free passes for the occasion. Fortunately he has also given them passes for four servants to accompany them. These four men will go in the third motor, and they will also go in the motor all the way to Hódmezö. Now two of these servants, whom the local commissary of police has himself chosen and to whom passes have been given, are the two sons of János the miller, who is devoted to us all. His two sons have certainly served in the Roumanian army because they were obliged, but they have remained Hungarian at heart and would do anything for me and for Philip."

Elza paused. Her eager, round eyes searched Rosemary's face. Rosemary, of course, had already guessed the rest, her own excitement while she listened was as tense as Elza's. She gripped the white podgy little hand of her friend, and looked from her to Anna-a mute question in every glance.

"You can guess, of course?" Anna said.

Rosemary nodded: "I can guess," she said, "but do go on."

"I sent for János early this morning," Elza went on. "All I had to tell him was that Philip and Anna were in great danger, and must be got out of the country at any cost. He understood! We Hungarians in this occupied territory all understand one another. We understand danger. We live with danger constantly at our door. And János was so clever, so helpful. I only had to outline my plan, he thought out all the details. The mill is about a kilometre from here, the last house in the village; as soon as the first two motors have gone with the cricket people and the Roumanian officers, Philip and Anna will at once run round to the mill, and János will give them clothes belonging to his sons. The clothes they will put on. In the meanwhile the third motor-car will have collected the two other men in the village who are going as servants to Hódmezö-one is the brother of the Jew over at the inn, and the other the son of the Roumanian storekeeper. Then it will call at the mill. János will ask the two men to come in. He and his two sons will give them some strong spirit to drink. The brother of the Jew and the son of the storekeeper are both of them great drunkards. When they have become what you English call, I think, blotto, János will take them back into the motor. There they will sit; and will probably at once go to sleep. But Philip and Anna will also get into the motor. They will be dressed in peasant's clothes, and they will have the free passes which Naniescu has given to János' sons. They will get to Hódmezö about five o'clock in the morning. And once they are in Hungary they are safe. Rosemary darling! they are safe!"

Rosemary had remained silent. The whole thing certainly at first glance appeared so easy, so simple that she found herself wondering why she or Jasper-or Peter-had never thought of such a plan. She also wondered why Peter should have spoken of it as a mad plan, and begged her if she had any influence with Elza to dissuade her from it. What had been in his mind when he said that? Of what was he afraid? Spies, of course. But spies, like the poor, were always there, and, after all, Philip and Anna would only be risking what already was forfeit-their lives.

Rosemary sat there in silence, her fingers closed over Elza's soft, warm hand. She gazed straight before her, thinking. Thinking; her mind already following Philip and Anna's flight through this hostile, cruel country, to the land which would mean freedom and life for them. She saw them in her mind's eye, like a vision floating before her across the lake, which in this daydream had become a wide, dusty road with a motor-car speeding along toward life and toward freedom.

It seemed a solution. It must be a solution. Thank God Jasper would be there to help with counsel and with suggestions. Elza was talking again now. In her quaint English, which became more and more involved, she continued to talk of her plan, as a child will talk of some event that made it happy. She harped on the details, on János' devotion, the two sons who would make their way to the frontier in their father's bullock cart, and then cross over to Hungary on foot, through the woods and over a mountain pass where there would be no fear of meeting Roumanian sentinels. At Hódmezö they would find Peter and the cricket people. They would get back their passes, and return quite gaily with the others, having saved the lives of Philip and Anna. Such devotion! Wasn't it splendid?

Rosemary only nodded from time to time, and from time to time she squeezed Elza's hand. It was so hot and so airless here in the little pavilion with those clusters of climbing heliotrope all over the roof and half-blocking up the entrance. The bees and humming bird moths were making such a buzzing and a whirring; it was just like the hum of motor-car wheels on the dusty road. And through it all came the swishing sound of a garden broom upon the gravel path, between the summer-house and the stone coping around the ornamental lake. Rosemary caught herself watching the broom swinging backwards and forwards across the path, and across; she saw the two hands-very dark lean hands they were-that wielded the broom, and finally the gipsy's tall, thin figure bent almost double to his task. It seemed just right that the man should be there at this hour, sweeping the path for Elza to walk on presently, for Philip also and for Anna. It was right because it was the gipsy who had told Elza what she, Rosemary, had not had the courage to say. There was very little mystery about the gipsy now; he was just a ragged, dirty labourer, bending to his task. Did the strange intuition-or was it divination-that had brought him all the way from his native village to speak with Elza whisper to him that his warning had already borne fruit, and that the gracious lady whom he had come to warn had found in faith and hope the way out of dark destiny?

"Oh, that's all right, darling! We spoke English all the time!"

Elza said this with a light laugh. Rosemary woke from her day-dream. She must have been speaking in her dream-about the gipsy who haunted her thoughts.

"Did I say anything?" she asked.

"Yes, darling," Anna replied, "you have been very silent for the last minute or two, and then suddenly you said: 'The gipsy, the gipsy,' twice, like that. It sounded so funny."

"I thought," Elza put in, "that perhaps you were afraid that the dirty old gipsy had heard what we said. But gipsies in Hungary don't speak English, you know. For one thing they never go to school."

Elza appeared quite light-hearted now.

"I knew," she said, "that you would approve of my plan."

She said this, but Rosemary herself was quite unconscious that she had spoken. She had dreamed and dreamed, and seen a motor-car speeding along the dusty road. But through it all, she had approved, approved of the plan. It was so feasible, and so simple. She only wondered why Peter disapproved.

"What does Peter Blakeney say to all that?" she asked presently.

"Peter?"

Elza asked wide-eyed.

"Yes. You told him about your plan, didn't you?"

"No! No!" Elza asserted firmly. "We have told no one but you. Peter is going away. Why should we tell Peter?"

"I thought--" Rosemary murmured.

"It will be time enough to tell him," Anna put in gaily, "when Philip and I turn up at the hotel at Hódmezö. Won't he be surprised when he sees us?"

How strange it all was! Peter knew, since he spoke of a mad plan in Elza's head, and begged Rosemary to dissuade her from it. Peter knew, though no one had told him. Another mystery added to all those which had of late filled Rosemary with such a torturing sense of foreboding. Another mystery that seemed to surround Peter's changed personality, that seemed a part of this new personality of his, flippant and indifferent, so unlike the Peter she had known.

Now she longed passionately for Jasper-dear, kind Jasper, around whom there hung no mystery-the strong hand that would guide her through this maze of intrigue which bewildered as much as it terrified her. Fortunately her promise to Jasper had been kept. With this new mystery about Peter that she vaguely dreaded, she would have been racked with anxiety if she had confided in him. And yet, how disloyal was this thought, this fear! Fear of Peter! Mistrust of Peter! A very little while ago she would have staked her soul that Peter was true, loyal, the soul of honour, an English gentleman, an English sportsman! A Blakeney! A Scarlet Pimpernel of to-day! What was there in the atmosphere of this unfortunate country groaning under a foreign, hated yoke to taint his simple soul with the foul breath of intrigue?

CHAPTER XXI

Walking across the lawn toward the château half an hour later, Rosemary found herself once more laughing at her suspicions of Peter. Peter!! Heavens above! what turn were her suspicions taking?

Did she really believe for one moment that Peter was intriguing with these crafty Roumanians for the undoing or the persecution of his own kith and kin? The very thought was preposterous. The suggestion untenable. Whatever Jasper might think, whatever he might fear, she, Rosemary, was nothing but a traitor if she allowed herself for one moment to harbour such thoughts of Peter.

He was changed, certainly he was changed. But between that and Jasper's suspicions--! It was Jasper who had first put thoughts into Rosemary's head by extracting that strange promise from her. Not to talk to Peter. Not to discuss the situation with Peter. Otherwise she would never for one moment-—

Of course, of course, the thought was preposterous. Peter and intrigue! Peter and crafty Machiavellism! Peter and a double game he was ashamed to avow! Why, reason should have rejected the first hint of such a possibility, even if loyalty did not.

"Hallo, Rosemary!"

Peter's voice brought Rosemary back to reality. She had wandered up the veranda steps, hardly conscious of where she was. Thank Heaven, after her musings she was able to look Peter loyally in the face. He had his hands buried as usual in the pockets of his trousers, and the inevitable cigarette between his lips. Rosemary felt hot and tired; the sun had been baking the lawn while she walked across it, and she had no parasol. With a contented little sigh she sank into the basket chair that Peter pulled forward for her.

"I suppose," he said abruptly, "that they have been telling you about the nonsense that's going on in their dear, silly heads."

And with a nod he indicated the summer-house where, against the creeper-clad entrance, Elza's white dress gleamed in the sunshine. Rosemary made no reply. Peter's words had somehow acted like a douche of cold water upon her sense of rest and well-being. It was true then! He did know. Though Elza and Anna had told him nothing, he knew. How? Rosemary would have given worlds for the right to ask him, but suddenly her promise to Jasper loomed before her with paramount importance, and put a seal upon her lips.

"Won't you tell me?" Peter insisted.

Of course there was a simple explanation for the whole thing. Those dear people, Elza, Maurus, even Anna, were not models of discretion. Their voices were loud and penetrating, and, when they were excited about any project or event, they would discuss it here, there and everywhere at the top of their voices, and with a total disregard of possible eavesdroppers. Peter's knowledge of Elza's plans may have come about quite innocently. Rosemary was quite sure it had come about innocently. But somehow she longed for that perfect security and trust in Peter which she used to feel even when he was most capricious and his love-making most tempestuous. Why hadn't he told Elza that he knew? Why, instead of discussing the plan over with Elza or one of the others, did he feign ignorance with them, and suddenly elect to go away on an obviously futile excuse?

Oh, how Rosemary hated all this mystery! And how she feared it! And how, above all, she hated that promise which she had made to Jasper, and which prevented her at this moment from having a straight talk with Peter.

"So you won't tell me?" he reiterated, and his voice sounded curiously harsh, quite different to his usual very pleasant, musical tones. Peter had the voice of a musician. It was deep in tone and beautifully modulated. Peter's voice had been one of the things about him that had captivated Rosemary's fancy in the past. Now, he spoke through his teeth, with that hateful cigarette in the long holder held between the corners of his lips. Rosemary tried to be flippant.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, with a little broken laugh, "are you trying to play the role of the heavy father, Peter, or of the silent strong man? And now you are frowning just like the hero in one of Ethel M. Dell's books. When are you going to seize me by the wrist and whack me with a slipper?"

It was very easy to make Peter laugh. He was laughing now, and the scowl fled for the moment from his face.

"Don't play the fool, Rosemary," he said in his slangy, boyish way. "Tell me what Aunt Elza has been saying to you out here?"

"But you silly boy," she riposted, "There's nothing to tell."

Back came the scowl on Peter's face, darker than before.

"So," he said curtly, "I suppose that you and Aunt Elza and Anna have been discussing frocks for the past hour and a half."

"No, dear," she replied coolly, "only the arrangements for to-morrow's ball."

Whereupon Peter said "Damn!" and swung round on his heel, as if he meant to leave her there without another word. But for this move of his Rosemary was unprepared. She did not want Peter to go. Not just yet. She was perfectly loyal to him in her thoughts, and she was irrevocably determined not to break her promise to Jasper, but she was not going to let Peter go off to-day without some sort of explanation. She might not see him again after this-for weeks, for months, for years! So she called him back.

"Peter!" she cried.

He swung back and returned to her side. His deep, changeful eyes, which at times were the colour of the ocean on the Cornish coast, and at others recalled the dark tints of his Hungarian ancestors, looked strangely resentful still. But as his glance rested on Rosemary, wandered from her delicate face in the pearly shadow of her garden hat, along the contour of her graceful shoes, the resentful look fled. And Rosemary, glancing up, caught a momentary flash of that soul-holding gaze which had taken her captive that lovely night in June by the river, when she had lain crushed and bruised in his arms, the gaze which that other night in the Albert Hall box had filled her soul with abiding regret.

"What do you want me to tell you, Peter?" she asked in that stupid way that comes to the lips when the soul is stirred and the mind commands self-control.

"Nothing," he replied roughly, "that you don't want to."

"Peter," she retorted, "why are you so strange with me? One would think I had done something to offend you. You scarcely will speak to me; when you do you are so rough and so abrupt, as if-as if---Oh, I don't know," she went on rapidly, and her voice shook a little as she tried to avoid that memory conjuring glance of his. "It seems as if something had come between us, almost as if we were enemies."

Peter laughed at this, but his laugh sounded rather forced and harsh.

"Enemies!" he exclaimed. "Good God, no!"

"But something has happened, Peter," she insisted. "I cannot tell you how I find you changed."

"Well," he said curtly, "something did happen, you know, when you married Jasper."

"I don't mean that, Peter. I saw you in London after I was engaged, and you had not changed then. It is here-in this place-that you seem so different."

"You must admit the place gets on one's nerves," he said with a shrug.

"You must make allowances, Peter," she rejoined gently. "They are in such trouble."

"Are they?" he retorted.

"Why, you know they are!" And her voice rang with a note of indignant reproach. "How can you ask?"

"I ask because I don't know. You say that they-I suppose you mean Aunt Elza and Maurus and the kids-are in trouble. How should I know what you mean? Since I've been here they have done nothing but shout, dance and make plans for more dancing and shouting, and when I ask you anything you only tell me lies."

"Peter!"

"I beg your pardon, dear," he said with sudden gentleness. "I didn't mean to be caddish. But you know," he went on, harshly once more, "you did tell me that Jasper had gone to Budapest on business."

"Well?" she queried.

"Well! Knowing you to be truthful by nature, I am wondering why you should have told me such an unnecessary lie." Then, as Rosemary was silent, he insisted: "Won't you tell me, Rosemary?"

"You are talking nonsense, Peter," she replied obstinately. "There is nothing to tell."

"Which means that Jasper has told you-or insinuated-that I am not to be trusted."

She protested: "Certainly not!"

"Then," he concluded, "the mistrust comes out of your own heart."

"That again is nonsense, Peter. There is no question of trust or mistrust, and I have no idea what you mean. It is you who try to deceive me by feigning ignorance of what is going on in this house. If Aunt Elza has not spoken openly with you, it certainly is not for me to enlighten you. There," she added, as she caught a look of eager questioning in his eyes, "I have already said more than I have any right to say. Elza and Anna are coming across the lawn. If you want to know anything more, you had better ask them."

And abruptly she rose and left him and went into the house. She felt hurt and angry and not a little ashamed. She felt hurt with Peter, angry with Jasper, and ashamed of herself. Peter was quite right. She had told him lies-unnecessary lies. And Jasper had forced her to tell them and to be disloyal to Peter. The present situation was a false one. Utterly false. It was Peter who should take over the direction of Elza's plan. With his help the chances of Philip's and Anna's escape would be increased tenfold. It seemed an awful thing-it was an awful thing-that he should be shut out of Elza's councils, that he should go away on a futile and trivial errand while those his own kith and kin were in such terrible danger, and running into dangers that were worse still.

For the last time the temptation returned, and with double violence, to break her promise to Jasper and go straight back to Peter and tell him everything. She paused in the centre of the drawing-room and looked back through the wide-open glass doors. Peter was still on the veranda. He had picked up a stick and a tennis ball and was hitting the one with the other and humming a tune. He caught Rosemary's eye as she glanced back to look at him.

"Hallo!" he called gaily.

Rosemary went deliberately back to the glass door. She paused under the lintel; then she said earnestly:

"Don't go to Hódmezö to-day, Peter. I am sure there is no necessity for you to go. You can book rooms by telephone, and, anyway--" She paused a moment and then went on more earnestly still: "Wait another twenty-four hours, Peter. Don't go till-till after the ball."

Peter did not look at her. He was taking careful aim with the stick and the tennis ball. He made a swinging hit and watched the ball fly away over the lawn. Then he threw the stick down and turned to Rosemary.

"Sorry," he said lightly, "but I have promised."

She gave an impatient sigh, and after another second's hesitation once more turned to go.

"I say," he called after her, "what about a game of tennis. There's just time for a set before I need make a start."

But by now all temptation to talk openly with Peter had vanished. What would be the use of telling this irresponsible boy anything? Jasper was right. Elza was right. Only she, Rosemary, was foolish, and her vaunted knowledge of human nature nothing but vanity. She had only sufficient self-control left to call back lightly to him:

"No, thank you, Peter, I am rather tired."

Then she fled precipitately out of the room.

CHAPTER XXII

Rosemary did not see Peter again before he left. Somehow that last vision which she had of him, hitting at a rubber ball with a stick, and his utterly callous suggestion of a game of tennis at an hour which he must have known was fateful to all his kindred, had caused a revulsion in Rosemary's heart. She felt that never again would she feel tempted to break her word to Jasper. Indeed, she felt how right Jasper had been all along in insisting that she should not discuss the grave events that affected the lives of all the inmates of Kis-Imre with such a callous, empty-headed, irresponsible young jackanapes as Peter had lately become.

So she had gone upstairs to her room, and with a curious heartache, for which she was unable to account, she listened to the familiar bustle and noise that always filled the château whenever visitors came or went. Somehow she could not bring herself to say "Good-bye" to Peter. Elza had told her that he would be coming back within the next week or so, but Rosemary, who felt too tired for introspection, could not have told you whether she was glad or sorry at the prospect of seeing him again quite so soon.

The rest of the day, as well as the long, interminable evening, were taken up with the discussion of household affairs-the luncheon, the dinner, the ball, and even into these Philip and Anna entered whole-heartedly and with apparent complete disregard of what that fateful morrow might bring them. As for Elza, she was perfectly marvellous! Kind, fussy as usual, her menus and the airing of the guest-rooms being, to all appearances, the most important matters in her mind.

After everyone had gone to bed little Anna came to Rosemary's room and sat for a while beside her on the sofa, holding the Englishwoman's hand as if she wished to transfuse through those slender fingers strength and courage into her soul. When Rosemary made a passing allusion to the wonderful stoicism that could allow trivial matters to seem so important at a moment when life and worse were at stake, Anna explained quite gently:

"We are made like that, we Hungarians. We hold our lives cheap, I think, because throughout our history we have always had to sacrifice them for our country. And also, I think, that we have a certain Oriental fatalism in us. Not the fatalism of the Moslem, who abdicates free will, but the faith of the Christian who believes that God ordains everything and that it is useless to fight his decrees."

"And yet you are not a religious people," Rosemary riposted, thinking of what Elza had said to her the night before.

"Only in the sense that children are religious," Anna rejoined. "We accept blindly what some kind nuns and ignorant priests have taught us, and we believe in an Almighty God more absolutely and ingenuously than the more thoughtful people of the West."

Long after Anna had gone Rosemary thought over what the child had said. Well, perhaps it was true. There certainly was an exquisitely beautiful passage in the New Testament where the Divine Master enjoins his disciples to become as little children. And, recollecting Anna's words, Rosemary caught herself wondering whether the childlike faith of these people would not open the Kingdom of Heaven more easily for them than would a more considered, more rational religion-a compromise between a very erring human reason and the Divine Mysteries which no human thought could fathom.

As for the next day, it was just a whirl, a jumble of gaieties and talk, of arrivals and merry greetings, of meals and tennis and walks, and of talk, talk, talk and endless laughter. Rosemary, when she rose, had made up her mind that she would just shed her real personality for the whole of the day. She would cease to be Rosemary with the aching heart, the soul rent by conflicting duties, by anxieties, determination and sorrow; she would become the "dear Lady Tarkington," the "Rosemary darling" of all these kind, hospitable, wonderful people. She would laugh with them, play with them and with them lay aside for the next few hours the torturing anxiety of the day.

She would forget, she would laugh, she would talk. The effort would do her good, and when the hour came when the fate of all those she cared for would have to be decided, when on one word, one smile, would perhaps hang the destiny of Philip and of Anna, then she would be strong enough to play the part allotted to her in the tragic farce--the farce that had found birth in the brain of a heart-broken mother.

CHAPTER XXIII

And it had been a wonderful day. The weather was perfect. Everyone was in the highest possible spirits. The chef surpassed himself; everyone pronounced the lobster à l'Américaine perfect and the Charlotte Russe Créole quite inimitable.

All afternoon tennis balls were flying, and there was coffee, ices and iced drinks going all day on the lawn. At five o'clock the gipsy musicians from Bonczhida arrived, and after that music never ceased. Rosemary learned something of gipsy endurance that day, for this band of twelve musicians never left off playing form the moment they arrived until-until midnight, when time ceased to be and Fate began to swing her long pendulum.

But between five o'clock and midnight there was music, ceaseless music. While the guests arrived, while everyone played tennis, croquet, drank coffee, walked, flirted, dressed, dined and danced there was music-music all the time.

After dinner the young Roumanian officers from the garrison at Cluj came over in several motors. Among them were the eleven cricketers, very proud of themselves, feeling quite English and real sportsmen, delighted to have been chosen to play in the historic match. Fine-looking young men, most of them, with the unmistakable swaggering air of the conqueror about their whole attitude towards the subject race. Elza was invariably a perfect hostess; but Maurus, after a curt greeting, nursed his wrath in a corner of the ballroom, surrounded by his own friends. He had been drilled to keep his temper in check, and love for his own son, anxiety for him and knowledge of danger gave him for this one evening a certain amount of self-control. Rosemary admired him as much as she did the others, for she knew what it cost Maurus to have these alien conquerors in his house.

Anna's mother and sister had come over from Ujlak. The mother was a hard woman, obviously selfish and unsympathetic. Her own grievances, the confiscation of a great deal of her property, seemed to have smothered every soft, womanly instinct in her. Apparently she knew nothing of the danger that hung over her daughter, and Rosemary had the feeling that if she had known she would not greatly have cared. Her eyes, which were dark and set very wide apart in a flat, colourless face, only softened once, and that was when she spoke about her husband, who had died just before the war.

As for persecutions, humiliations, petty tyrannies, she dismissed them with a shrug of the shoulders. "The Roumanians are the scum of the earth," she said in her quiet, unemotional manner, through her thin, colourless lips, "just a horde of uneducated peasantry; you can't expect anything from a pig but a grunt. I am only thankful that Béla is not here to see it all."

On the other hand, the young people who filled the stately château of Kis-Imre with their flutterings like an army of gaily painted butterflies did not worry about political grievances. For them the Roumanian officers were just dancing-partners, and their worth was only measured by their proficiency in the latest steps. The mammas and papas either played bridge or sat on the chairs that were ranged against the walls all round the beautiful ballroom placidly admiring the evolutions of their own progeny.

Rosemary, not to be outdone in self-discipline, was outwardly as gay as any of them. She danced impartially with the Hungarians and the Roumanians, and talked cricket knowledgeably with the team. For her the atmosphere was electrical. At times it seemed to her over-strained senses as if she could hear the whir of the spinning-wheel driven by the Fates, the hum of the spindle, and the click of their scissors as they made ready to cut the thread of these people's destiny.

Just before midnight the young Roumanian officers who formed the cricket team left in the two motor-cars which were to take them direct to Hódmezö, a matter of ninety odd miles. Rosemary found herself saying good-bye to them like an automaton--counting them over as if they were ninepins. A kind of mist was before her eyes through which their good-looking faces seemed to be grinning at her, and their moustaches bristling like Alice's Cheshire cat.

Elza, wonderful as ever, fussed around them, stuffing delicacies into the cars at the last moment, fruit, bottles of wine, cakes, chocolates, and lending them rugs and cushions.

"It is a long drive," she said, as she shook hands one by one with the young officers, who clicked their heels together, jingled their spurs and declared that they had had a very pleasant evening. "You will be hungry when you get to Hódmezö," she added, "and all the restaurants will be closed. You will be glad of a glass of wine and some of my home-made cake."

Rosemary was standing next to Maurus Imrey at the time. She heard him mutter between his teeth:

"And may it choke you when you eat and drink."

But even Maurus was wonderful. Wonderful! He shook hands. He smiled--wryly; but he smiled. Wished them all God-speed. He had been well drilled, and he was fully conscious of the danger to Philip and Anna if he lost control over his temper now.

So he, too, gave directions for putting provisions into the cars. He had four bottles of French red wine in his cellar and he insisted that the young officers should have those. "It will make them play that silly cricket better," he said. "And I hate the stuff myself."

The four men who were going with the team as servants were there arranging the rugs, stowing the wine and fruit and cake in the cars. Rosemary knew the two sons of János, the miller, by sight. They were fine, well-set-up young fellows, obviously of the stuff that heroes are made of, for they were going to risk their lives for the children of their feudal lords.

Anna, equally self-possessed, flitted among the guests like a little fairy. She had on a pale blue dress, and out in the open her slim figure was hardly distinguishable in the gloom; only her small, white face told as if carved out of alabaster: that dear little face, with the big eyes that were so like Peter's. When she was saying good-bye to one of the young officers, who had been her dancing-partner, she said with a pout:

"I think it was horrid of you to telephone to Peter Blakeney yesterday and take him away from us. I don't believe you would have had any difficulty with the hotel people about your rooms. And, anyway, you might have let Peter have another day's enjoyment."

The young man appeared genuinely bewildered.

"Will the gracious lady deign to explain?" he asked.

"Oh, there is nothing to explain," Anna said, with a light laugh. "We were all of us very angry with you for sending that telephone message which took Peter Blakeney away from us."

"But pardon me, dear lady," the officer rejoined, "we didn't send any telephone message to Monsieur Blakeney. As a matter of fact, we fully expected to find him here."

"But about your rooms--?" Anna insisted.

"Our rooms at Hódmezö have been arranged for ages ago. Everything there is in perfect order and--"

"Anna, dear," Rosemary broke in quickly, "Peter didn't say who sent him the telephone message. He only said that he had one. It may have come from Hódmezö-from one of the hotel people-he didn't say--"

What had prompted Rosemary to interpose at this moment she did not know. It was just an instinct: the blind instinct to protect, to shield Peter from something ugly and vague, that she had not yet had time to see clearly, and Anna then went on lightly:

"Oh, of course he didn't say. Anyway, when you see Peter, tell him he was very silly to go away, and that he missed a great deal by not being here to-night. You can tell him that Marie never danced so well in all her life, and the gipsies from Bonczhida simply surpassed themselves."

Whereupon the young officer clicked his heels and promised that he would deliver the message.

"But we shan't see Monsieur Blakeney," he said, "until the evening. You know the match is not until Thursday. Monsieur Blakeney arranged to meet us in Hódmezö on Wednesday evening, and this is only Tuesday.

"It will be Wednesday morning before we start," one of his friends broke in lightly, "if you don't hurry, you old chatterbox."

After that, more "good-byes" and waving of hands as the motor-cars rounded the courtyard and finally swung out of the gates. Rosemary looked round to catch sight of Elza. She was quite placid, and on her dear, round face there was a set smile. Evidently she was unconscious of the fact that something stupendous had happened, something that had hit Rosemary like a blow from a sledge-hammer. No, no! Elza had not noticed. Elza's mind was no longer here. It was way out upon the dusty road, watching a motorcar travelling at full speed over the frontier away from this land of bondage, to Hungary to freedom. Elza had noticed nothing. Anna and Philip were still laughing and chattering, Maurus muttering curses. No one had noticed anything. Only for Rosemary had the world-her own beautiful world of truth and loyalty-come to an end. Peter had lied. Peter was playing a double game. It was no use arguing, no use hoping. The only thing to do was to go on groping in this mystery that deepened and deepened, until it became tangible, material like a thick, dark fog through which glided ghouls and demons who whispered and laughed. And they whispered and laughed because Peter had lied and because she, Rosemary, saw all her hopes, her faith, her ideals lying shattered in a tangled heap at her feet. Peter had lied. He had acted a lie. He told her that he had promised to go to Hódmezö to see about rooms for the cricket team. Well, that was not true. Rosemary had interposed, made some excuse for Peter. She wouldn't have those Roumanians think that Peter was a liar. They would have smiled, suggested some amorous intrigue which Monsieur Blakeney wished to keep dark. At the thought Rosemary's gorge rose, and she put in a lame defence for Peter. But all the time she knew that he had lied. If Peter did not go to Hódmezö yesterday, where was he now? Why all this secrecy? These lies?

Why? Oh, God, why?

Rosemary had found a quiet corner in the hall where she could sit and think for a moment. Yet thinking was the one thing she could not do. Always, at every turn she was confronted with that hideous query: Why had Peter lied? After a while she had to five up trying to think. Fate's spindle was whirring, the scissors clinking. She, Rosemary, a mere atom in the hands of Fate, must continue to play her part.

A quarter of an hour must have gone by while she sat-trying to think-in the dark. Perhaps more. Anyway, when she returned to the ballroom she found the company much diminished in numbers. All the Roumanian officers had gone, also one large party who lived just the other side of Cluj. Only a few remained whose châteaux were too far away for a midnight start, seeing that motors were forbidden to the conquered race. They were going to spend the night at Kis-Imre, and probably make a start in the morning. The young people had already resumed dancing; the gipsies were playing the latest fox-trot. The mammas and papas were placidly admiring their respective progeny.

All this Rosemary took in at a glance.

Then she looked round for Elza. But neither Elza nor Maurus was there. And Philip and Anna had also gone.

CHAPTER XXIV

A few minutes later Elza came back. To Rosemary, who had been watching for her by the door, she just whispered as she entered:

"It is all right. They have gone."

She still was wonderful. Quite calm and with that set smile on her face. Only her round, blue eyes had an unusual glitter, and the pretty silvered hair clung matted against the smooth white brow. Rosemary watched the scene, now entranced. She had never seen anything like it. It did not seem reality at all. It could not be. All these people here were just puppets and they were play-acting. They could not have behaved as they did if they had been real.

There were no longer any Roumanians there. They were all Hungarians together-just a few of them, all from Transylvania, the wretched, occupied territory, in which everybody was something of a slave, never allowed to forget for an instant that they were the defeated, and that they must submit. All were relatives or else very intimate friends. And after a while they began to notice that Philip and Anna were not there. At first they asked questions. Where were Philip and Anna? Elza said nothing. She only gave an answering look here and there, a quiver of the eyelid and certain setting of the lips. She did not say anything, but it was remarkable how everybody understood.

Rosemary watched every face and knew that they understood. They asked no more questions. They accepted the situation. Philip and Anna had gone. They had to go as countless others, who had to fly at dead of night, get the other side of the frontier as quickly as possible, to escape from military tribunal, chicanery, persecution, or even death.

It was late now, long past midnight. The gipsies had been sent downstairs to get some supper. The mammas and papas declared that it was time to go to bed. The young people thanked dear Aunt Elza for such a happy time, the young men kissed her hand. One or two of the older people whispered: "Good luck!" Others said reassuringly: "Don't fret, they will be all right." Never a question about Philip and Anna. Never a comment. They knew. They understood.

Orders were given for the carriages to be ready at nine o'clock the next morning. With the innate delicacy that underlay so much apparent pleasure-loving, they wished to relieve as soon as practicable this house of sorrow from the burden of their presence.

By half-past twelve ballroom, hall, reception-rooms, were all empty. Elza waited downstairs till the last of the servants had gone. Rosemary helped her at the last to put the gold service away in the strong cupboard. It consisted of half a dozen pieces of great artistic beauty and equally great value. Each piece had to be wrapped up in cotton wool and green baize. Elza did it all, and Rosemary could see that her podgy white hands did not tremble, and that she put every piece away with her usual meticulous care. Only when her task was accomplished and there was nothing more to do but switch off the light did Elza's stoicism give way. She sank into a chair, her head fell back against the cushions, and a leaden tint spread over her cheeks and lips. Rosemary quickly poured some brandy into a glass, and kneeling beside her tried to get her to drink some of it. To please her, Elza sipped a few drops. A wan smile spread over her face.

"Don't worry about me, Rosemary darling," she said, "I am quite well."

She jumped up at once and added: "I must see how poor Maurus is."

"Come into my room afterwards," Rosemary suggested, "and rest there on the sofa. I know you won't sleep."

"Yes," Elza replied, "I will come as soon as I can get Maurus to sleep. I think he may get to sleep presently. But I don't think I shall. You see, we ought to get a telephone message through from Hódmezö the first thing in the morning. Philip and I agreed on a code. If everything is all right he is to give Peter Blakeney's name and say that the weather is beautiful in Hungary, and every arrangement for the cricket match splendid. After I get that message I shall probably sleep."

She had toiled up the stairs while she was talking, and Rosemary followed close behind her, ready to catch her if she swooned.

"I won't say 'good night' now," Elza said when she near her bedroom door. "You go to bed, Rosemary darling, and I will come in presently for a little talk when Maurus is asleep."

Rosemary went into her room. She undid her hair and slipped into a dressing-gown. It was no use going to bed; she knew she would not be able to go to sleep. It was just a case of waiting. Of watching, of praying, and commending those two young creatures to God. Watching and praying, with eyes fixed upon the hands of the clock, following in imagination every phase of to-nights adventures. Every detail. At this hour they would be at the mill, all the actors in the drama which poor Elza had invented. Philip and Anna would be there, changing into peasant's clothes, and János the miller would be setting out the mugs and the spirit, which would make the Jew's son and the brother of the Roumanian storekeeper blind to the world. Old Emma would be there too, the miller's wife, the mother of the two boys who were going to risk so much for Philip's sake and Anna's Emma would be fussing round with cloth and duster. Grumbling and fussing. Knowing nothing of the drama on which the curtain would ring up in the parlour of her cottage, and in which her two sons would be playing leading roles. János would not have told her. He, the father, had agreed to it all; had even suggested it. But the mother? No! If she knew she would protest. Weep, of course. Weaken the resolution of the two boys who just had to go through with it all.

And now the motor would be drawing up at the mill, and János the miller would ask the company to walk in and have a drink. Even the motor-driver would be persuaded. Just a drop of spirit, as it was a long drive all the way to Hódmezö. Time was moving leaden-footed up here in the château. But not so at the mill, while János was telling funny stories and plying his guests with drink. Leaden-footed! My God! how slowly did those clock hands move! Only half an hour gone by since Elza had switched off all the lights, and the whole château was plunged in darkness, and every sound was stilled.

So still! Only the ticking of the clock, and at times the click of the scissors of Fate, ready to cut the thread of two young lives--of more perhaps--if anything went wrong, if the slightest mistake was made, if any one man proved disloyal--or a liar.

Rosemary shuddered although the night was hot. She could not sit still. At times she felt that she could not breathe. She went out upon the balcony and listened. Listened. The air was so still that she felt she must hear presently the whir of the motor when it made a fresh start from the mill half a mile away. Far away on the hillside a fox gave a cry, and from the old thatched barn close by came the melancholy hoot of an owl.

Then the village church clock struck the half-hour. Half-past one. More than an hour since Rosemary, going into the ballroom, had noted that Philip and Anna were no longer there. In one of the homesteads on the outskirts of the village a cock crew. In another two hours dawn would be breaking, and the motor was to be in Hódmezö before sunrise. And suddenly Rosemary heard right through the stillness a crepitation and then a whir. And then the whirring died away very gradually, and stillness reigned once more. Absolute!

"They've started!"

It was Elza's voice close to Rosemary's elbow. Rosemary had not heard her timid knock, and Elza had slipped into the room and now stood by the open window, listening. The voice was quite calm, with just a ring in it of exultation rather than excitement. Rosemary took her hand. It was quite cold. She fondled it and warmed it between her own.

There was a wicker chair on the balcony and some cushions. Rosemary made Elza sit down, and then she piled up the cushions and squatted on them at Elza's feet, fondling her hands and caressing them by laying her young velvety cheek against them.

The night was exquisitely beautiful, with the waning moon mysterious and honey-coloured in a firmament shimmering with stars. In the borders the flowers slept, the evening primroses had folded their golden petals, the scarlet pentstemons hidden their brilliance in the gloom; only the heliotrope and the nicotiana swung their censers, lazily sending their heady perfume through the night, and the white tufted pansies shone like numberless tiny mirrors, reflecting the stars.

"Did Maurus get to sleep?" Rosemary asked after a while.

"Yes," Elza replied. "I gave him a cachet of aspirin. It quietened his nerves, and after a while he went to sleep."

"Won't you just close your eyes, Elza, and try to rest a little? The night is young yet, and I am afraid you'll be ill if you don't get a little rest. You've gone through so much!"

"Presently, darling," Elza said quietly. "I dare say I shall drop to sleep, as I am very tired. But not just yet. I would like to stay here a little longer-unless I am bothering you." Then, as Rosemary gave her knees an affectionate hug, she went on gently: "I love the smell of flowers in the night, don't you? They smell quite differently from what they do in the daytime." And presently she went on à propos of nothing at all:

"There is just one difficult place where the driver might miss his way. That would delay them a little, but even so they should be very near the frontier by now."

"Have you arranged to get any news?" Rosemary asked.

"Philip is to telephone from Hódmezö as soon as the office is open."

"You won't hear before then?"

"Yes. I told János to say to the motor-driver that if he will drive straight back here from Hódmezö there will be a thousand leis for him, and if he gets here before eight o'clock then he will get two thousand."

After the village church clock had struck three Elza became very still, but Rosemary did not think that she was actually asleep. Her hands were very cold, and her breath came and went more rapidly than usual. Rosemary rose noiselessly to her feet, she got the eiderdown from her bed and wrapped it round Elza's knees. Elza did not move. Her pretty, round face showed very white in the light of the waning moon, and all her hair seemed to have lost its golden tint and shimmered like threads of silver.

Rosemary went back into the room and lay down on the sofa. The air was very close, and she was very tired, so tired that she must have fallen asleep. Presently something roused her and she opened her eyes. The room was flooded with the golden light of dawn. She jumped to her feet and went to the window. Elza was not on the balcony; but Rosemary, looking over the balustrade, saw her on the veranda about to descent the steps.

"Elza," she called down softly, "wait for me."

Elza nodded acquiescence, and Rosemary ran down-stairs just as she was, in dressing-gown and slippers, with her hair all hanging loosely round her shoulders. Elza had waited on the veranda for her quite patiently; she linked her arm in Rosemary's.

"You were able to sleep a little, darling," she said. "I am so glad."

"And what about you, Elza?" Rosemary retorted.

"Oh, I slept quite nicely," Elza replied in her quiet, simple way, "until the dawn closed the eyes of the night one by one, and the moon went down behind the old acacia trees."

"I quite forgot to look at the time," Rosemary rejoined.

"It was half-past four when I left your room. I went to have a peep at Maurus. He is still asleep."

"Thank God for that. He will only wake to hear the good news."

Rosemary could no longer keep the excitement out of her voice. Another two or three hours and this terrible suspense would be over. She hardly dared to look at Elza, for she felt the dear creature's body quivering against hers. The first glance had shown her Elza's face the colour of ashes, with swollen eyelids and red hectic spots on her cheek-bones. But outwardly she was still quite calm, and when together they reached the dew-wet lawn she threw back her head and with obvious delight drank in the sweet morning air.

"It is astonishing," she said, "that one should be able to sleep when-when things happen like they did to-night."

"You were dog-tired, Elza, and the air was so wonderfully balmy and soothing. I think," Rosemary went on gently, "that God sent down a couple of his guardian angels to fan you to sleep with their wings."

"Perhaps," Elza assented with a tired smile.

"Do you feel like a walk, as far as the perennial border?"

"Why, yes. I should love it. And we still have hours to kill."

Already sounds of awakening village life filled the morning with their welcome strains. The fox and the owl were silent, but two cocks gave answer to one another, and from the homesteads and the farms came a lowing and a bleating and a barking, the beasts rousing the humans to activity and calling them to the work of the day.

As Elza's and Rosemary's footsteps crunched the gravel of the path, Mufti, the big sheep-dog, and Karo, the greyhound, came from nowhere in particular, bounding across the lawn, and threw themselves, in the exuberance of their joy, upon these two nice humans who had shortened the lonely morning hours for them.

"Let's go and see the moss-roses," Rosemary suggested, "see if they smell as sweet as they did in the night."

They walked on to the end of the perennial border, where two or three clumps of moss-roses nestled at the foot of a tall crimson Rugosa laden with blossom.

"Dear little things," Elza said. "They are my favourite flowers. I like them so much better than all those wonderful new roses that get the prizes at the horticultural shows."

She stooped to inhale the fragrance of the roses, and while she was stooping a faint, very distant whirring sound became audible, which grew in volume every moment. Just for the space of one second Elza did not move; she remained just as she was, stooping and with her face buried in the roses. Then she straightened out her fine figure and grasped Rosemary's hand.

"The motor," she said huskily. "Let us go."

The end of the perennial border where they were was nearly a quarter of a mile away from the house; and then there was the house to get round, the courtyard to cross---The whirring grew louder every moment, then slower, and then it ceased. The car had come to a halt, but not in front of the gates, which were still closed. Rosemary and Elza were in the courtyard with Mufti and Karo jumping about them and getting in the way. The motor was not in sight.

"Down, Mufti! Karo, down!" Elza kept repeating mechanically.

She was rather breathless after that race across the garden. Rosemary ran to the lodge to call Feri, the night-watchman, who had the keys of the gate. He had heard the dogs barking and the voice of the gracious countess, so he was on the doorstep wondering what had brought the ladies out at this hour of the morning.

"Quick, Feri, open the gates!" Rosemary called to him.

It took Feri a few moments to get the keys to unlock the gates. An eternity.

From the direction of the village there had come a loud cry, followed after a few seconds by shouts and the sound of men running. Running and shouting, and now and then another shrill cry.

"Run ahead quickly, Feri," Rosemary whispered to the watchman. "Quickly, see what it is."

She held Elza's hand in the tight clutch, and under her arm. But even so Elza succeeded in breaking free, and while Feri ran on ahead, she did not lag far behind. Past the thick clump of acacias, the village street came in sight. At the end of it, a quarter of a mile away, in front of the inn which was kept by the Jew, a motorcar had come to a halt, and some half-dozen peasants stood round it, gesticulating and arguing. Down the street, from one or two of the cottages, men, women and children came running out to see what was happening, and when they caught sight of the gracious countess and the gracious foreign lady they paused, bewildered. The gracious countess-at this hour in the village! Such a thing had never happened before. The men doffed their hats, the women hastily bobbed a curtsy, the children stood stock-still, finger in mouth, staring. A few, bolder than the rest, ran forward to kiss the ladies' hands. But Elza hastened on, seeing nothing, heeding nothing, whilst Rosemary kept close by her side. Feri, as he drew near to the inn, shouted to the people to make way. But as soon as he came in close sight of the car he turned and hastened back to Elza. He clasped his hands together and cried:

"Don't come, gracious countess. Don't come! It is nothing, nothing, just an accident, a--"

Silently, with lips tightly pressed together, Elza pushed past him, but Rosemary now had once more taken hold of her hand. She held Elza tight, with one arm round her waist and the other clutching her hand. Struggle as she might, Elza could not free herself this time.

The next moment they stood together by the side of the motor. It was a large, rather shabby touring car, painted a dull grey and fitted with leather cushions. It was smothered in dust. There was no one in the back seats, but the innkeeper was just in the act of climbing in beside the chauffeur. The chauffeur appeared to be asleep; he sat like a huddled-up heap, wrapped in a dirty, military coat, and with his peaked cap pulled down over his face. The innkeeper appeared rather scared. He took hold of the military coat and pulled it open, and immediately he clapped his hand to his mouth, smothering a scream. The cap rolled off the chauffeur's head, and his right arm dropped down the side of the car. One man who stood quite near, not knowing probably that the two ladies were there, cried excitedly:

"God in heaven! The man has been shot-dead!"

CHAPTER XXV

There was no one there quite so self-possessed as Elza. Even Rosemary had some difficulty in smothering a cry. The innkeeper jumped down from the seat as if he had been driven away by a whip; the peasants gesticulated and jabbered in an undertone. Rosemary looked at Elza and clutched her hand more tightly against her own body. Elza's face was the colour of lead, her lips looked purple, even her large, blue eyes appeared colourless. Her hand was as cold as ice and shook in Rosemary's strength-giving clasp. But to the eyes of all these peasants and subordinates she appeared perfectly calm, and after a moment or two she turned to the group of jabbering, gesticulating peasants and asked quite quietly:

"Which of you first saw the motor draw up?"

"I heard the noise, gracious countess," the Jew volunteered, "as the car drew up outside the door, and--"

"And I saw the soldier jump down," a young labourer broke in excitedly. "He ran--"

"Very well," Elza said coldly. "Now you, and you," she went on and pointed to the innkeeper and to the labourer, "come inside and tell me what you have seen. Will you come, too, darling?" she asked Rosemary.

Finally she turned to her own man Feri:

"One of you," she said, "had better go to the gendarmerie. They ought to have been here by now."

Then she went into the inn; the Jew and the labourer followed, and the peasants, having looked their fill at the car, or else scared by that lifeless bundle in the chauffeur's seat, crowded together in the doorway of the inn. But Rosemary lagged behind for a moment, examining the car as if she expected the huge, shabby thing to yield up the key of its own mystery. But in the body of the car there was nothing, except the cushions and the dust and the huddled figure of the dead chauffeur, with the head fallen forward on the breast, and the arm hanging over the side of the car. Rosemary turned away from it at first with a shudder, but almost despite her will her eyes turned back to gaze again at that huddled-up heap and the limp arm, from beneath the coat-sleeve of which a thin filet of blood trickled drop by drop to the ground.

And suddenly something white and crisp fell from the lifeless hand into the dust at Rosemary's feet. She stooped and picked it up. Fortunately the jabbering peasants were not looking this way, and Feri had walked off to the gendarmerie. What Rosemary had picked up was a letter addressed to "Lady Tarkington." She tore open the envelope and read:

"A very clumsy attempt, dear lady. As you see, it has led to no good. Your two protégés are now under my direct care, and you have little more than a fortnight in which to write the newspaper articles which I want."

The letter was signed "Naniescu." Rosemary slipped it into the pocket of her gown, and then she went into the inn. The peasants all made way for her, and then crowded again in the doorway, trying to hear what was going on. Rosemary thought the long, low room one of the stuffiest and most evil-smelling places she had ever been in. It was very dark, the light only feebly penetrating through two tiny, impracticable windows, the panes of which were covered in dust. The only breath of fresh air that could possibly find its way in would have been through the door, but that was blocked now by a solid bundle of perspiring humanity. From the low raftered ceiling hung strings of onions and maize, and in a corner of the room, on a low table which was apparently used as a counter, were numerous bottles and a number of pewter mugs. The odour in the room was a mixture of dirt, onions and silvorium. But Elza, who sat beside the table with the innkeeper and the peasants before her, appeared quite unconscious of smells or dirt. She was questioning the labourer, who apparently was the only man who had actually witnessed the arrival of the motor-car into the village.

"I saw it come, gracious countess," he said, with obvious pride in his own importance, "and I saw it draw up outside here. There was a soldier sitting near the chauffeur."

"And he was in the driving seat?" Elza asked.

"Yes, gracious countess, the soldier was driving when I first saw the car come along the road."

"And the other man?"

"Well, gracious countess, I saw a sort of heaped-up bundle beside the chauffeur. I did not know there was another man."

"Well, then what happened?"

"The car slowed down, gracious countess, and drew up outside here. Then the soldier jumped up; he stepped over the heaped-up bundle and got out of the car."

"Yes, and then?"

"He took the thing which I thought was just a bundle covered with a military coat, and pushed it into the driver's seat. After that he ran away as fast as he could."

"In which direction?"

"Where he had come from, gracious countess. There was another car waiting for him there about half a kilometre away."

"Another car?"

"Yes; I didn't see it come, but I heard it slow down and come to a halt. The soldier ran all the way. He jumped into that other car, and it drove away in the direction of Cluj."

After that another man stepped in from the doorway and volunteered the information that he had seen the second car standing about half a kilometre away. He had seen the soldier running, and had seen the car drive off. He thought there was another soldier in that car.

By that time a couple of gendarmes were on the scene. They were conducting their own investigations of the case in a casual, perfunctory manner. At first they took no notice of Elza or of Rosemary, talked over their heads in a proper democratic manner; then one of them asked curtly of Elza:

"Did you see the car drive up?"

Elza said: "No!"

"Do you know anything about it?"

Again she replied: "No!"

Whereupon the man queried roughly: "Then what are you doing here?"

Elza's face flushed a little, but she replied quite courteously: "We all hoped at the castle to hear that the miller's two sons had arrived safely at Hódmezö, and I thought that this was the car that drove them in the night."

The man gave a sneer and a shrug of the shoulders.

"You seem mightily concerned," he said, with a harsh laugh, "about the miller's sons, to be out of your bed at this hour of the morning."

He spat on the ground, turned on his heel, and once more addressed the peasants.

"Now, then," he said, quite genially, "all of you get back to your homes. The Government will see about this affair, and it is no concern of anybody's. Understood?"

The two gendarmes waved their arms and drove the people out of the inn and away from the door as if they were a flock of sheep. They obeyed without murmur, only with an occasional shrug of the shoulders, as much as to say: "Well, well, these are strange times, to be sure! But it is no concern of ours."

The gendarmes then went out of the inn. They moved the body of the dead chauffeur into the body of the car; one of them got in beside it, the other took the driver's seat, and the next moment the mysterious car had disappeared up the village street in the direction of the gendarmerie.

When the last of the crowd had dispersed, Elza rose and, white-faced, wide-eyed, she turned to Rosemary.

"There is nothing more," she said, "that we can do here. Shall we go home?"

She nodded to the Jew, and, leaning heavily on Rosemary's arm, she went out into the street. It was past six now, and the village was flooded with sunlight. Elza's tired, aching eyes blinked as she came out into the open. Rosemary would have put an arm round her to support her, for she felt that the poor woman was ready to swoon; but mutely and firmly Elza refused to be supported. Her pride would not allow her, even now, to show weakness in sight of these cottages, behind the windows of which the eyes of Roumanian peasants might be on the look-out for her.

"They are outwardly obsequious," she said, as if in answer to a mute remark from Rosemary. "Call me gracious countess and kiss my hand, but at heart they hate us all, and triumph in our humiliation."

Strange, wonderful people! Even at this hour of supreme anxiety and acute distress, pride of caste fought every outward expression of sorrow and conquered in the end. Elza walked through the village with a firm step and head held quite erect. It was only when she was inside the gates of her own home that she spoke, and even then her first thought was for her husband.

"How to break the news to Maurus!" she murmured under her breath. "My God, how to break the news."

In the hall, where Rosemary saw that they were quite alone, she put her arms round Elza and drew her down into a low-cushioned seat.

"Elza, darling," she said gently, "have a real cry, it will do you good."

Elza shook her head.

"It won't bring Philip back," she said dully, "nor Anna. Will it?"

Her big, round eyes gazed with pathetic inquiry into Rosemary's face. She seemed to have some sort of intuition that her English friend could help-that she could do something for Philip, even now. Rosemary, her eyes swimming in tears, slowly shook her head. And with a low moan, Elza buried her face in the cushions, convulsive sobs shook her shoulders, and little cries of pain broke intermittently from her lips. Rosemary made no attempt to touch her. She let her cry on. Perhaps it was for the best. There was nobody about, and tears were sometimes a solace. The quietude, the stoicism of the past two hours, had been unnatural, racking alike to heart, nerves and brain. There was a limit to human endurance, and Elza had reached it at last.

When the worst of the paroxysm was over, Rosemary suggested gently: "Would you like me to break the news to Maurus? I'll do it most carefully, and I am afraid the strain would be too much for you."

But already Elza had struggled to her feet. She was wiping her eyes, then breathing on her handkerchief and dabbing them with it.

"No, no, my dear," she said between the dry, intermittent sobs that still shook her poor weary body, "not on any account. I understand Maurus. I know just what to say. Poor, poor Maurus! He has so little self-control. But I shall know what to say. You go and get your bath now, darling," she went on, gently disengaging herself from Rosemary's arms, "and get dressed. It will refresh you. I will do the same before I speak to Maurus. Rosa shall bring your coffee in half an hour. Will that do?"

She forgot noting, thought of everything-Rosemary's bath, her breakfast, the guest. Ah, yes, the guests! Rosemary had forgotten all about them. It was long past six now; they would soon be up. All of them wanting breakfast, baths, attention. Elza forgot nothing. Thank God that she had so much to think about!

"You go up, darling," she said to Rosemary. "I shall be quite all right. Don't worry about me."

One or two servants came through the hall, busy with their work. Elza had something to say, some order to give to all of them.

"Tell the chef," she said to Anton, "to come and speak to me here. And don't go into the gracious count's room until I call you."

Rosemary lingered in the hall a moment or two longer, until the chef, in immaculate white, tall linen cap in hand, came for his orders. Elza immediately entered into a long conversation with him on the subject of milk rolls for breakfast. And Rosemary at last went slowly up the stairs. Almost without knowing it, she found herself once more in her room, the pretty, old-fashioned room with the huge bedstead and the curtains embroidered in cross-stitch. How pretty it looked, and how peaceful! Through the open window came the sound of bird-song; a blackbird was whistling, a thrush was singing, a hundred sparrows were chirruping, and on the large lily leaves on the ornamental lake a frog was sitting croaking. So peaceful, so still! And, heavens above, what a tragedy within these walls!

For a while Rosemary stood at the open window gazing out upon the beautiful panorama laid out before her, the prim, well-kept garden the flower borders, the shady park, and out, far away, the wooded heights, the forests of oak and pine which the morning sun had just tinted with gold.

And with a sudden impulse Rosemary fell on her knees, just where she was, at the open window, and she stretched out her arms towards the Invisible, the Unattainable, the Almighty, and from her heart there came a cry, forced through her lips by the intensity of despair:

"Oh God! My God! Tell me what to do!"

CHAPTER XXVI

If Rosemary had been gifted with second sight!

She would have seen at the moment when she, in despair, turned to the great Healer for comfort, General Naniescu and his friend M. de Kervoisin enjoying their petit déjeuner in one of the palatial rooms of the Imrey's house in Cluj. M. de Kervoisin had arrived the night before. He was the guest of the general, and after a night's rest was enjoying the company of his host, as well as the luxury of these beautiful apartments so thoughtfully placed at the disposal of the military Governor of Transylvania by the Roumanian Government.

M. de Kervoisin was also enjoying the anxieties to which his friend was a prey in his capacity of Governor of this unruly country. There is something in a friend's troubles that is not altogether displeasing to a philosopher. And M. de Kervoisin was a philosopher. He had come over to give advice to his friend, and the role of adviser in a difficult situation was one which he knew how to fulfil with infinite discretion and supreme tact. Just now, while sipping a cup of most excellent café-au-lait, he listened with every mark of sympathy to Naniescu's account of the terrible trouble he was having with a certain obstinate lady journalist who would not do what he wanted.

"I have only asked her," he lamented, "for a few articles to be published in The Times which would put us right with the British and American public; but you know what women are. They never see farther than their noses. And this one, damn her, is like a mule. So far I have not been able to move her."

He had finished his breakfast, and with a pungent havana between his fingers, was waving his podgy, hairy hands to emphasize his words.

Kervoisin smiled. "And you want those newspaper articles?" he asked. "Seriously?"

"Seriously," Naniescu assented. "My Government has become suspicious. They are treating me very badly, you know. They began by giving me a free hand. 'No more plottings and counter-plottings in Transylvania,' they said to me when they sent me out here. 'It is your business to see that things work smoothly out there. How you do it is your affair.' Well," the general went on in an aggrieved tone, "you would construe that order into a free hand for me, would you not?"

M. de Kervoisin carefully spread butter on a piece of excellent fresh roll before he answered: "Yes, I think I should."

"Of course," Naniescu retorted; "so would anyone. And I was doing very well, too, until that young fool Imrey managed to send his newspaper articles over to England. And at once my Government got restive. You know those articles were pretty hot!"

"Yes, I know. But I always thought you attached too much importance to them. Mon Dieu! Confiscations, perquisitions, arrests and even executions, they are the inevitable consequences of foreign occupation." And M. de Kervoisin took a little honey with his bread and butter, and poured himself out another cup of coffee. "And you know," he went on with a shrug, "the British and American public are really very indifferent to what goes on out here. Cluj is such a long way from London or New York. For a time the public is interested, a few are indignant, one or two make a fuss and ask questions in their Parliament, but, after all, you are one of the Allies; you must not be too openly criticized. The man who asks uncomfortable questions in Parliament is rebuked: et puis voilà!"

"I know all that," Naniescu rejoined with some impatience, "but unfortunately my Government does not think as you do. Their vanity suffers when they are attacked in English newspapers, and then they vent their spleen on me."

M. de Kervoisin said nothing for a moment or two; then he remarked blandly: "I think I understand the position-now."

"There is a talk of my resignation," the general added curtly.

M. de Kervoisin smiled. "And you don't want to resign?" he asked.

"Of course not. Five thousand sterling a year; it is a fortune in this miserable country; and then there are the perquisites."

M. de Kervoisin had finished his breakfast. He pushed his cup and plate on one side, and resting both his elbows on the table, looked intently at his friend, while a sarcastic smile curled round his thin lips.

"So," he said, "you imagined this little scheme for putting yourself right before your Government-and before the world-by getting the beautiful Uno to write glowing accounts of your marvellous administration of Transylvania, for the benefit of English and American readers? Is that it?"

"Well, wouldn't you?" Naniescu retorted.

"Yes. But you are not succeeding, my friend," M. de Kervoisin added with the suspicion of a sneer. "What?"

"I shall succeed in the end," Naniescu rejoined. "With the help of my friend--" But at this point he was silenced by a peremptory gesture of his friend's hand.

"S-sh!" de Kervoisin broke in quickly. "I shouldn't mention his name-not even here."

"Oh, we are safe enough."

"Walls have ears, my friend," the other riposted, "even in this perfectly administered land. And our friend's work would be futile if his identity was suspected. I introduced him to you as Number Ten. Number Ten let him remain."

"I suppose I can trust him," Naniescu mused. "You assured me that I could. But bah!" he added with a contemptuous shrug. "Can one trust those English?"

"You can trust this one," Kervoisin retorted curtly. "He was the best spy we had during the war."

"During the war-yes! The man might think he was serving the entire Allied cause by serving you. But now! And here! Frankly, I don't understand the man's motive. He is rich, well born, and he is playing a terribly risky game for us, who are nothing to him."

"He is not running terrible risks for you, my friend, don't you worry," de Kervoisin retorted with a mocking smile. "Though he may have reasons which we don't know for hating the Hungarians, he certainly has none for loving you; and you are one of the Allies, and to a large section of the British public his work would not be called very heinous, seeing that it is in your service and directed against ex-enemies. However, let that pass. I attribute to Number Ten a very different motive for his actions than the mere desire of serving you."

"And what is that?"

"Money, for one thing. He is not as rich as you think, and has extravagant tastes. But that is not all. I know the English better than you do, my friend, and I can tell you that Number Ten would just call his work sport; and for sport, adventure-what?-a certain type of Englishman will do anything, dare anything, risk everything. A hundred and fifty years ago they had their Scarlet Pimpernel, who gave the Revolutionary Government of France a deal of trouble at the time. Now they have their Number Ten. The same spirit animates this man that animated the other-one for good, the other, perhaps, for evil. Just the spirit of adventure. A cycle of years has woven a halo of romance round the personality of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and to us Number Ten still appears as sordid, just a miserable paid spy in the service of an alien Government. But believe me that many Englishmen and even women will forgive him when they know him for what he is, because they will put it down to a love of adventure-to sport, which is the only motive the English appreciate."

He took his cigarette-case out of his pocket, carefully selected a cigarette, thrust it between his lips and lighted it. All the while Naniescu had remained thoughtful. "You may be right," he said finally. His was not an analytical mind; he was quite content to accept de Kervoisin's explanation of the mystery that had vaguely puzzled him; and, anyway, he did not care. Whatever motive animated the mysterious spy, the man was very useful, and in the matter of Philip Imrey and Anna Heves and of the obstinate lady journalist he had had one or two brilliant ideas.

De Kervoisin smoked on in silence for awhile, then he said:

"Our friend does not seem to be coming. I hope there has been no hitch."

"There could be no hitch," Naniescu asserted. "But it is two hours' drive to Kis-Imre and two hours back here. Will you wait a moment?" he went on, and rose to his feet. "I'll see if they've any news downstairs in the office. I told Number Ten to telephone from Kis-Imre when he got there."

Downstairs in the office they had nothing definite to report. No message had come through from Kis-Imre. But even whilst Naniescu was storming and fuming, blaming his subordinates, who obviously were not responsible for the delay, a man wrapped, despite the heat, in a huge stained and worn military coat, and wearing a soiled képi, crossed the courtyard from the direction of the entrance gates towards the principal staircase of the house. Naniescu saw him from the window and ran out into the hall. He met the man just as he was entering the house, and at once greeted him with the greatest effusion.

"Is everything all right?" he asked hurriedly.

"All right," the man answered curtly. "Of course."

"Kervoisin is upstairs," Naniescu went on. "Come and tell us all about it."

He ran upstairs two at a time; the man in the military coat followed more slowly.

"Here is Number Ten," Naniescu announced, as he ushered the man into the room where Kervoisin was patiently waiting and smoking cigarettes. Kervoisin rose at once, a word of welcome on his lips. But at sight of the man he paused and frowned, obviously mystified, until gradually his face cleared and he exclaimed:

"Bon Dieu! I should never have known you."

"I do look a disgusting object, don't I?" the man retorted. He shook hands cordially with Kervoisin; then he threw off his heavy coat and sank, obviously exhausted, into a chair.

"A cup of coffee?" Naniescu suggested.

"Thanks!" the other replied.

He drank the coffee, then took a cigarette from the case which de Kervoisin offered him. He looked a regular vagrant, with face and neck stained both with grease paint and with grime, his hands were soiled with motor grease, and his hair hung lank and matted into his eyes. He had what looked like a two weeks' growth of beard on his chin and upper lip, and his clothes-if indeed what he wore could be called clothes-were a mere bundle of rags.

"Number Ten," de Kervoisin said with conviction, "you are an artist. I have seen our friend here," he went on, turning to Naniescu, "in any number of disguises, but never two alike, and every new one a surprise!"

"You flatter me, sir," Number Ten said with an almost imperceptible sneer.

"But I am afraid you must be very tired," de Kervoisin resumed affably. "I told the general last night that he might just as well have sent one of his subordinates on this errand."

"I like to finish my work myself," Number Ten rejoined curtly.

Whereupon Naniescu threw up his hairy, fat hands and exclaimed in wonderment:

"Ils sont impayables, ces Anglais!"

"Then we may take it," de Kervoisin went on, "that the work is finished?"

"Yes, finished," Number Ten replied. "We spotted the car on the road about five kilometres from Cluj. The patrol summoned the driver to stop, but the man had obviously had his orders; he swerved sharply to the right and put on speed to try and rush through, so I shot him."

"Ah! these English," Naniescu exclaimed complacently; "they are wonderful!"

But de Kervoisin only expressed the mildest possible surprise by a very slight lifting of his eyebrows.

"Yourself?" was all he said.

"Yes," the other replied. "The patrol was on the other side of the road, but I guessed what would happen, so I had brought my horse to a halt about two hundred metres higher up."

"And," Naniescu asked blandly, "you killed the chauffeur?"

"Of course," the other sneered. "I was not likely to miss him, was I?"

But Naniescu could only smile, and sigh, and murmur: "Oh, those English! Voyez-moi çà!"

"There were two men in the body of the car," Number Ten continued coolly, "they were dead drunk. Philip Imrey and the girl were on the front seats. I gave my horse in charge of the patrol and took the wheel. We were in Cluj outside the gaol soon after two o'clock. I saw the chief superintendent and gave the three men and the girl in his charge."

"Yes! Yes!" Naniescu broke in glibly, and turned to de Kervoisin, "he had all instructions. Everything was ready. I have seen him since. Philip Imrey and Anna Heves are in separate cells, and the two drunken oafs he dispatched by train to Hódmezö. They did not seem to know what had happened, and it was no use detaining them."

"None whatever," Number Ten said dryly. "They were just drunken oafs, as you say. With the miller and his two sons you will have to deal presently-that is, if your second patrol succeeded in capturing the sons. I couldn't be in two places at once, and they may have crossed the frontier. Anyway, that's your affair, not mine."

"Of course, of course," Naniescu said airily. And de Kervoisin put in rather impatiently:

"What about the car and the dead chauffeur?"

"I drove both out to Kis-Imre," Number Ten replied deliberately. "The best way to let people there know what had happened. The General agreed to it."

"Was that your brilliant idea?"

"Mine!" Number Ten replied curtly.

And suddenly through the paint and the grime a look of almost inhuman cruelty distorted his face: the thin lips drew back tight above the red gums, and the sharp teeth gleamed white like those of a wolf. It was the recollection of a note which Naniescu had scribbled at his dictation, and which he, Number Ten, had thrust into the hand of the dead chauffeur for the perusal of an obstinate woman, that brought that wolf-like look into his face. His eyes almost disappeared beneath the strand of false eyebrows and the thick layers of paint upon the lids, and his hands opened out and were clutched again like the talons of a bird of prey.

For the space of a second or two Number Ten looked hideous. De Kervoisin, who was watching him, was conscious of an uncomfortable shudder: Naniescu fortunately was looking another way, and the whole episode was over in a moment; the next, Number Ten was once more leaning back in his chair, looking weary, grimy and ill-tempered, but there was nothing supernatural about him, except perhaps his amazing change from one personality to another.

"How did you get back here?" Kervoisin asked after a moment's pause.

I have a car which our friend the general has placed at my disposal, with a soldier-driver. I ordered him to follow me to within half a kilometre of Kis-Imre."

"No one stopped you?"

"No one."

"I suppose you got to Kis-Imre before anyone was astir?"

"I won't say that. The ladies at the château were astir."

"And they saw you?"

"No. I had reached my own car, and was on the point of driving off when I saw them coming through the gates of the château."

"You would not have liked them to see you, I imagine," Naniescu put in with a chuckle.

"They wouldn't have known me," Number Ten retorted quietly.

"Heu! heu!" the general rejoined with a shrug. "There are certain eyes that are reported to be very sharp."

"Anyway," Number Ten broke in coolly, "no one saw me except an oaf from the village, so why discuss the point?"

And strangely enough General Naniescu, usually so dictatorial and so arrogant, did not seem to resent the gruffness of this man who was in his pay. On the contrary, he laughed good-humouredly and rested his fat hand with a gesture of almost affection on the shoulder of the spy.

"Ah, ces chers 'Anglais!" he sighed fatuously whilst de Kervoisin turned quite politely to Number Ten with the bland question: "And what is your next move, my dear friend?"

"To get those articles out of the fair Uno," Naniescu interposed hurriedly before the other had time to reply. "That point must not be lost sight of."

"I am not likely to lose sight of it," the other riposted dryly, "seeing that I am to get ten thousand pounds sterling for them. I suppose you think they are worth it?" he added, turning with his habitual sneer to Naniescu.

"I think," the general replied slowly, "that with the arrest of Philip Imrey and Anna Heves, which, when it becomes known, will deter other young fools from playing the same game--with that, I say, as a make-weight, I think the articles will be worth the money--to my Government and to me."

"Well," Number Ten rejoined coolly, "I shouldn't have done your dirty work for less."

And Naniescu once more gave a fatuous sigh and murmured:

"Ils sont impayables, ces Anglais!" whilst de Kervoisin smiled as a philosopher smiles on follies and stupidities with which he has no concern. Then he asked Number Ten: "And when do you return to civilization, my friend-to decent clothes and a bath?"

"At once," the other replied, "unless I am wanted for something else."

"No, no, my dear man," the general rejoined, with perfect affability. "I am quite content to leave everything in your hands."

"And when do you want those articles?"

"Shall we say within the week?

"You shall have them," Number Ten said coolly as he rose from his chair. He nodded to Kervoisin, who responded cordially: "A bientôt, mon ami!" Then he turned to go; but already Naniescu was on his feet.

"I'll escort you," he said hospitably, "in case you meet anyone on the stairs. In your present get-up," he added with his oily, guttural laugh, "it might be awkward."

"Thank you," the other assented coolly, and, gathering up the dirty old military coat, he strode to the door. Naniescu was already there, holding it open for him.

"You will stay and have lunch with M. de Kervoisin and me, I hope," he said.

"I think not, thank you," the other replied.

"Ah! You are going to Hódmezö, perhaps-or to Kis-Imre?"

And Number Ten replied, with his habitual curtness:

"That is my affair."

De Kervoisin, who still sat smoking, chuckled at this. A scene such as this was part of a philosopher's enjoyment. Naniescu threw him a look, and shrugged his shoulders. De Kervoisin could almost hear him reiterating his stock phrase: "Ils sont impayables, ces Anglais!"

After that the two men went out of the room and de Kervoisin remained, sitting and smoking, with a thin smile on his colourless lips-the smile of a philosopher who sees the humour of a situation which to a less keen mind would only appear obscure and topsy-turvy, and after a while he murmured softly to himself:

"They certainly are remarkable, these English!"

Memory had brought back to his mind that cruel, wolf-like look which for one unguarded moment had distorted the features of the spy. There was, then, some motive other than greed or love of sport, that had pushed the Englishman into doing this dirty work. Hatred? Love? Perhaps. Passion? Certainly.

"I wonder now!" mused M. de Kervoisin.

And being a Frenchman as well as a philosopher he was deeply interested in this new problem.

CHAPTER XXVII

But Rosemary was not gifted with second sight, and she saw nothing of this while she knelt at the open window of her pretty room at Kis-Imre. She was in such an agony of mind, that for a time she became almost insentient. Presently, dressed as she was, she threw herself upon the bed, because she was dog-tired and had no longer the power to feel or to suffer. Even the well of her sympathy appeared to be dry. She could not bring herself to think of Elza or of Maurus, or to feel for them; even Philip and Anna seemed blotted from her mind. An intense self-pity absorbed every other sensation for the moment. She felt herself in such a hopeless impasse that she had not even the strength to beat her hands against the walls that had so completely closed her in.

And so she lay there for an hour and more while life in the château went on, unheeded by her. Long afterwards she heard that, as arranged, the guests all departed soon after nine o'clock, that Elza had been there to see them off, looking after their comforts, bidding them good-bye and tendering hospitable little invitations for the future. Wonderful as always! Rosemary saw nothing of that. She only heard of it afterwards, when she saw Elza again an hour or two later. For the time being she was just a log-neither thinking nor feeling; conscious only of that intense self-pity which was so humiliating, because her senses were so numb that she had not the power to trace that self-pity to its source. While she lay on her bed, blind, deaf, dumb, she did not know that she suffered; she did not know that she lived.

But this state of coma was the one concession to weakness. A giving in. It was not the least like Rosemary; and as consciousness slowly returned and with it the power to feel, she felt humiliated on account of that weakness which was foreign to her. Fortunately no one had witnessed it. Dear, wonderful Elza had had her hands full, and the departing guests had only thought of being discreet and tactful and of leaving this stricken home without putting too great a strain upon the self-control of their hostess. They did not know, of course, that tragedy had followed on the exciting events of last night; but they asked no questions, well knowing that good news spreads like wildfire, and guessing perhaps by Elza's set face and expressionless eyes that something was not altogether right.

Anyhow, they went away, and after their departure the house became still-very still. Presently Rosemary had her bath and dressed, then left the room to go and search for Elza. So far she had not been able to gather anything from Rosa's stolid, round face. The girl went about her work as if nothing special had happened; only when Rosemary was ready to go downstairs and gave Rosa a final nod, the girl suddenly said with an excited little gasp: "The gracious count Philip and the Baroness Anna will be in Hungary by now, won't they, gracious lady?"

Rosemary nodded. "We hope so," she murmured.

She waited in the hall for a little while, hoping that Elza would presently be coming downstairs; but a quarter of an hour later Anton came running down and made straight for the telephone.

"What is it, Anton?" Rosemary asked.

"The gracious count," the man replied hurriedly. "He is ill. I am telephoning to Cluj for the doctor."

"What is it, do you know?"

"No, gracious lady, the countess did not say, but I think it is the heart. The gracious count has fainted, and--"

After that Anton was busy with the telephone, and Rosemary wandered aimlessly into the drawing-room and out upon the veranda.

Maurus ill! Yet another calamity striking that unfortunate woman! Indeed, there was no room for self-pity in this house. Every feeling of love, of sympathy and of pity must be concentrated on Elza. She stood alone, just as Rosemary stood alone. Two women, each with their burden. Elza with a load of boundless sorrow and anxiety, and Rosemary with a terrible responsibility to face. Elza was helpless; she could only watch and pray. But Rosemary had the choice between waiting and acting. Sentiment on the one side; Philip, Anna, Elza and Maurus, people she knew and loved; and duty on the other, duty to others, to countless of unknown innocents, to mothers, to father, to wives. "What are they to me?" cried sentiment. "The few for the many," was the command of duty. Heart and brain in direct conflict and no one to advise, no one to help, save God, and He was silent! The affairs of men are so futile in face of the Infinite.

Later on in the day the doctor came over in his motor from Cluj, and after his visit Elza escorted him down into the hall. This was the first glimpse that Rosemary had of her since the morning, and the sight of her was a terrible shock; Elza was aged, her hair had lost its lustre, her eyes their colour, her cheeks were the colour of lead, and even her magnificent figure had shrunk. Elza looked an old woman, wide-eyed and scared as if Fate was a tangible being standing perpetually before her with flail upraised, striking, striking incessantly, until the poor, weak shoulders bent under the blows, and the last vestige of youth fled, chased away by pain.

As soon as the doctor had gone Elza came back to Rosemary.

"Poor Maurus," she said. "Have you heard?"

"What is the matter?" Rosemary asked.

Elza hesitated a moment, then she said:

"As a matter of fact, it was a fit. He had had them before, and you know he was always peculiar. And now the shock! The doctor says we shall have to be very careful with him. He must be watched and kept very quiet."

"Had you told him?"

"Yes; it is that which brought on the fit. The doctor asked me if he had been more than usually agitated the last day or two."

"But he is in no danger?" Rosemary insisted.

"The doctor says not. But then he does not know. If--if the worst happens with--Philip, I don't think that Maurus will live it through."

Elza had allowed Rosemary to lead her into the drawing-room. She sank down against the cushions and Rosemary knelt beside her, with her arms round the poor woman's shoulders.

"Darling," she murmured, "is there anything I can do?"

"No, dear, nothing. What can you do? We are only atoms. So helpless! We can only suffer. I suppose that God wants some of us to suffer, and others to be happy. It seems strange and unjust, but we cant help it. We must just get through with it." Elza spoke jerkily, in a dry, cracked voice, without the slightest ring or modulation in its dull monotony.

"Am I in the way, Elza darling?" Rosemary went on, trying with loving eyes to probe the secret thoughts that lay hidden behind that set, expressionless face. Elza turned large, round eyes upon her, and for an instant a gleam of tenderness shot through them.

"You are not in the way, darling," she said. "I don't know what I should have done this morning if you had not been there to brace me up. But it is miserable and dull for you here. Fancy you coming all the way from England into this house of misery!"

"If you sent me away now," Rosemary said, "I should break my heart with longing to be near you. But-I didn't know whether you would not rather be alone--"

"Alone? I should indeed be alone if you went away. Now that the children are not here . . . and Maurus must be kept very quiet-I should be very lonely if you went."

Rosemary gave her hand a little squeeze.

"But Jasper will be coming soon," she said. "I am sure you won't want him."

"Lord Tarkington is so kind," Elza replied gently, "and he would be company for you. The doctor is sending me a couple of nursing sisters from Cluj, but you know what Maurus is. He gets so impatient if I am not there. So we shall not see much of one another. But it would be a comfort to me to know that you are in the house."

"You are an angel, Elza, and I am glad that you are not sending me away. If you did I should not go very far. Probably to Cluj. I could not exist far away from you whilst I had a glimmer of hope. In my heart, darling," Rosemary went on earnestly, "I am still convinced that God will not permit this monstrous injustice. Something will happen. You will see. You will see."

"It would have to be a miracle, my dear," Elza said dully.

"God has accomplished greater miracles before this," Rosemary retorted firmly.

Elza smiled. She, poor dear, obviously did not believe in miracles.

After a moment or two she said:

"By the way, I quite forgot to tell you-so stupid of me-this morning, while you were resting there came a telephone message for you from Lord Tarkington."

"From Jasper?"

"He said he was coming some time in the afternoon."

"Where was he speaking from?"

"I am not quite sure, and, stupidly enough, I did not ask. When I understood that it was Lord Tarkington speaking I asked if I should send the carriage to meet him at Cluj. But all I heard in reply was: 'No, no,' and then we were cut off. These telephone people are so tiresome, they cut one off sometimes in the middle of a conversation. I am so glad, darling," Elza continued gently, "that Lord Tarkington is coming back. For your sake," she added, "and also mine."

After that she rose and gave Rosemary a final kiss.

"I have one or two little things to see to before lunch," she said, "but I understood from Lord Tarkington that he would not be over before the afternoon."

And she went off with her bunch of keys jingling in her hand, outwardly quite serene, and presently Rosemary could hear her calling to the servants, giving orders, scolding for something left undone. She was still wonderful, even though the elasticity had gone out of her step; and her back was bent like an old woman's, her voice had lost its metallic ring, and all the glorious colour had gone out of her hair.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Jasper arrived in the late afternoon, unheeded and unannounced. Elza and Rosemary were in the garden at the time, and he was in the house for over a quarter of an hour before they heard that he had come. Then she and Elza hurried to greet him. He was in the drawing-room waiting patiently. Rosemary thought him looking tired or perhaps travel-stained.

He kissed Elza's hand first, then his wife's, no more. But Rosemary knew her Jasper. He could not have kissed her in front of anyone, and Elza for once did not seem surprised at the cold, formal greeting between husband and wife. She asked a few questions: "Will you have something to eat, dear Lord Tarkington?" and "How did you come?"

Jasper gave the required explanations.

He had jumped out of the train at Apahida, which is the next station before Cluj, to get a drink, and whom should he see in the station restaurant but General Naniescu, who had driven out in his motor on some business or other. Hearing that Jasper was on his way to Kis-Imre, he offered to drive him over. It was a kind offer, as Jasper was sick of the train journey. He had only hand-luggage with him, and this he transferred, together with himself, to Naniescu's motor. And here he was-very glad to be back.

Elza asked him what had become of the luggage, and where the motor was.

Jasper explained that he had put the motor and the chauffeur up at the inn. General Naniescu had only driven in as far as Cluj, and after that had graciously put the motor and chauffeur at his, Tarkington's disposal, not only for the day but for as long as he and Rosemary would care to use it. The chauffeur was bringing the luggage over presently and would give it to Anton.

"The car might be very useful," Jasper went on, turning to his wife, "so I accepted the offer gladly. I thought it kind of old Naniescu."

Of course, he knew nothing of what had occurred, but even so his mention of Naniescu's name hurt Rosemary. She had already read failure in her husband's eyes-complete failure, and all of a sudden she realized how much hope she had built on this mission of Jasper's, and how it had dwelt at the back of her mind whenever she tried to comfort Elza. Now there was nothing left to hope for, nothing to believe in. Even faith appeared shipwrecked in this new tidal-wave of despair.

Rosemary had always found it difficult to extricate herself from Jasper's arms once he held her tight, and this he did a few moments later, when, at Elza's suggestion that Rosemary should see him up to his room, he found himself alone with her. He took her breath away with the suddenness, the almost save strength of his embrace.

"Jasper!" she murmured once or twice. "Jasper! Please!"

"I was so hungry for you, my Rosemary," he said. "Ten days-my God, ten days without your kiss!"

He looked her straight between the eyes and whispered huskily:

"I've been in hell, little one."

Rosemary tried to smile: "But why, my dear? We can't expect to be always, always together, every day for the rest of our natural lives."

"I don't know what you expect from life, little one, but I do know that if you send me away from you again, I should not come out of that hell again alive."

"But I did not send you away, Jasper," she argued, a little impatient with him because of his wild talk. "Your going to Bucharest was entirely your own idea."

"And I have lamentably failed," he muttered with a shrug.

She gave a little gasp that sounded like a sob.

"There was nothing to be done?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"The King?"

"Indifferent. He trusts Naniescu, has confidence in his judgement, and believes in his patriotism and sense of justice."

"Then there is absolutely nothing to be done," she reiterated slowly in a dull dream-voice.

She was keying herself up to tell him all that had happened in the past four-and-twenty hours. But she was so tired, almost on the verge of breaking down. She did not think that she would have the strength to go through with the long tale of hope and despair. But Jasper made her sit down on the sofa and arranged a couple of cushions round her head. Then he sat down on a low chair beside her.

"Now tell me, little one," he said quietly.

"Why, Jasper," she exclaimed, "how did you guess that there was anything to tell?"

"Don't I know every line of your adorable face," he retorted, "every flicker almost of your eyelid? Before I touched your hand I knew that something was amiss. After that I was sure."

"Dear," she murmured, and nestled her hand in his. Wasn't Jasper wonderful too? With his marvellous understanding and that utterly selfless love for her, who, alas! gave so little in return. He bent his head and pressed his lips upon her wrist.

"You guessed right," she said. "Something is very much amiss."

Then she told him everything. He listened to the whole tale without a comment, and even after she had finished speaking he sat in silence with her hand held between his own, only bending his head now and again in order to kiss her wrist.

"There's nothing to be done!" she reiterated, with a pitiable little catch in her voice.

And after awhile he said quite quietly and deliberately:

"The only thing to be done, my dear, is to comply with Naniescu's wish."

But against this she at once exclaimed, hot with indignation, and he went on with a sigh: "I know, I know. You are such a sweet, enthusiastic creature, and you have embraced the cause of these good people whole-heartedly, injudiciously. I don't want to influence you, of course--"

"You promised me that you would not," she retorted.

"I know! I know! You would not be the adorable creature that you are if you were not unreasonable sometimes. But-I put it to you-what harm would you do in writing the articles that Naniescu wants?"

This question roused Rosemary's indignation once more.

"How can you ask?" she queried. "To begin with I should alienate from these wretched people over here all the sympathy which Philip Imrey's articles have aroused for them abroad. Never again after that could any friend raise a voice on their behalf. Naniescu or his kind would have a free hand. He knows that well enough. Not only he, but all the waverers, all the selfish and the indifferent could in the future point to The Times and say: 'Hardship! Nonsense! Why, here was an independent lady journalist-and a woman at that-with every opportunity for getting at the truth, and she writes at full length to tell the entire world that the administration in Transylvania is a model of equity and benevolence.' And mothers like Elza would cry in vain because their sons had been torn from them, families would be sent into exile, fathers, brothers murdered, oppression, confiscation, outrage would go unpunished, all because one woman had been too great a coward to smother sentiment under the mantle of justice."

Jasper had not uttered a word, hardly made a sign, while Rosemary spoke her impassioned tirade. Only from time to time his dark eyes flashed with a glance of admiration on his beautiful wife, who, with flaming cheeks and slightly dishevelled hair, looked perhaps more desirable in her indignation than she had ever done in repose.

When she paused for want of breath he slowly shook his head.

"And do you really think, my darling," he said softly, "that you can permanently influence English and American opinion by a few newspaper articles, even if these are written by a well-known person like yourself? Dear heart, in order to do that you would have to go at your subject hammer and tongs, never allow one article to be forgotten before you write another; you must be at your subject all the time if you want to create an impression-hammer away at the newspaper-reading public until its stupid wooden head is saturated with the stuff you give it. Naniescu thinks a great deal of these articles which he wants you to write. Well, in my opinion their effect would last just one week after the last of them has appeared. After that some philanthropist or other will have his say on the maladministration of Transylvania, and you are not bound to refute that again, are you? But in the meanwhile Philip and Anna will be comfortably out of the country, and even Elza and Maurus will have settled down somewhere in Hungary to await better times; you will have saved the lives of two young things whom you love, and spared these good people here a terrible sorrow."

While Jasper spoke Rosemary could not do anything but stare at him. His sophistry amazed her. That there was a modicum of common sense in his argument was not to be gainsaid, but that the suggestion of such bargaining with truth and honour should come from Jasper, her husband, horrified Rosemary and revolted her. And men often accused women of a feeble sense of honour! From the first Rosemary had turned away from Naniescu's proposal as from something unclean. She had never dwelt on it, not for a moment. Even this morning, when first she felt herself sinking into an abyss of despair, she had not dwelt on that. But Jasper had not only dwelt on it; he had weighed its possibilities, the "for" and "against" which, with unanswerable logic and not a little sarcasm, he had just put before her. And even now, when she could not keep the look of horror out of her eyes, he only smiled, quite kindly and indulgently, as if she were just an obstinate child who had to be coaxed into reason; and when indignation kept her dumb he patted her hand and said gently:

"You will think over it, I am sure!" Then he rose and started pacing up and down the room, as was his custom when he was irritated or worried, with his head thrust forward and his hands clasped behind his back.

"You will think over it," he murmured again.

"Never!" she retorted hotly.

"You have another fifteen days before you."

"Never!" she reiterated firmly.

He looked at her for a moment or two with an indefinable smile on his lean, dark face, then he shrugged his shoulders.

"How much longer can you stand the mother's tears," he asked, "and the father's despair?"

"Elza, if she knew," Rosemary rejoined, with an obstinate toss of her head, "would be the first to wish me to stand firm."

"Try her!" Jasper retorted laconically. Then as Rosemary, reproachful, indignant, made no attempt to reply, he went on with harsh insistence: "Have you tried her? Does she know that the life of her son is entirely and absolutely in your hands?"

Rosemary shook her head.

"No!" she murmured.

Jasper gave a harsh laugh. "Then," he said, "I can only repeat what I said just now. Go and tell Elza everything, the see if her arguments will be different form mine!"

"Jasper!" Rosemary exclaimed, flushed with bitterness and resentment.

He paused in his restless walk, looked at her for a moment or two, and then resumed his seat beside her. For an instant it seemed as if he wanted to take her hand, or put his arms round her, but whether she divined this wish or no, certain it is that she made a slight movement, a drawing back away from him. A curious flash, like a veritable volcano of hidden fires, shot through the man's deep, dark eyes, and, as if to control his own movements, he clasped his hands tightly together between his knees. Strangely enough, when he next spoke his voice was full of tenderness and almost of humility.

"I am sorry, dear," he said gently, "if I hurt you. God knows that I would rather be broken to pieces on a rack than do that. But things have come to a pass," he went on more harshly, "where my duty-and my right-as your natural friend and protector command me to get you out of this impasse before all this damnable business has affected your health, or, God help us! clouded your brain."

"The impasse, as you very justly call it, Jasper," she riposted, "will not cloud my brain, so long as you do not seek to make right seem wrong and wrong right."

Then suddenly he dropped on one knee close beside her; before she could prevent him his two hands had closed upon hers, and he looked up into her face with a glance full of love and entreaty, whilst every tone of harshness went out of his voice.

"But child, child," he urged, "don't you see, can't you understand, that it is you who make right seem wrong? What good will you do, by letting those two wretched young idiots suffer the extreme penalty for their folly? Will you ever afterwards know one moment's peace? Won't you for ever be haunted by the ghosts of those whom you could so easily have saved? Won't your ears ring for ever with the whole-hearted curses of these wretched people, who will look upon you as the murderer of their son? And, honestly, my dear, your articles in The Times won't do more than flatter the vanity of Naniescu. Those people in England and America who have really studied the question won't think any the better of Roumanian rule or misrule in Transylvania because a lady journalist-eminent, I grant you-chooses to tell them that everything is for the best in the best possible occupied world. Think of all those articles in The Times on the subject of the French occupation in the Ruhr and their misrule in the Palatinate-did it prevent the very readers of that same paper from joining the League of the Friends of France and proclaiming at the top of their voices their belief in the unselfish aims of M. Poincaré? You attach too much importance to the Press, my dearest. Roumania and Transylvania are very, very far away from Clapham and Ealing. People don't trouble their heads much what goes on there. A few do, but they are the ones who will stick to their opinions whatever you may say."

Unable to free them, Rosemary had yielded her hands passively to Jasper's clasp. She lay back with her head resting upon the cushions, her eyes obstinately evading his glance and fixed upon the ceiling, as if vainly seeking up there for some hidden writing that in a few terse words would tell her what to do. Jasper thus holding her captive by her hands made her feel like an imprisoned soul bruising itself against the bars of an unseen cage. She felt fettered, compelled, unable to see, to visualize that rigid code of honour which had ruled her actions until now. Jasper had talked at great length; she had never heard him talk so long and so earnestly and with such unanswerable logic. And Rosemary, who up to this hour had seen her line of action before her, crystal-clear, was suddenly assailed with doubts, more torturing than any mental agony which she had suffered before. Doubt-awful, hideous, torturing doubt. How could she fight that sinister monster "compromise" if the one man whom she could trust tilted on its side? She had never dreamed of such a possibility. And now, suddenly, Jasper had made such a thing possible-worse, imperative!

Rosemary felt her eyes filling with tears. She was so tired and could not argue. She dreaded argument lest she should give in. It was all so utterly, utterly hopeless. Jasper was out of sympathy with her, and Peter--Peter-—

She must unconsciously have murmured the name, for all of a sudden Jasper jumped to his feet with a loud curse.

"If you mention that devils' name--" he began. Then once more he started on his restless pacing, with lips firmly set almost as if he were afraid that words would come tumbling out of them against his will.

"Jasper!" Rosemary exclaimed, "why do you hate Peter so?"

"Hate him?" Jasper retorted harshly. "Does one hate a snake-or a worm?"

"That is unjust," she riposted, "and untrue. You forced a promise from me not to confide in Peter. But I wish to God I had spoken to him, asked for his help. Peter half belongs to these people; he would have helped us if he had known."

But Jasper only threw his head back and broke into a harsh, sardonic laugh:

"Peter?" he exclaimed. "Peter Blakeney help you? Heavens above! Don't you know, child," he went on, and once more came and sat down beside her, "that Peter Blakeney is nothing but a paid spy of the Roumanian Government? I warned you; I told you. You remember that day, when you did not even know that he was in Transylvania, he was in Cluj in touch with Naniescu. I warned you then as much as I dared. I could not say much because-because--" He paused, perhaps because he had felt Rosemary's eyes fixed upon him with a curious, challenging look. A second or two later he went on coldly: "And the denunciation of Anna and Philip? How did it come about? Who knew of their folly except you and Peter Blakeney? And what about last night? I warned you not to confide in Peter, not to speak with him of the whole thing while I was away. Are you quite sure, quite, quite sure that Peter knew nothing of the plan? Are you quite sure that he--"

"Jasper! Stop!" Rosemary cried; and with a great effort she pushed Jasper away from her and rose to her feet. She wanted above all to get away from him. She would not listen. She would not hear, because-because every word that Jasper spoke was a dart that hit straight at her heart, and every dart was marked with the word "Truth." All that Jasper said she had heard whispered about her by unseen demons who had tortured her for days with these horrible suspicions. She had rejected them, fought against them with all her might; but no sooner had she silenced one tempter than another took his place and whispered, whispered awful words that, strung together, became a fearful, and irrefutable indictment against Peter. But this, she would not admit; not now, not before anyone, not even before Jasper.

"I won't believe it," she said firmly. "I have known Peter all my life, and what you suggest is monstrous. There have been strange coincidences, I admit, but--"

"Strange," Jasper broke in with a sneer. "You are right there, little one. It is a strange coincidence, shall we say, that has made Peter Blakeney the new owner of this house."

"Whatever to do you mean?"

"That Peter Blakeney has bought an option on the château and property of Kis-Imre from the Roumanian Government."

Rosemary frowned in bewilderment.

"Jasper," she said, "will you please tell me clearly what you do mean?"

"I have told you, dear heart, as clearly as I could. But perhaps you have not realized that if Philip and Anna are brought before a military tribunal and convicted of treason against the State, these estates, together with the château, will be confiscated. It will then be sold for the benefit of the State and the owners will be expelled from the country."

Rosemary felt herself shuddering. "No," she said slowly; "I had not realized that."

"I am afraid that it is so. And in the meanwhile, some who are in the know have already cast covetous eyes on this admirable château and beautiful park and garden, and our friend Naniescu has hit on the happy idea of selling the option of them to the highest bidder. And it seems that Peter Blakeney was the lucky man. He has paid a few hundred thousand leis for a first option on Kis-Imre and its dependencies, should it come in the market after the conviction and presumably the death of his cousins for treason against the State."

"Who told you all that?" Rosemary queried coldly.

"Our friend Naniescu."

"And you believed it?"

"I could not help believing; Naniescu showed me the contract for the option. It was signed 'Peter Blakeney'."

"If Peter has done that," Rosemary went on slowly, "it is because he wants to secure the place ultimately for Elza."

Jasper smiled tenderly. "You are a loyal friend, sweetheart," he said.

"The accusation is so monstrous," Rosemary retorted, "it defeats its own ends."

"I wish I could think so," he rejoined with a sigh. "Unfortunately, ever since Peter's arrival in Cluj I have seen nothing but one calamity after another fall upon these wretched people here. I only wish I had your belief in coincidences. I only wish I could explain satisfactorily to myself how those two children, how Elza, Maurus, all of us, have come to this terrible pass, at the end of which there is nothing but chaos. But there," he went on with his usual gentleness and patience, "I won't worry you any longer. I have said my say. I have put my case before you. Perhaps I look at it too much from a selfish point of view. I am heart-broken to see you so wretched, and feel like hitting out right and left to set you free from this awful impasse. So now, sweetheart, try and forgive me, and think over it all from my point of view a little. The people here are nothing to me, you are everything. All the world and more. Even Heaven would be nothing to me without you, and this place is a hell when you are not here."

Rosemary was standing close by the open window. The sky was grey. Great banks of cloud rose and tumbled about the mountain tops. The pine trees on the hill-side appeared like ghostly sentinels standing at attention in the mist. The heat was oppressive. From far away came the dull rumble of distant thunder. The tuberoses beneath the window sent a heady, intoxicating scent through the storm-laden air. Rosemary felt terribly wearied, and for the first time in her life discouraged. She had striven for right, smothered every sentiment for the sake of abstract justice, and in the end right was proclaimed to be wrong, at best a fantasy born of her own vanity. Was Jasper right, after all? He had rather a way of being always right. Anyway, he was English and practical; sentiment had no part in his organization. Even his love, deep as it was, was not sentiment. Rosemary had found this out before now. It was not sentiment-it was elemental passion. But his views of life were built neither on sentiment nor passion. He looked at things straight, as Englishmen of a certain type do, who despise sentiment and whose unanswerable argument is: "Well, it is the right thing to do."

But, heavens above! what was the right thing now? Rosemary felt sick and faint; the heat and the scent of the tuberoses made her head ache and her eyes smart. Jasper was saying something, but she hardly heard him, and she hardly felt his nearness when he took her hand and pressed it against his lips.

CHAPTER XXIX

But a moment or two later a curious thing happened.

Jasper had gone out of the room, and Rosemary, leaning against the window frame, was looking out into the approaching storm. She had not heard what Jasper had said just before he kissed her hand; but her mind must have registered it, must have made a kind of record of it, like that of a gramophone, because now some of his words came back to her quite distinctly through the rumblings of distant thunder. She had not heard him then, but she heard him now quite distinctly-every word.

"I have jotted down a few ideas. You, of course, will put them into your own picturesque language. Just a few notes of what Naniescu would like to see in The Times. I thought it would save you the trouble to think. I don't think that you will find anything glaringly impossible in my suggestions."

Then he had put something down on the table. Memory had registered a kind of swishing sound. And Rosemary, now turning slowly away from the window, caught sight of that something on the table. Half a dozen loose sheets of paper covered with Jasper's clear, minute handwriting. Like a sleep-walker Rosemary went to the table and picked up the sheets. The shades of evening were drawing in, and the heavy grey clouds in the sky blotted out the remaining rags of daylight. With the papers in her hand Rosemary went out on the balcony. She had the feeling that while she read she must have the pure, storm-laden air about her. She had not turned away from these notes of Jasper's in horror. She had not closed her ears to the record of his words. She knew quite well what was written on these sheets of paper, and deliberately she sat down and began to read.

The political and economic situation of Transylvania was stated in these brief notes with remarkable lucidity. Jasper's clear, unemotional outlook on the administration of the conquered country was set forth without any imagery or attempt at style. Even the obvious bias in favour of the ruling Government was tempered by sound logic and a certain measure of indulgent toleration for the other side. Rosemary read the notes through twice very carefully. She could hear Jasper's voice in every sentence, feel his presence while she read. Long after she had finished reading she sat there quite still, with the sheets of paper lying on her lap and her hands folded over them. She marvelled whether she was quite sane. Jasper had said at one moment that this terrible impasse might overcloud her brain. Well, perhaps it had done that already, and she could no longer distinguish right from wrong through the clouds.

Evening closed in about her. The garden down below became a blur, through which white, starry flowers blinked up at her, and with their placidity mocked the turmoil which was rending her soul. The thunder-clouds were drawing nearer; they hung like lead over the mountains. The pine trees, like dark sentinels, shivered at times under a sudden gust of wind, and from time to time a pale reflex of distant lightning lit the sky above the valley.

Rosa came presently into the room and turned on the lights; she inquired anxiously whether the gracious lady would not come in, as it was raining already and the storm would be breaking very soon. Then only did Rosemary become conscious that her hair and her dress were wet. Heavy drops, the size of a shilling, were falling, but she had not noticed them before.

She came in and quite mechanically she locked the papers up in her dressing-case. She asked Rosa what the time was, and whether dinner would be at the usual time. Yes, dinner would be at eight o'clock as usual, and it was now past seven. Rosa asked if the gracious lady would like to change her dress.

The rest of the evening was like a dream. Elza presided at dinner and she and Jasper did most of the talking--that is to say, Elza asked innumerable questions to which Jasper gave long replies, with forced cheerfulness. Maurus, it seemed, was better. The doctor was coming again the last thing at night, but the patient was much calmer, had taken some nourishment in the way of milk, and had slept for an hour. Elza, self-possessed, wonderful as usual, lingered over dessert. She poured out coffee, offered liqueur and cigarettes. For her hospitality and its duties were a religion; she would as soon have neglected them as a devout Catholic would neglect confession. The very fact that they cost her an effort made them all the more imperative and in a way comforting.

At ten o'clock Rosemary found herself once more alone in her room. Jasper had kissed her tenderly when he bade her goodnight. Only when she did find herself alone did Rosemary realize how much she had dreaded this goodnight. She knew that she had no reserve of strength left to stand one of Jasper's savage outbursts of passion; to-night of all nights she would have gone down under it like the tuberoses below her window under the lashing of the storm.

The rain beat against the window-panes, terrific crashes of thunder followed one another in close succession, and every few minutes the sky seemed rent right through with blinding flashes of lightning. The heat was nearly intolerable through this almost tropical storm. Rosemary had dismissed Rosa. She undid her hair, which clung damp against her forehead and the back of her neck, and clad only in chemise and petticoat, with bare arms and neck, and bare feet thrust into slippers, she sat down at the table with Jasper's notes before her, and read them through once more.

After that she searched through the chest of drawers for a bundle of manuscript paper, and taking up her fountain-pen she began to write. She had Jasper's notes in front of her, and she put them, as he had suggested, into her well-known, picturesque language. She enlarged upon them, amplified them, always keeping his suggestions as a background for her own statements.

For hours she sat there writing. It was the longest spell of uninterrupted work that she had ever accomplished, but she was not even conscious of fatigue. The storm raged for a while longer, but she did not hear it. Only the heat worried her, and from time to time she mopped her forehead and the back of her neck with her handkerchief.

The storm passed by, and the air became very still as slowly the dawn chased away the night. The waning moon peeped through the clouds, only to melt away in the translucent ether; one by one the birds awoke, shook their wet feathers and called to their mates. But not until she had written the last line did Rosemary rise from the table. Then she put her papers together, put a clip through them, arranged Jasper's notes separately, and locked up both sets in her dressing-case.

After that she put on a wrap and threw open the window. The clock in her room struck five. She had been writing for six hours! The task was done. There it stood ready, and Elza should decide. In this Jasper had been quite right-wasn't he always right? It was for Elza to decide. Her son's life on the one hand, her people's welfare on the other. It was for her to decide. Philip was her son; the oppressed people of Transylvania her kindred. Jasper was quite right. Let Elza decide.

And after Rosemary had saturated her lungs with the pure air of the morning, she went to bed and slept soundly, heavily, until Rosa came into her room later on with her breakfast.

And when, presently, Jasper came in, Rosemary was able to greet him with a smile which was not altogether forced. She was able to return his kiss, and after awhile to tell him what she had done.

"The articles are written," she said, "and ready for publication. I have even written a covering letter and addressed the envelope to the editor of The Times, asking him kindly to arrange for their publication at the earliest possible date. But before I put the articles in the post, I shall give them to Elza to read. She shall decide if they are to go. You were quite right, dear," she added, and looked Jasper quite frankly, unwaveringly, in the eyes. "It is a matter for Elza to decide."

CHAPTER XXX

Rosemary found herself alone with Elza in the early part of the afternoon. The doctor had been over in the morning to see Maurus, and on the whole the bulletin was satisfactory: "The patient was doing well. If he was kept very quiet there would be no complications. He was no age, and on the whole had led an abstemious life. The most important thing was to keep all worry, all agitation from him, both now and in the future."

Both now and in the future! Elza dwelt on those words when she told Rosemary just what the doctor had said.

"The future!" she murmured with a weary little sigh. "Of course, the doctor does not know. Perhaps I ought to tell him what the future holds in store for poor Maurus."

The nursing sisters had arrived overnight. Rosemary had caught sight of them about the house during the course of the morning, with their white-winged caps that made them look like doves with outspread wings. Their felt shoes made not the slightest noise as they walked. They were very sweet and very restful, entirely incompetent but exceedingly kind, and full of gentle pity and kind advice to the patient, who became terribly irritable as soon as they ministered to him.

After lunch Rosemary persuaded Elza to come out with her into the garden. It was the first bright moment in the day. Neither morning nor early afternoon had kept the promise made by the dawn. Storm clouds hung, heavy and leaden, over the mountains, and dull rumblings proclaimed the return of thunder. But about three o'clock there was a break in the clouds, and a pale sun shot fitful gleams of silvery light upon park and garden. It was oppressively hot. Rosemary led Elza to the summer-house and made her sit down. Elza was fidgety. It almost seemed as if she did not want to be left alone with Rosemary. She made one excuse after another: Maurus! the chef! the stables! But Rosemary insisted.

"Listen to me, Elza, darling," she said firmly. "I want your full attention for two minutes."

Elza turned her big blue eyes upon Rosemary and murmured like an obedient child: "Yes, dear! What is it?"

Rosemary had the papers in her hand: the newspaper articles which she had written during the night. The hand that held the manuscript shook ever so slightly, but her voice was quite steady.

"I want you," she said to Elza, "to read very carefully what I have written here. They are newspaper articles which General Naniescu would like to see published in England and in America. When you have read them you will understand why. He wants this so badly that on the day these articles are published Philip and Anna will receive a full pardon, Kis-Imre will not be taken from you, and, if you wish, you can all leave the country for a time until things settle down and better times come for you all."

She thrust the papers into Elza's hands and turned to go.

"I will leave you to read quite quietly," she said.

But Elza's round blue eyes were still staring at her.

"I don't understand you, dear," she murmured vaguely.

"Of course you don't, darling," Rosemary rejoined gently; "but you will when you have read what I have written. The gipsy was quite right; it is in my power to save Philip and Anna, but only to a certain extent, because it is you alone who can decide if I am to exercise that power or not. God bless you, darling!"

She put her arms round Elza and kissed her tenderly. Thank Heaven all self-pity, all selfish introspection had gone from her. Her thoughts, her love, her pity were all for Elza. But it had to be. Elza must decide. Her people! Her son! She must decide!

When Rosemary hastened across the lawn she turned once more toward the summer-house. Elza was still sitting there, staring with big blue eyes into vacancy. Every line of her attitude indicated bewilderment. She had the packet of paper in her hand and was tapping it against her knee. Poor Elza! A heavy sob rose from Rosemary's aching heart.

CHAPTER XXXI

Rosemary did not Elza against that day. Just before dinner Rosa came with a short scribbled note from her. "Maurus is very restless," it said; "I don't like to leave him. Will you and dear Lord Tarkington forgive me if I don't join you at dinner?"

The evening was dreary. Jasper said very little, and Rosemary felt thoroughly out of tune with him; he had a meek air about him that irritated her. Hers was not a nature to sympathize with remorse, and Jasper's manner gave the idea that he regretted having forced her into a decision. So she gave curt answers when he spoke to her, and after dinner he retired into the smoking-room with the excuse that he had some business letters to write. She sat reading most of the evening, her nerves on edge, hearing all sorts of mysterious sounds through the apparent stillness of the house.

When Jasper came to say good night she felt sorry for him. He looked forlorn and miserable, and reason told Rosemary that he of all people ought not to be allowed to suffer through a situation that was none of his making. Poor Jasper! She, his wife, had dragged him, unwillingly enough, into this impasse wherein his quiet habits of a wealthy English gentleman were hopelessly perturbed and his outlook outraged at every point. So, after she had returned his last kiss and saw him going upstairs, slowly, dragging one step after another, almost like an old man, she ran after him and linked her arm in his, and gave him an tender and sympathetic smile. The look of gratitude which he gave her in return warmed her heart. Here, at least, was no divided duty. In a moment of pique--it was nothing less than that--she had linked her fate with Jasper Tarkington, accepted from him all the lavish gifts that wealth could buy, and which he so generously bestowed upon her. In exchange for that he only asked for her love; and if the love which he gave and demanded did not reach that sublime ideal of which Rosemary had once dreamed, at any rate it was loyal and ungrudging and she had no right to let her caprice stand in the way of his happiness.

It was perhaps strange that these thoughts should come to her at a moment when her whole soul was torn with a terrible sorrow and a racking anxiety; perhaps they came because on this very day she had made the greatest abdication of her will that she had ever done in all her life. She had always acted for herself, judged for herself, set herself a high standard of straight living and straight thinking, and lived up to it. To-day she had left a decision which should have been hers in the hands of another. She knew that she had done right, but her pride was humiliated, and to soothe that pride she set herself a fresh standard of duty to Jasper and determined to live up to that.

But ever afterwards she turned away with a shudder from thoughts of this evening, when she probed the full depth of Jasper's passion for her, and saw before her like a row of spectres the vision of an endless vista of years, during which every caress would mean for her an effort, and every kiss a lie.

The new standard of duty which she had set herself would be very difficult to live up to. She had never loved Jasper, only hoped that she might learn to love him one day, but on this fateful evening she realized that she might in time learn to hate him.

When at last she was alone she found herself unable to rest. Through the open window the sounds of the oncoming storm became more and more insistent. It was rolling in on the bosom of the clouds from over the mountains in the west. Already one or two vivid flashes of lighting had rent the sky, and now and then great gusts of wind swept across the valley and sent a soughing and whispering through the trees. The poplars bowed their crests, and the twisted branches of the old acacias shivered and cracked in the blast. It was insufferably hot, and there was a smell of sulphur in the air. Rosemary in a thin lace wrap could not succeed in keeping cool. She stood by the open window, longing for the storm to break in all its fury, so that she might be rid of this feeling of oppression which was so unendurable, because the storm, far or near, had gone on almost uninterruptedly for over twenty-four hours. Rosemary's thoughts now were with Elza. She pictured to herself the unfortunate woman wrestling with a decision which either way must mean the breaking of her heart. Elza, who outwardly seemed just a soft, futile, pampered doll, with thoughts fixed on her menus and her servants, was a veritable heroine, strong and tenacious, proud without vanity, loving without weakness, the type that represented everything that was finest and best in a woman. She was of the stuff that religious martyrs were made of in the past, and she would not come to a decision without a terrible struggle. If in the end her heart overruled the dictates of justice and of right, her remorse would be as devastating as her courage hitherto had been sublime.

If Elza had been a religious woman she would not have suffered nearly so cruelly. The pagan knows nothing of the comfort of prayer, of diving blindly from the rocks of care into the ocean of God's love. And Elza was only a pagan from whom the thin veneer of Christianity laid on in early life had been rubbed off long ago. She would not now be on her knees, murmuring with heaven-born resignation: "Lord, not my will, but thine be done!" she would be fighting a tough battle, wrestling with her heart, castigating her tenderest feelings, fighting alone, unaided, unconsoled.

Poor, poor Elza! Rosemary, looking out into the storm, seemed to see the pretty round face distorted by grief, the big, child-like eyes gazing bewildered on the immensity of the puzzle which the Fates had set for her to solve. And while Rosemary gazed the storm became full of pictures, each lightning flash revealed a face. Elza! Philip, dark-eyed, enthusiastic, the idealist! Anna, gentle and resigned. Maurus, the man, the head of the family, the trunk of the tree weaker than its branches. And then Peter. Oh, Peter filled the night with his presence. There was Peter in flannels, a boy with bright eyes and curly head, fighting life's battles with a cricket bat and a joke. Peter home on leave from that hell in Belgium, receiving from his king the supreme reward for an act of almost unequalled bravery, of which, in his boyish way, he would often look quite ashamed. And Peter that night in June, long ago. Peter's strong arms round her shoulders. Peter's impassioned words, vying in melody with the nightingale. Peter's kiss that opened wide the portals of Heaven; and, lastly, Peter the mysterious, the subtle, unseen influence in whose wake strode sorrow and disaster. And the rumbling of the thunder brought back to Rosemary's ears Jasper's words of warning: "I only wish I had your belief in coincidences;" and "Ever since Peter's arrival I have seen nothing but one calamity after another fall upon these wretched people here." And then that awful, awful indictment which she had been unable to refute: "Don't you know that Peter Blakeney is a paid spy of the Roumanian Government?" The thunder brought the echo of those terrible words. Louder and louder, for the storm was drawing nearer, and the echo of those awful words drowned the very sound of thunder.

All at once the storm broke in all its fury; there was a deafening crash and a flash of lightning so vivid that for the space of one second the garden stood revealed as if in broad daylight before Rosemary's gaze, clear-cut in every detail, every tree, every leaf, every flower, every ripple upon the lake, each pebble upon the garden walk; and in that one second Rosemary had seen Peter standing on the gravel walk, not fifty yards from her window, and looking up at her--gazing. She caught his eyes in that one flash. He was dressed in a dark suit, his cricketing cap was on his head. It had been an instant's flash, but she had seen him, and he was gazing up her window. And their eyes had met in that one flash, right through the storm.

After that all was darkness, and though from time to time the night was rent by lightning flashes, Rosemary did not see Peter again. And when later on the storm subsided, and, wearied out, she went to bed and slept, she dreamt that all her suspicions of Peter had been proved to be wrong. She dreamt that she was a few years younger, that they were on the river together, in a punt, and that the nightingale was singing. She dreamt of the lapping of the water against the low-lying river bank, of the scent of meadow-sweet, and of the honey-coloured moon that painted long lines of golden light upon the reeds. She dreamt that Peter kissed her, and that she was free to give him kiss for kiss.

CHAPTER XXXII

When Rosemary woke the next morning she felt quite convinced that the vision which she had had in the night, of Peter standing on the gravel walk and looking up at her window, was only a creation of her own fancy. Rosa had opened the curtains and the volets, and Rosemary saw a dull, grey sky before her. The storm had certainly abated, but it was still raining. Rosemary thought of the cricket match, which would probably have to be postponed owing to the weather, and of the disappointment this would mean to many, especially to Peter, who had set his heart upon it.

During breakfast Jasper told her that he had received a note from his agent de change at Cluj, and that the latter said in his letter that the cricket match which should have been begun yesterday had to be postponed owing to the weather.

"Steinberg goes on to say," Jasper continued, "that he had heard that the cricket pitch--the playground he calls it--was like a swamp. The storm seems to have been very severe the other side of the frontier. It went on for twenty-four hours without a break, and was still raging at the time of writing. Unless the weather improves very much, Steinberg says that the match will have to be abandoned altogether, as Payson and several of his team have to be back in Budapest in time for work on Monday morning, which means leaving Hódmezö on the Sunday."

Then, as Rosemary made no comment on the news, only stared rather dejectedly out of the window, Jasper went on after awhile:

"I am afraid it will mean a disappointment all round, as the weather can hardly be said to have improved, can it?"

Rosemary said: "No, it cannot," after which the subject was dropped. Somehow the idea of the postponed cricket match worried her, and there was one insistent thought which would force itself into the forefront of her mind to the exclusion of all others, and that was the thought that the postponed cricket match would have left Peter free yesterday to come over to Kis-Imre, and that therefore it might have been himself in the flesh who was standing during the storm in the garden last night.

Why he should have chosen to stand in the garden in the rain rather than come into his aunt's house was a problem which Rosemary felt herself too wearied and disheartened to tackle.

When she went downstairs soon after ten o'clock she met Elza in the hall, dressed ready to go out. She looked more tired, more aged, more ill than the day before; obviously she had spent another sleepless night. But she kissed Rosemary very tenderly. "Come into the smoking-room, darling," she said. "I want to say something to you."

Rosemary followed her into the smoking-room and at once asked after Maurus.

"He has had no sleep," Elza said, "and at times his brain wanders. But physically he seems no worse-rather stronger, I think, than yesterday, and he enjoyed his breakfast. If we could only keep him quiet!"

She opened her handbag and took out the papers which Rosemary gave her yesterday.

"I read your articles through very carefully, dear," she said, "but I did not have to pray for guidance. I knew at once, that none of us, not Maurus or I, or Anna's people, would accept the children's safety at such a price. The children themselves would refuse."

With a perfectly steady hand she held the papers out to Rosemary. "Take them, darling," she said. "Thank you for letting me decide. This is the one thing which we none of us would have forgiven, if you had published these articles without consulting us."

CHAPTER XXXIII

Half an hour later!

Rosemary thought that Jasper was still in his room, and she had a longing to get away from his nearness and out into the open. It was still raining and the sky was the colour of lead. She threw a cape over her shoulders and opened the door of her room. She was dreading to meet Jasper again, so she listened intently for awhile for any sound that might betray his presence. From Maurus' apartments at the opposite end of the gallery there came a buzz of voices, and from down below where the servants were laying the table in the dining-room for luncheon a clatter of crockery. Otherwise silence. And no sound from Jasper's room close by, so Rosemary ran quickly downstairs.

She had just reached the hall intending to go out into the garden when she heard a strange clatter coming apparently from the smoking-room. It sounded like a scuffle. Of course it could not be, but that was just what it sounded like. She stood still to listen. And then she heard quite distinctly a smothered cry. Something like a curse. And she thought that she recognized Jasper's harsh voice. At once she ran to the door of the smoking-room and threw it open.

Jasper was on the ground, struggling to get back to his feet. He appeared dazed, and to be moving with difficulty. His hand was tearing at his collar, as if he were choking; his clothes were disarranged, his face looked pallid and blotchy, and his eyes bloodshot. But Rosemary did not scream when she caught sight of him. Something else that she had seen had paralysed her limbs and seemed actually to be holding her by the throat. The tall window which gave on this side of the garden was wide open, and in a flash, just as she entered the room, Rosemary had seen Peter in the act of getting over the window-sill. The next second he had disappeared over the ledge, and she heard his footsteps crunching on the gravel as he ran in the direction of the main gates.

A moment or two later Jasper had recovered his voice and the use of his limbs.

"Call to the servants!" he cried in a raucous voice. "Curse that devil--he will get away."

But Rosemary could not move. She could only stand where she was in the doorway and stare at the open window. Jasper had struggled to his feet, lurched forward and tried to push past her. He tried to call out, but the words were choked in his throat. He put his hand up again and tore at his collar, then he tottered and would have fallen backwards if Rosemary had not been quick enough and strong enough to catch him and to guide him to the nearest chair, into which he sank, half fainting. One of the servants came across the hall from the dining-room. Rosemary called to him to bring some brandy.

"The gracious lord feels faint," she said. "Be quick, Sàndor, will you?"

As soon as Sàndor had brought the brandy, Rosemary sent him peremptorily away. Fortunately neither he nor any of the other servants had heard anything of the scuffle, and Rosemary, for very life, could not have said anything to them just then. She knelt down beside Jasper and made him swallow some of the brandy. Obviously he had not been hurt, only scared, and the scared look was still in his eyes when he came to himself.

"You haven't let him go?" were the first words he uttered.

"Let whom go, Jasper?" Rosemary asked quietly. She rose to her feet and offered him an arm to help him get up.

"That spying devil," Jasper replied, with a savage oath. "Peter Blakeney."

"What in the world do you mean?"

"You know quite well what I mean. You must have seen him--I told you to call the servants. Are you in collusion with him, then, that you did not do it?"

"I heard a scuffle," Rosemary rejoined coldly, "when I reached the hall. I opened the door and saw you lying on the ground. I only had enough presence of mind to send for some brandy. Perhaps you will tell me what else happened."

"What else?" he retorted, with a sneer. He had risen and gone over to the mirror to readjust his clothes. She could see his face in the glass, livid with passion, his eyes fixed upon her reflection, while he fumbled with his tie and collar. But even while she watched him she saw a change come slowly over his face. The colour came back to his cheeks, his eyes narrowed, and an indefinable expression crept into them. Perhaps he did not know that Rosemary was watching; certain it is that she had never seen such an expression on his face before--the lips parted above the teeth, which gleamed sharp and white and gave the mouth a cruel, wolfish look. It was all over in a moment, the next he had swung round and faced her, apparently quite himself again, with just the habitual expression of high-bred weariness which he always affected.

"I was obviously wrong," he said coolly, "to suggest that you were in collusion with that young devil, and for this I beg your pardon."

"Wouldn't it be best," she retorted equally coolly, "if you were to tell me what did happen?"

"Peter Blakeney sneaked in through that open window. My back was turned that way and I heard nothing, as I was intent on reading your manuscript. He attacked me from behind. I was taken unawares, but I tried to put up a fight. However, he is younger and more athletic than I am, and he knocked me down. He had already snatched your manuscript out of my hand, and he disappeared with it the way he came, through that open window, at the very moment that you entered the room."

Rosemary had listened to this without moving a muscle. She stood in the middle of the room as if she had been turned to stone, alive only by her eyes, which were fixed with such an intensity of questioning on Jasper that instinctively he turned away, as if dreading to meet her glance.

"That is all, my dear," he said, with a sudden assumption of meekness. "I was certainly to blame for allowing that precious manuscript to be taken from me. I should, I know, have guarded it with my life, and so on, and I have probably sunk very low in your estimation as a coward. But I was taken entirely unawares, and one is not usually prepared for daylight robbery in a house filled with servants. So that must be my excuse--" He paused a moment, then added drily: "That and the fact that I warned you more than once that Peter Blakeney was working against you. Now perhaps you are convinced."

At last Rosemary recovered the use of her tongue, but her voice sounded strange to herself, toneless and distant, as if it came from beneath the earth. "You are quite sure, I suppose," she said slowly, "that it was Peter Blakeney who--who did what you say?"

"Aren't you?" he retorted with a harsh laugh.

She made no reply to the taunt. Outwardly she did not even wince.

"You are quite sure that he got away with the manuscript?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I am quite sure," he replied.

"What do you supposed he means to do with it?"

"Sell it to Naniescu, of course."

"In exchange for Philip and Anna's freedom?"

Jasper looked at his wife keenly for a moment or two, and the corners of his lips curled in a satiric smile. He took out his cigar-case, carefully selected a weed, struck a match, lit his cigar, and blew out the flame. Then only did he reply.

"Hardly that, I think, seeing that he was instrumental in getting them locked up. More probably, I should say, in exchange for a few thousand pounds."

This time the shaft struck home. Rosemary had some difficulty in smothering the cry of protest which had risen to her throat. But she recovered herself in less than a second and said coolly:

"The manuscript must be got back, of course."

Once more Jasper shrugged his shoulders.

"It might have been done at the moment; but I was helpless, and you were so concerned for my welfare that you did not raise hell to send the servants after the thief."

"I did not know then--about the manuscript."

"You know now," he retorted, "and have not called the servants yet."

"This is not the business of the servants. I look to you to get me back the manuscript."

"To me?" he rejoined with a harsh laugh. "Are you not putting to great a strain on my allegiance? You know my views. Should I not rather be wishing that damnable spy God-speed?"

"Jasper," she said earnestly, "you must get me back the manuscript."

"How is that to be done, my dear? From all accounts our friend Peter is as elusive as his ancestor, the Scarlet Pimpernel. He has ten minutes; advance of us already . . . a car probably waiting for him in the village. Are you quite sure you can't hear the whirring of a motor now?"

"You could try, at any rate." And now there was a distinct note of pleading in her voice. "General Naniescu--"

"Give yourself no illusion in that quarter, my dear," he broke in quickly. "Once Naniescu is in possession of those precious articles of yours he will send a courier flying across Europe with them. Remember that with the manuscript there was your covering letter to the editor of The Times, asking for immediate publication. Let me see," he went on slowly, "this is Saturday. I believe we shall see the first of those wonderful articles in print in The Times on Wednesday."

"I don't care how it's done," she replied impatiently. "If you won't help me I'll manage alone."

"What can you do, my dear?"

"Telegraph to The Times, for one thing, and start for London this evening."

"Plucky!" he remarked drily; "But I doubt if you'll succeed."

"Will you put obstacles in my way?"

"I? Certainly not. But Naniescu will." Then, as without attempting further argument she turned to go, he added blandly: "And Peter."

To this final taunt Rosemary made no reply. Her thoughts were in a whirl, but through the very confusion that was raging in her brain her resolution remained clear. She would wire to the editor of The Times not to act on any letter he might receive from her until he heard from her again, and in the meantime she would start for London immediately. Even if her wire were stopped by Naniescu's orders, she would be in London in time to stop the publication of the articles. Though she had a great deal of influence in the journalistic world, it was not likely that so important a paper as The Times would be ready to print her articles the moment they were received. Yes, she had plenty of time. And the whole conspiracy, whatever it was, had been clumsily engineered and would certainly prove futile.

The conspiracy! Rosemary could not think of that. Yet when she did it would mean such a terrible heartache that the whole world would become a blank. Peter blotted out of her life. That is what it would mean to her probably in the train, travelling alone across Europe, hurrying to nullify work done by Peter--shameful, despicable work that would sully the reputation of a pariah. The work of a spy, of hands tainted with ill-gotten wealth! Rosemary's gorge rose at the thought. The conspiracy would prove futile-there was plenty of time to subvert it--but it was an evil, noisome thing that had been. It had existed--and Peter had given it birth!

Peter!

Never again could the world be bright and beautiful. The thing was so loathsome that it would taint with its foulness everything that Rosemary had up to this hour looked on as sweet and sacred and dear. She herself would remain noisome: a body to execrate, since it had once lain passive and willing in Peter's arms, since her lips still retained the savour of his kiss.

Rosemary went out into the village as far as the post office. She wrote out her telegram to the editor of The Times and asked whether it could be sent out immediately. In order to stimulate the zeal of the postmistress she emphasized her instructions with a hundred lei note. The post-mistress smiled and thanked the gracious lady for the note, and she promised that she would send the telegram off within the next few minutes. Then, as soon as Rosemary had gone out of the stuffy little office and disappeared down the village street, the woman rang up at the Imrey Palace at Cluj and asked to be allowed to speak with His Excellency the General.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Rosemary's wire was repeated over the telephone to General Naniescu, who promptly gave orders that it should not be sent. When he put down the receiver he was very much puzzled. Something had apparently happened at Kis-Imre which had greatly disturbed the beautiful Uno. It seemed indeed as if she had actually written those articles which Naniescu wanted so badly that he was prepared to pay ten thousand pounds sterling of Government money for them. And having written the articles, the lady seemed first to have sent them off, then to have repented.

Well, well! It was all very puzzling. Even M. de Kervoisin, experienced diplomat though he was, could suggest no solution. He advised the obvious: to wait and see.

"We shall see our friend Number Ten soon," he said. "If I am not mistaken he has at least one key to the puzzle in his possession."

But it was not Number Ten who presented himself at the Imrey palace that afternoon. It was ce cher Monsieur Blakeney, who had come all the way from England in order to preside over a game of cricket that had not come off because of the weather. His Excellency was delighted to see him, and so was M. de Kervoisin. This charming, most unexpected but most welcome visit was due no doubt to the cricket and the bad weather. So tiresome! Mais hélas! Man proposes and the rain disposes.

His Excellency was most sympathetic. Would M. Blakeney have a cigar and a glass of fine? No? Then what could His Excellency do for M. Blakeney.

"Pray command men, my dear Monsieur Blakeney. We are all so grateful to you for the kind interest you are taking in our young athletes. It will be such a happy recollection for them in after years that so distinguished an English champion as yourself has helped them with their games."

Peter let him talk on. He thought it a pity to stem this flood of eloquence, and he was looking forward to the moment when Naniescu's complacent effusions would turn to equally comic puzzlement first, and subsequently to amazement and delight.

"Shall I tell your Excellency now," he said as soon as he could get a word in edgeways, "why I have come?"

"Mais comment donc?" the general replied suavely. "I am hanging on your lips, mon cher Monsieur Blakeney."

"Well," Peter said, quite slowly and speaking in French since M. de Kervoisin did not know English. "Well, it's just this. Lady Tarkington has written certain newspaper articles, which you, general, very much desire to see published. That's so, isn't it?"

But though this opening almost betrayed Naniescu into an exclamation of surprise, he had enough control over his nerves not to give himself away. Fortunately he was a great adept at expressive gestures and his cigar also helped to keep him in countenance.

He leaned back in his chair, was silent for a moment or two blowing rings of smoke through his full, red lips.

"Articles?" he queried at last with an assumption of perfect indifference. "I don't know. What articles do you mean, cher ami?"

"Those," Peter replied with equal indifference, "for which you were prepared to pay a deuced lot of money to your spy-in-chief."

Naniescu waved his podgy hand that held the cigar, then he deliberately dusted away a modicum of ash that had dropped upon his trousers.

"Ah!" he said innocently. "Lady Tarkington, you say, has written such articles?"

"Yes. She has."

"Then no doubt she will honour me by allowing me to see the manuscript. She knows how deeply I am interested in her work."

"No, general," Peter broke in drily. "Lady Tarkington has no intention of allowing you to see that particular manuscript of hers."

"Ah! May I be permitted to inquire how you happen to know that?"

"I happen to know--no matter how--that Lady Tarkington only wrote the articles tentatively; that after she had written them she repented having done so, and that her next act would have been to throw the manuscript into the fire."

"Very interesting. But, forgive me, my dear Monsieur Blakeney, if I ask you in what way all this concerns you?"

"I'll tell you," Peter said coolly. "I also happen to know--no matter how--that you are prepared to pay a large sum of money for those articles, so I thought that I would forestall your spy-in-chief by driving a bargain with you over the manuscript."

"But how can you do that, my dear young friend, without the manuscript in your possession?"

"The manuscript is in my possession, Excellency," Peter said coolly.

"How did that come about, if I may ask the question?"

"You may. I stole it this morning from Lady Tarkington."

"What?"

Naniescu had given such a jump that he nearly turned himself out of his chair. The cigar fell from between his fingers, and the glass that contained the fine was upset and its contents spilt over the table. Even M. de Kervoisin had given a start; and his pale, expressionless face had flushed. Though the report of the post-mistress of Kis-Imre had given Naniescu an inkling that something unexpected had occurred, he certainly had not been prepared for this.

He looked up at Peter and frowned, trying to recover his dignity which had been seriously jeopardized. Peter was laughing--very impolitely, thought His Excellency. But then these English have no manners.

"You'll forgive my smiling, won't you, sir?" asked Peter quite deferentially.

"Go on with your story," Naniescu retorted gruffly. "Never mind your manners."

"I can't very well mind them, sir," Peter rejoined, with utmost seriousness, "as I don't possess any. And I can't go on with my story because there is none to tell."

"You have got to tell me how you knew that Lady Tarkington had written certain newspaper articles; how you knew that I wanted them; how you came to--to steal them--the word is your own, my dear Monsieur Blakeney--and where they are at the present moment."

"None of which facts, I am thinking, concern your Excellency," Peter retorted coolly, "except the last. The manuscript of Lady Tarkington's newspaper articles is in my pocket at the present moment, together with her letter to the editor of The Times, asking for these articles to be published at an early opportunity. So, you see, sir, that I am bringing you a perfectly sound proposition."

"I'll have to read those articles first."

"Of course," Peter agreed, and took the sheets of manuscript out of his pocket. "At your leisure."

Naniescu thrust out his podgy hand for them, his large, expressive eyes had lit up with a gleam of excitement. Peter gave him the manuscript, and as he did so he remarked casually, "They are no use to your Excellency without the covering letter."

Which remark seemed to tickle M. de Kervoisin's fancy, for he gave a funny, dry cackle which might pass for a laugh. Naniescu, however, appeared not to notice the taunt. His white, downy hands shook slightly as he unfolded the manuscript. He leaned back in his chair and began to read, the excitement of his nerves was chiefly apparent by his stertorous breathing and his almost savage chawing of the stump of his cigar.

M. de Kervoisin remained silent. He offered Peter a cigarette, and while the Englishman struck a match, lit the cigarette and smoked it with obvious relish, the Frenchman watched him through his half-closed lids with an expression of puzzlement upon his keen, wrinkled face. No sound disturbed the silence that had fallen over the actors of the little comedy, only the ticking of an old-fashioned clock and now and then the crisp crackling of paper as Naniescu turned over the sheets of the manuscript. From time to time he nodded his head and murmured complacently, "C'est très bien! C'est même très, très bien!" And once he looked across at his friend and asked: "Would you like to read this Kervoisin?" But the Frenchman only shrugged and replied with a slightly sarcastic smile: "Oh, my dear friend, if you are satisfied--"

Peter said nothing. He waited quite patiently, seemingly completely indifferent, and smoked one cigarette after another.

When Naniescu had finished reading, he carefully folded the manuscript, laid it on the table beside him and put his hand upon it.

"What do you want for this?" he asked.

And Peter replied coolly: "The title-deeds of the Kis-Imre property."

Naniescu stared at Peter for a moment or two, then he threw back his head and laughed until the tears trickled down his cheeks.

"You are astonishing, my friend," he said. "The property is worth fifty thousand sterling."

"I have paid an option on it of five thousand," Peter retorted, "and the rest of it wouldn't come out of your Excellency's pocket, I take it."

"Not out of my pocket, of course," Naniescu was willing to admit, "but out of that of my Government. We are going to sell Kis-Imre for the benefit of the State."

"And won't your Excellency be purchasing these newspaper articles for the benefit of the State?"

"These articles are not worth it," Naniescu retorted gruffly.

"Very will, let's say no more about it. I'm sorry I troubled your Excellency."

Peter rose as if to go and put out his hand toward the sheets of manuscript.

"Don't be a fool," Naniescu broke in. "I'll give you a good price for the thing, but a property worth fifty thousand sterling--hang it all--it's a bit stiff."

Peter smiled. "How tersely you put the matter, general," he said. "I dare say it is a bit stiff, but I am not prepared to bargain--only to sell. And if you are not satisfied--"

"Easy, easy, my impetuous young friend. Did I say that I was not satisfied--or that I refuse to consider the matter? But there are considerations."

"What considerations?"

"To begin with, how do I know that the English newspaper would accept these articles as the genuine work of Lady Tarkington?"

"I told you that I had Lady Tarkington's own covering letter to the editor of The Times, asking him to publish the articles as soon as possible."

"Let me see it," Naniescu retorted.

"With pleasure."

Peter took the letter out of his pocket, but before handing it over to Naniescu he said drily: "May I in the meanwhile refresh my memory of the articles?"

The eyes of the two men met across the table. Naniescu's flashed with resentment, but Peter's face wore a disarming smile. He looked for all the world like a schoolboy bartering marbles for stamps. But the situation appeared to tickle Kervoisin's fancy. He gave a dry chuckle and said:

"You are quite right, mon ami. They are astonishing, these English."

The exchange was effected without Naniescu losing his sense of resentment or Peter his pleasant smile, and Peter held on to Rosemary's manuscript while the general read the letter through.

While he read, the look of resentment vanished from his face and a complacent smile rose to his full, sensuous lips.

"Il n'y pas à dire," he murmured; "c'est très, très bien."

When he had finished reading he looked up at Peter.

"Now then, Monsieur Blakeney," he said curtly, "your last price?"

"I have told you, sir-the title-deeds of Kis-Imre."

"You are joking."

"I was never more serious in my life."

"But, hang it all, man, if I make the property over to you, how are we to get rid of the Imreys?"

Peter shrugged his shoulders, and, still smiling, said coolly: "That, Excellency, is your affair, not mine."

"But the Countess Imrey is your aunt."

"What has that got to do with the whole thing, Excellency?"

"What has it got to do with it? What has it--?" Naniescu was gasping with astonishment. He was something of a rascal himself, but never in all his life had he come across such callousness or such impudence. He turned to Kervoisin as much as to say: "Have you ever seen such an unmitigated young blackguard?" But the Frenchman's face was inscrutable; his keen, pale eyes rested with obvious puzzlement on Peter.

"Then you want me," Naniescu asked, as soon as he had recovered his breath, "you want me to turn the Imreys out of their home?"

"It won't be the first time, Excellency, that you have done that sort of thing, will it?" Peter retorted, with his most engaging smile.

Strangely enough, Naniescu was losing his temper. He wanted those articles and wanted them badly, and if this preposterous deal went through he could have them without putting his hand in his pocket. But this young blackguard exasperated him. Perhaps professional pride was wounded at meeting a man more corrupt, more venal than himself. To further his own ends Naniescu would have plundered and bullied to an unlimited extent, but he would not have robbed and bullied his own kith and kin; whereas this handsome young athlete with the engaging smile did not seem to have the slightest scruple or the least pricking of conscience. It would be a triumph to get the better of him in some sort of way. Unfortunately the scamp had not yet given up the manuscript, and Naniescu only had the letter, whilst de Kervoisin was in one of his abstracted fits when he wouldn't open his mouth to give friendly advice.

The general, sitting back in his chair, and blowing smoke rings through his pursed lips, had a swift but exceedingly pleasant day-dream. Those articles were just what he wanted. They were so beautifully written! So convincingly! What a stir they would make! They were a complete vindication of his administration here in Transylvania. The country prosperous. The people contented. Only a small minority grumbling without the slightest justification. Oh, those articles! Published in the English Times and signed by the illustrious "Uno"! Naniescu, closing his eyes to enjoy this wonderful day-dream, saw himself summoned to Bucharest, there to receive the personal thanks of his King and a substantial reward from his Government, whilst all he need do now to obtain these glorious results was to hand over to this young rascal a property that belonged to that fool Maurus Imrey.

It was a lovely day-dream. A stroke of the pen would make it reality. No wonder that General Naniescu swore loudly when the crackling of paper woke him from his short trance. The young rascal was quite unconcernedly stowing that precious manuscript away in his pocket.

"Halt!" Naniescu exclaimed, on the impulse of the moment. "I accept--" Then he added guardedly: "On principle, I mean."

"And in fact?" Peter queried, without making the slightest movement towards taking the manuscript out of his pocket again.

"Yes, yes!" Naniescu replied impatiently. "But, curse you for a jackanapes, these things take time--"

"They need not," Peter rejoined curtly. "All you need do is to give me an official receipt for forty-five thousand sterling, the balance of the purchase-money for the Kis-Imre property. The British Consul and your lawyer will do the rest."

"And when do you want possession?"

"At once."

Naniescu made a final appeal to his friend: "What do you say, Kervoisin?"

But the Frenchman's face remained inscrutable. He was watching the smoke that curled upwards from the tip of his cigarette, and only from time to time did he throw a quick, indefinable glance at the tall, athletic figure of the man who was driving such a contemptible bargain. When Naniescu appealed directly to him, he only shrugged his shoulders to indicate his complete detachment from the whole affair. Peter, on the other hand, showed not the slightest sign of impatience. He even went to the length of buttoning up his coat.

"Would you like to think it over?" he said coolly. "I can leave my offer open for another few hours."

"No! damn you!" Naniescu exclaimed, and jumped to his feet. "Wait for me here. I'll have the receipt ready in five minutes."

After which, from sheer force of habit, he swore in several other languages before he finally strode out of the room.

CHAPTER XXXV

Peter met de Kervoisin's shrewd eyes fixed searchingly upon him. He gave a quaint, good-humoured laugh.

"Are you trying to make up your mind, sir," he asked, "just what kind of a blackguard I am?"

M. de Kervoisin's thin lips curled in a wry smile. "I am not sure," he said, "that you are a blackguard. But I confess that I do not understand you."

"Which is very flattering, sir. But isn't it natural that a man should covet a beautiful property and seize the cheapest means to become possessed of it? That sort of thing has been largely done by the conquering nations since the war. Then why not by individuals?"

"Why not, as you say? But I was not thinking of that side of the question, chiefly because I do not believe that you stole Lady Tarkington's manuscript in order to drive a bargain with our friend here over the Kis-Imre property. I may be wrong, but you don't look to me the sort of man who would do this dirty trick for mere gain. I am giving you the credit of desiring above all to save your kinsfolk, young and old, from certain highly unpleasant eventualities."

"You are very generous, sir, in your estimate of me."

"The question is," Kervoisin mused, "whether after all this they will be grateful to you for what you have done, or will they hate you, do you think, for what the publication of those articles will mean to their people? Lady Tarkington must at one time have intended to publish those articles, since she took the trouble to write them. Something turned her from the purpose: either her own conviction, or the desire of the Imreys themselves."

"I suppose so," Peter said, with a shrug of complete indifference.

"Whereupon you, my dear friend, stepped in like an unwanted deus ex machinâ, and settled the business to your own satisfaction, if not to theirs."

"I never was good at Latin," Peter said, with his most engaging smile, "but we'll leave it at that if you like."

De Kervoisin was silent for a moment or two, his attention being seemingly riveted on the rings of smoke that rose from his cigarette.

"I wonder," he murmured after a while.

"Don't trouble, sir. I am not worth it."

"Ah! but youth always is a perpetual wonder to me. It is such a long time since I was young myself. And I was wondering which of the two levers youth pulled in order to make you act as you did."

"Two levers?"

"Love or hate."

Then, as Peter was silent in his turn, M. de Kervoisin went on: "You know, we in France always look for the woman in every case. Now here we have not far to seek. And yet love would seem to me to have gained nothing by this adventure, whilst hate, on the other hand--"

He paused abruptly, his keen eyes narrowed, and his lips curled in a sardonic smile.

"Ah!" he said. "I think I understand, after all."

"That's more than I do, sir," Peter retorted ingenuously.

M. de Kervoisin would no doubt have pursued the subject, which seemed greatly to interest him, had not Naniescu just then made a noisy re-entry into the room. He had a large, official-looking document in his hand, which he threw down on the table.

"Have a look at this, my dear Monsieur Blakeney," he said curtly. "I think that you will find it in order."

Peter took up the paper and examined it at great length. It was a receipt for the sum of forty-five thousand pounds sterling, in full satisfaction for the sale of the estate of Kis-Imre here described as the property of the Crown of Roumania. It was signed with Naniescu's elaborate flourish, countersigned and stamped; it stated further that the sale would be duly inscribed in the Bureau des Hypothèques in accordance with the law, and the acte de vente and title-deeds handed over within one month to M. Peter Blakeney or his duly appointed representative.

It was all in order. Peter folded the receipt, but before putting it away he said to Naniescu:

"The whole thing, of course, is conditional on a free pardon being granted to Philip Imrey and Anna Heves, with permission to leave the country immediately. That was the original bargain between yourself and Lady Tarkington."

"They can clear out of the country the day the last of these articles is published in The Times," Naniescu rejoined gruffly. "I'll arrange for that fool Maurus Imrey and his wife to clear out at the same time. The sooner I am rid of the whole brood of them, the better I shall like it."

"I am sure you will," Peter said blandly. "Then perhaps you won't mind letting me have passports for them. You can post-date them, of course. I shouldn't then have to intrude on you again."

"You are very kind. The passports post-dated, say, a week from to-day will be in the bureau at your disposal whenever you like to call for them. You understand that I should revoke them if at least one of these articles has not appeared within the week."

"I quite understand," Peter concluded. Everything now being in order, he slipped the receipt into his pocket-book, then, without further words, he handed Rosemary's manuscript over to Naniescu.

"You have the covering letter," he said simply.

Naniescu nodded, and he took the papers with a sigh of satisfaction, which he did not even attempt to disguise. His ill-temper had vanished. The day-dream was coming true: the journey to Bucharest, the thanks of his King, the reward from a grateful Government! Naniescu felt at peace with all the world. He would even have hugged Peter to his breast.

"We part the best of friends," he said suavely, "my dear Monsieur Blakeney."

"Oh! the very best," Peter assented.

"And when you come to take possession of Kis-Imre you will command my services, I hope. "

"I shall not fail to do so."

"I will see to it that you can do it at the earliest possible moment. By the way," Naniescu went on with some hesitation, "the furniture--and other contents of the château--they are not included in the sale, of course."

"Of course not."

"You won't mind the Imreys having those? It might create an unpleasant impression--if we were to--er--"

"It might," Peter assented.

"I was sure you would agree with me about that," Naniescu rejoined unctuously. "Then what would you like us to do in the matter?"

"Leave everything as it is until you hear from me again. The British Consul will look after things for me."

"Ah!" Naniescu concluded with perfect affability, "then I don't think I need detain you any longer, my dear young friend. May I express the wish that you will spend long and happy years in this beautiful country."

"Thank you."

Peter did not shake hands with either of the two men, but he caught Kervoisin's glance and gave him a pleasant nod. To Naniescu he said just before leaving:

"I suppose you have realized that Lady Tarkington will probably wish to start for England immediately."

"Yes, my dear young friend," Naniescu replied blandly. "I had realized that, and I have taken measures accordingly. But how kind of you to remind me!"

And when Peter finally went out of the room the general, breathless, perspiring, nerve-racked, threw himself into a chair and exclaimed:

"Il n'y a pas à dire! They are astonishing, these English!"

He poured himself out a glass of fine and drank it down at one gulp.

"Did you ever see such an unmitigated young blackguard?" he exclaimed.

But de Kervoisin had remained thoughtful. His shrewd, pale eyes were fixed upon the door through which Peter had just disappeared. Naniescu had taken his handkerchief and was mopping his streaming forehead and his neck round the edge of his collar.

"I feel quite sick," he murmured. "Ah, these English! mon ami. You don't know them as I do. I firmly believe that they would sell their fathers, their mothers, their sisters, or their wives if they saw money in the transaction."

Kervoisin made no comment on this tirade; after a while he asked abruptly: "What are you doing to prevent the lovely Uno from putting a spoke in your wheel?"

Naniescu gave a complacent laugh.

"Doing?" he retorted. "Why, I've already done everything, my friend. My courier starts to-night for London with Lady Tarkington's letter and manuscript. He will be in London on Monday evening. On Tuesday he will call on the editor of The Times. Ostensibly he is Lady Tarkington's messenger. When he has delivered the letter he will ask for a reply. That reply he will telegraph to me. Then we shall know where we are."

He drank another glass of fine, then he went on:

"I have no doubt that the fair Uno has already got her boxes packed and is ready to start for England by the express to-night, but--"

Naniescu paused. He stretched out his legs, examined the toes of his boots and the smoke of his cigar; his face wore an expression of fatuous self-satisfaction. "I think," he said, "that you will be surprised at what I have done in the time. And so will the incomparable Uno," he added with an expressive twinkle in his fine, dark eyes.

"What about friend Number Ten?" Kervoisin remarked drily.

"Well," Naniescu retorted with his affected smile, "I imagine that friend Number Ten will be the most surprised of the lot."

CHAPTER XXXVI

At Kis-Imre the day dragged on leaden-footed. Luncheon, then a long afternoon, then dinner. Time wore on and Elza had not returned.

Rosemary was ready, dressed for the journey; her suit-case was packed. She was only taking a very little luggage with her as she had every intention of returning as soon as her errand in London was accomplished. She would not for the world have left Elza alone too long with her troubles. She made herself no illusions with regard to the telegram which she had sent from the village. It would, she was sure, be intercepted, and Naniescu would not allow it to go. Rosemary's intention was to send another directly she was the other side of the frontier. This would prevent the articles being published hurriedly, and, of course, she would be in London thirty-six hours later.

Indeed, the odious deed which Peter had planned and carried through appeared to her now not only in its hideousness but in its futility. What did he hope to accomplish? Did he know her so little as to imagine that she would merely call the occurrence an adverse blow of Fate and quietly sit down under it--be content to send one wire which would be intercepted? It was futile! Futile! She was a British subject. She had a British passport. No power on earth could stop her from going to London or to the outermost ends of the earth if she had a mind. No one. Not even Jasper. Least of all Jasper!

But in the meanwhile Elza had not returned. Time went on, slowly but certainly. Eight o'clock--nine o'clock--ten o'clock. Unless Elza was home within the next half-hour Rosemary could not start for London before the next night. There was only one through train to Budapest every twenty-four hours, the midnight express! Any other slow train would be no help for getting the communication with the Orient Express.

And Rosemary could not go to London without knowing what Elza's wishes were. Elza was to decide--not she. And Elza had not come back from Anna's mother. Soon after ten Rosemary sent Rosa round to Maurus to ask if she might see him. She hoped that he could perhaps tell her something definite about Elza's movements. Rosemary found him very much altered since last she had seen him. He looked well in health, but his whole expression, even his appearance, seemed strange. The gipsy strain was more apparent--the eyes seemed darker and more restless, the mouth redder and fuller, and the nose more hooked and narrower across the bridge. But he talked very quietly about Elza, because he had not really expected to see her back this evening.

"She was going to Cluj first," he said, "to see Philip and Anna. Probably it took time to get permission to visit the children in prison. Then after that she was going to Ujlak. I suppose she wanted to let Charlotte know how little Anna is getting on. Poor child! Poor child!" Maurus went on slowly, wagging his head. "Isn't it pitiable? She is such a nice little girl. And my Philip--my Philip--"

He rambled on, and his speech became thick and unintelligible. The sister in charge gave Rosemary a hint that it would be better for her to go. Rosemary rose at once.

"Well, my dear Maurus," she said, "I don't want to tire you. I thought perhaps you might know something definite about Elza. But if you are not anxious about her I am sure it is all right."

"Oh, yes, yes, it is all right. You see, she went to visit the children. Then she was going to Ujlak. It is a long way for the horses--"

"You don't think she would stay in Cluj for the night?"

"I don't know. I don't know. She was going to Cluj first to see the children--then she was going to Ujlak. It is a long way for the horses--Elza will stay with Charlotte for the night. A hard woman, Charlotte. But Anna is such a nice child. And my Philip--my Philip--"

The mind was obviously wandering. Maurus, while he spoke was staring straight out before him. Rosemary tried to explain to him that she had to go away on business for a day or two and she hoped to start this evening, but she could not go, of course, without seeing Elza first.

"Ah! you are going away, dear Lady Tarkington?" the invalid said with a quick gleam in his restless, dark eyes. "I wish I could go with you. I am so sick of this place, and now that my Philip has gone. . . . But how can you go to-night, dear Lady Tarkington?"

"I won't go before I have seen Elza."

"No, no, you must not go before Elza comes. I have only the one comfortable carriage now. They have taken everything from me, my horses, my cattle, my carriages, and my motor-cars--I can't send you to Cluj in comfort until Elza comes back in the carriage. I have another pair of horses--but no comfortable carriage. They took everything away from me. Soon they will turn me out of this house--"

"Don't worry about that, dear, my husband has the use of a small car and a soldier-chauffeur. We can get to Cluj all right."

The sister in charge interposed again, more peremptorily this time. Rosemary took as cheerful a farewell of the invalid as she could.

"You must arrange," she said, "As soon as you are well enough, to come over to us in England for a visit. It would be such a change for you, and Jasper and I would make you and Elza very welcome."

But Maurus shook his head, and stared straight out before him. "That, dear Lady Tarkington," he said, "can never be now." And slowly the tears gathered in his eyes and trickled down his cheeks. Broken-hearted, Rosemary bade him a final good night.

There was only one more chance of getting in touch with Elza to-night, and that was to ascertain if she were staying at any of the hotels in Cluj. And this Jasper did at Rosemary's request. He telephoned to the "Pannonia" and to the "New York", the only possible places where Elza might have put up for the night. True, when the Roumanian Government took over the Imrey palace two or three rooms were allowed to remain in possession of the family if they required them, but it was not likely that Elza would elect to sleep under the same roof as General Naniescu. Both hotels replied on the telephone that the gracious Countess Imrey was not there. Ujlak, unfortunately, had not the telephone installed.

There was, then, nothing to be done.

But the next day was even more trying than the one before. The morning wore on and there was no news of Elza. Anxiety for her friend was added to the heavy load which Rosemary had to bear. Anxiety and this unexpected uncertainty, which was positive torture.

Jasper, on the other hand, had become both helpful and sympathetic. Already the day before he had announced his intention of accompanying Rosemary to London. At first she had protested, but he looked so contrite and so abashed that she relented, and said more graciously:

"It is more than kind of you, dear, to suggest it, but I really am quite capable of looking after myself."

"I don't doubt it," he had replied with a sigh, "but I, too, have certain privileges, chief of which is looking after your welfare--and your safety."

She laughed. "I am perfectly safe. No one is going to run away with me."

"You might have trouble on the frontier."

"Not very likely," she retorted, "with a British passport."

Jasper had made no further remark just then, and the subject was dropped. But Rosemary knew from his manner and his look that he intended to accompany her. It would be no use protesting, though she had the feeling that she would so much rather have travelled alone.

But when the morning of the next day went by without news of Elza, Jasper was ready with a fresh suggestion. "Let me go to London for you," he said. "I could see the editor of The Times and ask him in any case to withhold publication until he heard from you. Then after that, if Elza's decision went the other way, you could always wire or write again."

Rosemary hesitated for a moment or two. She could not very well put into words the thought that was in her mind. But Jasper presently did it for her.

"You do not trust me," he said quietly.

For another fraction of a second she hesitated, then with a frank gesture of camaraderie she put her hand out to him: "I think I ought to carry my own business through myself," she said, and added softly: "You understand, dear, don't you?"

She could always win any man over with her smile, and at the soft tone of her voice Jasper captured her hand and buried his face in the soft, smooth palm.

"Tell me how I can serve you," he said, "but, in God's name, don't go away from me."

He was once more all kindness and consideration, more like the charming companion of the early days of her brief married life. With utmost patience he discussed the whole situation with her: the possibility of getting in touch with Elza and the advisability of communicating with The Times in any case, leaving it open for an ultimate change of tactics.

But though he was so kind, so unselfish, so generous, Rosemary could not respond in the same way as she had done in the past. Her confidence in him had been wavering for some time, whenever those wild outbursts of ungovernable passion, when he claimed her body and her soul as he would a slave or a chattel, had outraged as well as mystified her, and she could not free her mind from that vision which she had of him in the mirror yesterday, with his mouth parted in a cruel, wolfish grin. The dual nature in him puzzled her. She would not admit that she feared him, because she had never in her life been afraid of anyone, but she did own to a certain vague dread which would creep into her heart whenever she found herself alone with him; she had accepted his kisses at first, hoping that in time friendship and confidence would turn to warmer feeling, but she had a horror of them now, and knew that the last shred of friendship was being torn to rags by all that was violent, passionate and cruel in him. At the same time she did admit quite readily that he was very helpful and kind in the present emergency, and gladly did she accept his final offer to motor straightway to Cluj to see if he could find out something definite about Elza.

"If she was not at Cluj," he said, "I would go on to Ujlak; and, in any case, I can be back by about eight o'clock. If in the meanwhile, as I hope and think, Elza has turned up, we can make our plans in accordance with what she has decided, and either start for England at once, or leave matters as they stand."

The suggestion was so practical that Rosemary felt really grateful. She walked with him to the village where he garaged the car that Naniescu had leant him. It was a powerful little car, of a well-known French make and built for speed. The soldier-chauffeur was fortunately on the spot, and with a friendly handshake Rosemary wished her husband God-speed.

"I don't know how I shall live through this day!" she said to him at the last.

Jasper was very self-contained and practical. He satisfied himself that everything about the car was in order, then only did he get in. He took the wheel and waved Rosemary a last farewell, and very soon the car disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust.

CHAPTER XXXVII

General Naniescu was enjoying himself thoroughly. He had his friend Number Ten sitting there opposite him, and Number Ten was looking as savage as a bear. Naniescu had offered him a cigar, a glass of fine, even whisky and soda, but Number Ten had declined everything and remained very truculent.

"You had no right," he said, with a savage oath, "to go behind my back."

But Naniescu was at his blandest. "What could I do, my dear friend?" he asked, and waived his white, downy hands to emphasize by appropriate gesture, both his perplexity and his contrition. "What would you have had me do? Decline to deal with that young Blakeney? Then those precious articles would have been lost to me for ever. Lady Tarkington would not have written them all over again."

"I told you the other day that I would get those articles for you. Ask M. de Kervoisin here if I have ever failed in anything I have undertaken. I had the manuscript in my hand when that young blackguard snatched it out of my hand. Curse him!"

Naniescu leaned back in his chair and gave a guttural, complacent laugh: "I do agree with you, my dear friend," he said. "That young Blakeney is an unmitigated blackguard. I have had to deal with some in my day, but never with such a corrupt, dirty scoundrel. Yes, dirty, that's what he is. But you know, you English, you are astonishing! Everything big with you--big fellows, big Empire, big money, big blackguards! Yes, big blackguards! Oh, là, là!"

"Yes," Number Ten assented drily. "And the big blackguard who is also a big fellow, got big money out of you, for you have been a fool, as well as a knave, my friend. I only asked you ten thousand sterling for the manuscript."

"Are you pretending that you know what I paid Blakeney?" Naniescu asked, with his most fatuous smile. "Because, my friend, in picturesque poker parlance--I am very fond of a game of poker myself--and in poker language, we call what you are doing now 'bluff.' You don't know what I paid Blakeney for the manuscript. But I don't mind telling you that I paid nothing at all. Yes, my dear friend, nothing at all."

And with the tip of his well-manicured little finger, Naniescu emphasized every syllable with a tap on the table.

"I am glad to hear it," Number Ten retorted curtly, "because that will make it easier for you to pay me the ten thousand now."

But this idea amused the General so much that he nearly rolled off his chair laughing.

"Ils sont impayable ces Anglais!" he said, when with streaming eyes and scanty breath he found words to express his sense of the ludicrous. "Why in the name of Tophet should I pay you ten thousand pounds sterling?"

"Because if you don't, those newspaper articles will never be published."

"Ah, bah!" Naniescu exclaimed with a mocking grin, "who will prevent it?"

"I, of course."

"You, of course? How, I should like to know?"

"That's my business."

"You can't do it, my friend," Naniescu rejoined complacently. "You can't do it. I defy you to do it."

"Is that a challenge?"

Number Ten had said this very quietly. He was in the act of lighting a cigarette when he spoke, and he finished lighting it, blew out the match, and threw it into the nearest ash-tray before he glanced at Naniescu. Then he smiled, because Naniescu's face expressed arrogance first, then bewilderment, and finally indecision.

"Is it a challenge?" he reiterated sardonically. "I don't mind, you know, one way or the other. There are at least three governments--neighbours of yours, by the way--who will pay me ten thousand pounds apiece for certain services which they require, and which I can render them. But you have behaved like a knave and a fool, my friend, and it will amuse me to punish you. So listen to me! Unless you give me a cheque for the ten thousand pounds which you promised me, and which I can cash at your fusty old bank over the way this very afternoon, I guarantee you that Lady Tarkington's articles will not be published in any English newspaper."

He smoked on in silence for a little while longer, blowing rings of smoke through his pursed lips, and in the intervals laughing softly, mockingly to himself, or throwing an occasional glance of intelligence in the direction of Kervoisin, who apparently immersed in a book had taken no part in the conversation. Naniescu's bewilderment had become ludicrous, and at one moment when he took his perfumed handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his streaming forehead, the face of his spy-in-chief became distorted with that look of ferocious cruelty which was so characteristic of him.

"I haven't a great deal of time to spare," Number Ten remarked drily, after a few minutes' silence; "if you accept my challenge I start for London to-night."

"You'll never get there in time," Naniescu rejoined, with an attempt at swagger.

Number Ten smiled. "Don't you think so?" he asked simply.

"The frontier is closed--"

"Would you rather risk it than pay me the ten thousand pounds?"

Naniescu appealed to his friend.

"De Kervoisin--" he said, almost pitiably.

But M. de Kervoisin, with a shrug, indicated that this was no concern of his.

"M. de Kervoisin," Number Ten said, still smiling, "knows my methods. During the war I had other and more dangerous frontiers to cross than this one, my friend--and I never failed."

In Naniescu's puny mind, obviously a war was waging between greed and avarice. He was seeing his beautiful day-dream vanishing into the intangible ether--whence come all dreams--and he was not prepared to take any risks. Those articles which a reliable courier was even now taking to London with all speed were the most precious things he, Naniescu, had ever possessed. They meant honour, security, money--far more money than Number Ten was demanding with such outrageous impudence. And Naniescu was afraid of Number Ten--afraid of his daring, is courage, his unscrupulous determination to carry through what he had set out to do.

Ten thousand pounds! It was a great deal, but it would come out of secret service funds, not out of Naniescu's own pocket. There was only that slight desire to get the better of Number Ten, to win this battle of wits against so crafty an opponent. But what was amour propre when weighed in the balance with the realization of Naniescu's wonderful daydreams?

Nevertheless he made one more effort at a bargain.

"If I pay you that the thousand," he said, with a savage oath, "what guarantee have I that the articles will be published?"

"None," was Number Ten's cool reply; "but if you don't pay me the ten thousand, I guarantee that they will not be published."

At which M. de Kervoisin put down his book and indulged in a good laugh.

"Take care, my friend," he said to Number Ten, "our friend here is beginning to lose his temper, and you may find yourself under lock and key before he has done with you."

"I wonder!" Number Ten retorted drily "It would mean raising hell in the English press, wouldn't it? if a British subject--what?"

He did not pursue the subject. Even Naniescu himself had put such a possibility out of his reckoning.

"All that our friend could do," Number Ten went on, speaking over his shoulder to M. de Kervoisin, "would be to have me murdered, but he would find even that rather difficult. Ten thousand pounds of secret service money is considerably safer--and cheaper in the end."

Then at last Naniescu gave in. "Oh, have it your own way, curse you!" he exclaimed.

"The money now," Number Ten said coolly, raising a warning finger. "You may as well send one of your clerks over to the bank for it. I prefer that to taking your cheque."

Then he turned to Kervoisin, and picked up the book which the latter had thrown down on the table "Ah!" he remarked, with a total change of tone, "Marcel Proust's latest. You are an epicure in literature, my friend."

He fingered the book, seemingly as indifferent to what Naniescu was doing and saying, as if the whole matter of a ten thousand pound cheque did not concern him in the least.

The general had gone across to a desk which stood in the farther corner of the room. He had written out a cheque, rung the bell, and was now giving orders to a clerk to fetch the money from the Anglo-Roumanian bank over the way.

On the whole he was not displeased with the transaction. The articles signed by Uno and published in The Times would redound to his credit, would bring him all that he had striven for all his life; and, after all, they would cost him nothing--nothing at all.

Number Ten and de Kervoisin were discussing Marcel Proust; he, Naniescu, was savouring his day-dreams once again; and presently when the clerk returned with a bundle of crisp English bank-notes in his hand, Naniescu handed the money over to his spy-in-chief without a qualm, and certainly without regret.

"This being Monday," Number Ten said, after he had stowed the money away in his pocket-book, "and your courier having started last night, you will probably see the first of the articles in Thursday's Times. By the way," he went on casually, "what are you doing about young Imrey and the girl?"

"What do you mean by that? What should I be doing with them?"

"Well, when these articles appear--"

"I send them packing, c'est entendu. I never go back on my word," Naniescu said, with a grandiose gesture.

"It would not pay you to do that in this case, my friend. Lady Tarkington has your written promise and she would raise hell if you played her false. But I wasn't thinking of that. I only wished to warn you to keep an eye on those two young firebrands."

"Oh," Naniescu retorted, with a shrug, "once I have them out of the country they can do what they like. They no longer hurt me. Especially after the publication of those beautiful articles."

"That is so, but you are sending Count and Countess Imrey out of the country aren't you?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, you paid Blakeney for the articles with the title-deeds of Kis-Imre, didn't you?"

"How did you know that?"

"I didn't," Number Ten replied drily. "I guessed, and you gave yourself away."

"Well, and if I did--what is it to you?"

"Nothing, my friend. Nothing. I come back to my original warning. Keep a close eye on young Imrey and Anna Heves, and above all keep a close eye on Blakeney."

"That young blackguard?"

"Yes, that young blackguard! He may be playing a double game, you know. I suppose he is still in Cluj?"

"I thought of that," Naniescu broke in curtly, "so I have had Imrey and the Heves girl transferred to Sót."

"Sót? Isn't that rather near the frontier?"

"Thirty kilometres."

"But why Sót?"

"We have commandeered a château there, which we use as a prison for political offenders. We chose it because it stands alone in an out-of-the-way part of the country, and it saves the nuisance of public manifestations and disturbances when a prisoner who happens to have been popular is condemned. We try them by a military tribunal which holds it sittings at Sót, and if an execution is imperative--well, it is done without any fuss."

"I see. Well," Number Ten went on, as he rose to take his leave, "I need not detain you any longer. Let me assure you," he concluded, with his habitual sardonic smile, "that I shall not now think of interfering with any of the measures which you have adopted to stop Lady Tarkington from running after her manuscript."

"I don't believe that you could have interfered in any case," Naniescu retorted gruffly.

"It is not too late, my friend. I would rather like to pit my wits against yours. So if you have repented of the bargain--" And Number Ten half drew his bulging pocket-book out of his pocket.

"Oh, go to the devil!" Naniescu exclaimed, half in rage and half in laughter.

"And I hope soon to meet you in his company," Number Ten replied, and he finally took his leave from the two men.

As soon as the door had closed on him, Naniescu turned and looked at his friend. But de Kervoisin had picked up his book, and gave him no encouragement to discuss the intriguing personality of Number Ten.

His face, too, was quite inscrutable. Marcel Proust was engaging his full attention. For a moment it seemed as if Naniescu would fall back on his stock phrase, or else on a string of cosmopolitan oaths; he even drew his breath ready for either; then it seemed as if words failed him.

The intriguing personality was above comment.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Rosemary had never before welcomed her husband so eagerly as she did that afternoon. As soon as she heard the whirring of his motor she ran to the gates to meet him.

"What news?" she cried when he had brought the car to a standstill.

As usual, his dark eyes flashed with joy when he saw her. He jumped down and raised both her hands to his lips.

"Very vague, I am afraid," he replied. "And some of it a mere conjecture."

"Tell me."

"To begin with, young Imrey and Anna Heves have been transferred to Sót."

"Where is that?"

"Between Cluj and the frontier. It seems that there is a château there that is being used as a prison for political offenders."

"Who told you that?"

"Naniescu. I saw him for a moment. He was very busily engaged with the Minister for Home Affairs who was over from Bucharest, so he could only give me a few minutes."

"Had he seen Elza?"

"No. But she had applied for permission to see Philip and Anna, and he gave the permission. He supposed that she had gone on to Sót by train."

"Even so," Rosemary mused, "she would be back by now, or else she would have wired."

Jasper appeared to hesitate for a moment or two, and then he said: "I don't think that she has been allowed to do either."

"Why not?"

"It is mere surmise, my dear," Jasper went on quietly, "but one thing Naniescu did tell me and that was that he had on behalf of his government definitely made over the Kis-Imre estates to Peter Blakeney."

They were walking round the house towards the veranda when he said this. Rosemary made no response; indeed, it might be thought that she had not heard, for the next question which she put to Jasper appeared irrelevant.

"Does the midnight express stop at Sót?"

"It does," Jasper replied.

"Then, I can see Elza there. I am sure that is where she is. You inquired at Ujlak?"

"Yes, Elza went there first and then to Cluj."

They had reached the veranda now, and Rosemary went up the steps and then into the house.

"You still wish to come with me to-night?" she asked her husband before she went upstairs.

"Why, of course."

"You are not too tired after all this running about?"

"I?" he exclaimed with a laugh. "Tired? When it is a question of being near you!"

He tried to capture her wrist, but she evaded him and ran quickly through the hall and up the stairs. Before going into her room she called down to him:

"If we use your motor we need not start before eleven o'clock, and there is still a chance of Elza being home before then."

It was just before dinner that the culminating tragedy occurred. Rosemary was in her room, when she heard loud commotion coming form the hall--harsh, peremptory voices, a word or two from Anton, and then Jasper's voice raised as if in protest. She opened her door, and to her horror saw a squad of soldiers in the hall, and between them an officer, and a man in civilian clothes who had an official-looking paper in his hand, and was apparently explaining something to Jasper.

"I regret, my lord, but these are my orders," the man was saying, "and I cannot enter into any discussion with you."

Jasper tried to protest again. "But surely--" he began. The man, however, cut him short.

"If you like," he said, "I can allow you to see Count Imrey first, but this order I must deliver into his own hands."

Rosemary in the meanwhile had run downstairs.

"What is it, Jasper?" she asked quickly.

"An order of eviction," Jasper replied curtly, "against that wretched Maurus."

"Whatever does that mean?"

"That he must quit this place within twenty-four hours."

"Impossible!" she exclaimed hotly.

She turned to the officer and the civilian who had brought this monstrous order.

"The whole thing is a mistake," she said coolly; "some error in the name. Count Imrey is a loyal subject of the King. There has never been a hint of disloyalty levelled against him."

The officer in charge gave a curt laugh and shrugged his shoulders, and the civilian said with a sneer:

"They all say that, milady. They are all wonderfully loyal after they have been found out."

"But General Naniescu himself is a friend of the family. And Lord Tarkington and I can vouch--"

"Pardon, milady," the civilian broke in coldly. "This affair does not concern you or Lord Tarkington, and the order of eviction is signed on behalf of the present owner of Kis-Imre by His Excellency the Governor himself."

"On behalf--"

It was Rosemary who spoke, but the sound of her voice might have come out of a grave. She had never been so near to swooning in her life. The walls around her, the woodwork, the stairs, all took on distorted shapes, and moved, round and round and up and down, until everything was a blur through which the faces of the Roumanian officer and the civilian stared at her and grinned. "On behalf of the present owner of Kis-Imre!" But that was Peter! Peter! And the world did not totter, the earth did not quake, and engulf all these monstrous crimes, this cruelty and this shame!

Luckily none of the Roumanians appeared to have noticed this sudden weakness in her; the civilian was consulting with the officer whether he should allow milord Tarkington to break the awful news to Maurus. Neither raised any objection, and Jasper pronounced himself ready to go. Rosemary turned appealingly to him:

"You will be very patient, Jasper," she begged, "and very, very gentle?"

"Leave it to me, dear," he responded; "I'll do my best."

When he was gone, Rosemary mechanically asked the officer and his companion to come into the smoking-room and sit down. She offered cigarettes. They made her ceremonious bows, and were as polite and conventional as circumstances demanded. She tried to talk; she even asked questions; but they were diplomatically ignorant of everything except of their duty. They explained that this consisted in seeing Count Imrey personally, and giving the eviction order into his own hands.

"It will kill him," Rosemary said, with conviction, "or else send him out of his mind."

Both the men shrugged. They had seen so much of this sort of thing, one of them said, people always threatened to die or to go mad, but nothing of the sort had ever happened.

"Are you quite sure of that?" Rosemary retorted.

Somehow the episode had brought back into the forefront of her consciousness her responsibility with regard to her newspaper articles. Not that conscience had been dormant, but Peter's infamy had been such an overwhelming shock that every other emotion had slipped away into the background. But now it all came back to her. Those articles of hers if they were published would bring a justification of all this--of these orders of eviction, the sort of thing that men died of, or went mad over out of grief, while officials shrugged their shoulders, having seen it all so often.

A few minutes after Jasper returned and Maurus was with him. At sight of Maurus, Rosemary had risen from her chair as if drawn up by mechanical force, and she remained standing, staring at the man whom she had last seen as a fragile weakling, babbling incoherent words. Maurus had dressed himself with unusual care. It almost seemed as if he had been expecting visitors. Rosemary had never seen him with hair so sleekly brushed, or chin so smooth. The officer and the civilian had risen to greet him, and he went up to them with perfect calm, inquiring politely what they desired to say to him. Rosemary turned a questioning glance on Jasper. He, too, appeared puzzled, and followed Maurus' every movement as if he dreaded that something would happen presently, and all the man's self-possession disintegrate in a tempest of fury.

But nothing of the sort happened. Maurus took the order from the civilian, and read it through carefully. Not a muscle of his face twitched, and his hands were perfectly steady. For the moment Rosemary wondered whether this outward calm was not some form of madness.

"I can't understand it," she whispered to Jasper, while the three men were engaged together.

"I am just as puzzled as you are," Jasper replied.

"So long as he is not just putting a terrible strain on himself--in which case the reaction will be frightful."

Maurus was now taking leave of the officials.

"I quite understand the position," he said quietly. "If I had bought a house, I, too, would wish to take possession of it as soon as possible. Perhaps," he added, with a smile, "I should not have been quite in such a hurry, but we all know that with the English time is money, eh, messieurs? And now all I need do is to thank you for your courtesy. I will comply with the order, chiefly because I have no choice."

It was almost unbelievable. Rosemary thought that her eyes and ears must be playing her a trick. The two Roumanians took their leave with their habitual elaborate politeness and Maurus himself saw them to his front door, where the squad of soldiers still stood at attention. When they had all gone, he came back into the smoking-room, and he was actually laughing when he entered.

"Did you ever see such swine?" he said lightly, and then apologized to Rosemary for his language.

"You are taking it so bravely, Maurus, dear," Rosemary murmured bewildered. "But what about Elza?"

"Oh, she prepared me for it; she knew all about it yesterday, and she sent me word what to bring along in the way of clothes for her. And, of course, there will be her jewellery, and one or two little things to see to. However, I have got twenty-four hours before me, and there will be Anton and Rosa to help me."

"But, Maurus, dear--"

"You are astonished, dear Lady Tarkington," Maurus broke in, with rather a sad smile, "to see me take it all so calmly. I was born in this house, and I always thought that I would die in it; but lately these walls have seen so much sorrow and so many villainies that I would just as soon turn my back on them."

"But what does Elza feel about it?"

"The same as I do. She writes quite calmly."

"When did you hear from her?"

"Early this afternoon--so you see I was prepared."

"But where is she?" Rosemary asked insistently.

"She was at Sót when she wrote to me. She had seen Philip and Anna. And she was on the point of leaving for Hódmezö. This was late last night. She is in Hungary by now--and in safety. Please God I shall be with her soon."

He still spoke quite quietly, in short, crisp sentences, with nothing of the rambling and babbling about his speech that had been so pathetic to witness yesterday. But though Rosemary ought to have felt reassured and comforted about him, she could not rid herself of a persistent feeling of dread: the same sort of feeling that invades the nerves at the manifestation of a supernatural phenomenon. There was nothing supernatural about Maurus certainly, but his attitude was so abnormal, so unlike himself, that Rosemary caught herself watching with ever-increasing anxiety for the moment when his real, violent nature would reassert itself.

A moment or two later the dinner-bell rang, and Maurus was full of apologies.

"My stupid affairs have prevented your getting on with your packing, dear Lady Tarkington. Can you forgive me?"

Rosemary could only assure him that all her packing was done. "And anyway," she added, "as Jasper has a car we need not start before eleven o'clock."

"Ah, then," Maurus said, and offered her his arm to lead her into the dining-room, "we need not hurry over dinner; and I shall have the pleasure of two or three more hours of your company."

Jasper all the while had been strangely silent. Rosemary could see that he was just as much puzzled as she was, and that he was studying Maurus very keenly while the latter was talking. During dinner and while the servants were about, the conversation drifted to indifferent subject. This was the first time that Maurus had a meal in the dining-room since he was taken ill four days ago, and he was like a child enjoying his food and delighted with everything. It was only when coffee had been brought in and the servants had gone away that he reverted to the important subject of his departure.

"My chief cause of regret, dear Lady Tarkington," he said, "is that I cannot welcome you here when you return from your journey. But perhaps we could meet at Budapest, not? Elza speaks about that in her letter to me. She is very anxious to see you."

"I shall break my journey at Hódmezö," Rosemary said, "and probably wait there twenty-four hours till you come."

She had it in her mind that she could wire from there to The Times office, and in any case she had to see Elza.

"There are two good hotels in Hódmezö," Maurus rejoined. "Elza is staying at the Bristol. A very grand name for a simple provincial hotel, but it is very comfortable, I believe. Peter Blakeney's cricket people stayed there last week, you know."

He even could mention Peter's name calmly; and a quaint old English saying came to Rosemary's mind, ever her professional activities brought her in contact with extraordinary people. "Nought so queer as folk!" She almost said it aloud; for never in all her life had she witnessed anything so strange as this metamorphosis of a violent-tempered, morbid epileptic into a calm, sensible man of the world, who takes things as he finds them, and Fate's heaviest blows without wearing his heart on his sleeve.

"I shall not forget the Bristol at Hódmezö," she said after a little while, "and I will certainly remain with Elza until you come. Perhaps I can help her to endure the suspense."

"Perhaps."

"How did the letter get to you? Through the post?"

"No; she sent a peasant over from Sót, a lad who lives in Kis-Imre and was returning home. You know him, dear Lady Tarkington--him and his brother--the two sons of János the miller."

"Those two brave lads who--"

Rosemary paused abruptly. The last thing she wanted to do was to bring back to Maurus' memory that fateful night of the children's abortive escape; but Maurus himself broke in quietly:

"Yes, the two fellows who helped us all they could that night when Philip and Anna tried to get out of the country. The attempt was unsuccessful, as you know. Philip and Anna were captured. They are in Sót now. But the two sons of János--I forget their names--got over the frontier safely. They joined the cricketers at Hódmezö, and are safely back at the mill now."

"Thank God," Rosemary exclaimed fervently, "they did not suffer for their devotion."

"No, I am glad of that," Maurus concluded, with obvious indifference. "But the authorities don't trouble about the peasants. It is the landed aristocracy and the professional classes who have to suffer, if they belong to the conquered race."

It was past ten o'clock before the small party broke up. During the latter part of the time it had been Rosemary's turn to become silent. Maurus started the subject of politics, and Jasper carried on a desultory argument with him on that inexhaustible question. In almost weird contrast to his previous calmness, Maurus' violent temper broke out once or twice during the course of the discussion, and it needed all Jasper's tact and Rosemary's soothing influence to steer clear of all that tended to aggravate him. It was the real man peeping through the armour of all the previous unnatural self-control, the gipsy blood reasserting itself-self-willed, obstinate, impatient of control, bitter against humiliation. Rosemary almost welcomed the change when it came. It was more like the Maurus she knew--a man eccentric and violent, walking close to but not over-stepping the borderland that separates the sane from the insane. It was only when Philip, or Elza, or Kis-Imre were mentioned that he seemed to step over that borderland, encased in an armour of impish indifference.

The soldier-chauffeur brought the car round at eleven o'clock. Rosemary took affectionate leave of Maurus.

"We meet very soon," she said. "In Hungary."

"Yes," he replied. "In Hungary. I shall be so thankful to be there."

He also shook hands very cordially with Jasper.

"I am afraid this has not been a very agreeable stay for you," he said.

"Better luck next time," Jasper responded, as he settled himself down in the car beside his wife.

The car swung out of the gates. Rosemary, looking back, had a last vision of Maurus standing under the electric lamp in the porch, his hand waving a last farewell.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Rosemary must have fallen asleep in the corner of the carriage, for she woke with a start. The train had come to a halt, as it had done at two or three stations since Cluj was left behind. So it was not the sudden jerk, or the sound of the exhaust from the engine, that had caused Rosemary suddenly to sit up straight, wide awake and with that vague feeling of apprehension which comes on waking when sleep has been unconsciousness rather than rest. Jasper sat in the other corner with his eyes closed, but Rosemary did not think that he was asleep. They had a sleeping compartment, but hadn't had the beds made up; it was perhaps less restful for the night journey, but distinctly cleaner. The carriage was in semi-darkness, only a feeble ray of blue light filtered through the shade that tempered the gas-light up above.

Rosemary pulled up the blind. They were at a small station dimly lighted by one oil-lamp above the exit door. A clump of acacia trees in full leaf effectually hid the name of the station from view. A couple of soldiers stood at the door through which a number of peasants, men with bundles and women with baskets, one or two Jews in long gabardines and a prosperous-looking farmer in town clothes and top-boots were filing out. Someone blew a tin-trumpet, a couple more soldiers stalked up the line in the direction of the engine. There was a good deal of shouting.

Rosemary drew the blind down again, and tried to settle herself comfortably in her corner once more. But sleep would not come. She looked at her watch. It was past two. This seemed an unconscionably long halt, even for a train in this part of the world. Rosemary peeped again behind the blind. The station appeared quite deserted now except for the two soldiers on guard at the door. Everything seemed very still--of that peculiar stillness which always seems so deep when a train comes to a halt during the night away form a busy station, and all the more deep by contrast with the previous ceaseless rumbling of the wheels. From the direction of the engine there came the sound of two men talking. Otherwise nothing.

Rosemary reckoned that they should be over the frontier soon, but, of course, if they were going to have these interminable halts-—

Half an hour went by. Even the distant hum of conversation had ceased, and the silence was absolute. Feeling unaccountably agitated rather than nervous, Rosemary called to Jasper. At once he opened his eyes.

"What is it, my dear?" he asked vaguely. "Where are we?" And he added, with a shake of his long, lean body: "These carriages are deuced uncomfortable."

"We are at a small station, Jasper," Rosemary said. "And we've been over half an hour. Have you been asleep?"

"I remember this confounded train pulling up. I must have dropped off to sleep after that. I wonder where we are."

"We can't be very far from the frontier. I thought at first they would turn us out for the customs, or passports or something. But nothing has happened, and we don't seem to be getting on. I do hope there has not been a breakdown on the line."

"My dear!" Jasper exclaimed, rather impatiently, "why in the world should you think that there is a breakdown on the line? There's a signal against us, I suppose. That's all."

But Rosemary was not satisfied. "Do you mind," she said, "seeing if you can get hold of anybody. I can't help feeling nervous and--"

At once Jasper was on his feet, courteous, attentive as always. "Of course I'll go and see, my darling," he said. "But it's not like you to be nervous."

He drew back the shade so as to get a little light into the carriage, straightened his clothes, then went out into the corridor. Everything was so still that Rosemary could hear his footstep treading the well-worn strip of carpet, then the opening of the carriage door, which sent a welcome draught of air through the stuffy compartment. Rosemary pulled up the blind, and leaned out the window. It was pitch-dark, though the sky was starry. The small oil-lamp still flickered over the exit door, and the two soldiers were still there. Rosemary saw Jasper's vague silhouette in the gloom. He stood for a moment looking up and down the line; then he walked away in the direction of the engine. A few minutes went by, and presently Rosemary saw Jasper coming back, accompanied by the guard.

"What is it, Jasper?" she called. "Where are we, and what has happened?"

The two men had come to a halt immediately beneath her window. The guard doffed his cap at sight of her, and scratched his head in obvious perplexity.

"We are at Sót, my darling, but I have bad news for you, I am afraid," Jasper said. "There has been a very serious landslide lower down the line. I suppose it is due to the heavy storms. Anyway, the line is blocked for a distance of nearly half a kilometre, and of course there will be considerable delay. I don't understand all the man says, but it seems to have been a terrible catastrophe."

But out of all this only two words had penetrated Rosemary's brain--"considerable delay." What did that mean? She asked the guard, but he only shook his head. He didn't know. He didn't know anything except that there had been a landslide, and that no train could get through till the line was clear. He supposed that a gang would come down in the morning, but he couldn't say. Rosemary wanted to know whether there would be any other way of continuing the journey and picking up a train the other side of the frontier. The guard again shook his head. He really couldn't say; he was a stranger to these parts, but perhaps in the morning---He suggested respectfully that the gracious lady should allow him to make up a couple of beds in two of the sleeping compartments. There was no one else on the train, so--

"No one else on the train?" Rosemary broke in curtly. "What does he mean, Jasper? There must be other passengers on the train. Where have they gone to?"

Jasper put the question to the guard.

"The last of the passengers got out at this station, gracious lady. When it was known that the line was blocked this side of the frontier, no one took a ticket further than Sót."

"How do you mean? When was it known that the line was blocked?"

"Before we left Cluj, gracious lady, and so--"

"But they sold us tickets to Budapest, and said nothing about a breakdown," Rosemary exclaimed. And then she turned to her husband: "Jasper, tell me, is this man a fool or a liar, or am I half-witted? You took our tickets to Budapest. Did the man at the ticket-office say anything to you about a block on the line?"

"No," Jasper replied, "he did not."

"But our luggage?"

"We have no registered luggage--only what we have with us in the carriage."

"Of course, how stupid of me! But when the man clipped your ticket?"

"He didn't say anything."

Rosemary, impatient, her nerves on edge, turned again to the guard. "You saw the gracious gentleman's tickets," she said, "when we got into the train. Why didn't you warn us?"

"I thought perhaps the gracious lady and gentleman would only go as far as Sót and sleep there. I thought everyone knew about the landslide, and that every passenger had been warned."

"Can we get a car here that will take us to Hódmezö?"

"Not at this hour, gracious lady."

"Or a vehicle of any sort?"

The guard shook his head. Rosemary could have screamed with impatience until Jasper's quiet voice broke in: "I think, my dear, that by far the best thing to do will be to let the man make up a couple of beds for us, and to try and possess ourselves in patience until the morning. There is nothing to be done--really, darling, nothing. And, after all, it may only mean a delay of eight to ten hours."

Then, as Rosemary remained silent, making no further objection, he slipped some money into the guard's hand, and told him to get the beds ready. After that he re-entered the carriage, and rather diffidently sat down beside his wife.

"I feel terribly guilty, dear one," he said humbly, "but you know I don't speak Roumanian very well, and when these sort of people jabber away, I don't always understand what they say. And I was rather anxious about you at Cluj. You seemed so agitated, so unlike yourself."

"Can you wonder? Twenty-four hours' delay may mean that Naniescu's courier will get to London and make arrangements before I have time to wire. I must see Elza first, and in the meanwhile--"

"My darling," Jasper put in, with a quick, wearied sigh, "it is not like you to be so illogical. Do you really suppose that events move at such a rate in a newspaper office? There is bound to be delay--and there's ample time for your telegram to reach The Times before the editor has even thought of inserting your articles. Even if we are held up here for twenty-four hours, you can see Elza and send your wire from Hódmezö before Peter Blakeney, or whoever Naniescu's courier happens to be, can possibly have made any arrangements with The Times ."

"Of course, dear, of course," Rosemary said, more calmly. "I am stupid to-night. This whole business has got on my nerves, I suppose. I don't seem to know what I am doing."

CHAPTER XL

On the narrow made-up bed, with the coarse linen and the heavy blanket, and the smell of sulphur and dust about her, Rosemary found it quite impossible to get any rest. At first there had been a good deal of clumsy shunting, the engine probably had been detached, the tin-trumpet sounded at intervals, and there was a good deal of shouting; but all these noises ceased presently, and the night seemed peculiarly still. Still, but not restful. Rosemary could not sleep. Fortunately the communicating doors between her compartment and the one which Jasper occupied were closed, so she felt free to fidget, to get up or to lie down as the mood seized her, to turn on the light to read or to meditate, without fear of disturbing him.

She could not help feeling desperately nervous. Jasper, of course, was quite right: there was plenty of time in which to see Elza, and then to send a telegram to London if necessary, so there was nothing in a few hours' delay to worry about. Nevertheless she, who had always prided herself on independence and level-headedness, felt a strange kind of foreboding--something vague and indefinite that nevertheless was terrifying. She tried to compose herself and could not. She forced herself into quietude, deliberately kept her eyes closed and her body still. It was torture, but she did it because she wanted to feel that she still controlled her nerves, and that she was not giving way to this stupid sense of fear.

And there was no denying it; the fear that beset her was on account of her coming interview with Elza. Maurus' attitude had been very strange, even abnormal, and it was consequent on a letter from Elza. And Rosemary, though she had not owned it to herself before, felt a growing conviction that Elza's lofty patriotism had given way at last to mother-love. Confronted with Philip and Anna, who no doubt had youth's passionate desire to live, with Anna's mother who was all for conciliating the tyrants, and with Maurus whose reason was threatening to give way, Elza had laid down her arms, had capitulated and decided that her son's life must be saved at any cost. Perhaps she knew that Rosemary's articles had fallen into Naniescu's hands, perhaps she and Peter had actually been in collusion over the theft, perhaps--perhaps---There was no end to conjecture, and no limit to Rosemary's dread of what the next four-and-twenty hours would bring.

Only now did she realize what it had meant to her to place the final decision into Elza's hands. With it she had given her professional honour, her very conscience into another woman's keeping. She had probably only done it because she was so sure of Elza, of Elza's patriotism and her sense of justice and honour. Poor Elza! Who could blame her for being weak, for being a mother rather than a patriot? She should never have been placed before such a cruel alternative. Self-reproach, the stirrings of conscience helped to aggravate Rosemary's racking anxiety. She got up in the early dawn, made what sketchy toilet the limited accommodation allowed, and went out into the open. The little station appeared quite deserted; only the two soldiers were still there on duty at the exit door. Rosemary marvelled if they were the same two who had been there during the night. They looked perfectly stolid, unwashed and slouchy in their faded, coarse-looking uniforms and dusty boots and képis.

Rosemary looked up and down the line. The train, consisting of half a dozen coaches, looked derelict without its engine, and there was no guard in sight. She had no eyes for the beautiful scenery around--the narrow valley bordered by densely wooded heights; the mountain-side covered with oak and beech that were just beginning to clothe themselves in gold and at the approach of autumn; the turbulent little mountain-stream; the small station nestling amidst gnarled acacia trees; and on the right the quaint Transylvanian village with the hemp-thatched roofs and bunches of golden maize drying in the sun, with its primitive stuccoed church and whitewashed presbytery. Rosemary saw nothing of this; her eyes searched the landscape for the château--now a prison for political offenders--where Philip and Anna were detained--those children whose safety would be paid for perhaps by countless miseries, by worse tyranny and more cruel oppression. But there was no large building in sight, and presently Rosemary caught sight of Jasper, some way up the line, walking toward her in the company with a man in very négligé toilet, who probably was the station-master.

At sight of Rosemary, Jasper hastened to meet her, while the man kept at a respectful distance.

"What news?" Rosemary cried eagerly.

Jasper appeared dejected. "Not very good I am afraid," he said. "The station-master here tells me that he has been advised that the line will take the whole of the day to clear--probably more."

"Very well, then," Rosemary said resolutely, "we must get a car."

"Impossible, my dear; you can't get across if the road is blocked."

"All the roads in Transylvania are not blocked, I imagine," Rosemary retorted drily. Then she called to the station-master: "I want," she said, "to get to Hódmezö to-day. Can I get a car anywhere in Sót?"

"But the roads are impassable, gracious lady," the man exclaimed; "the landslide--"

"Never mind about the landslide. There are other roads in Transylvania besides this one. I can go by a roundabout way, but I can get there somehow if I have a car. Or," she added impatiently, seeing that the man was looking very dubious, "a conveyance of any sort, I don't care what it is."

"Alas! gracious lady, that is just the trouble. The soldiers were here yesterday, and they commandeered all the horses and bullocks in Sót for military purposes. It is so hard," the man went on, muttering half to himself; "no sooner does a man scrape together a little money and buy an old horse, then the soldiers come down and take it away from him."

The man was full of apologies and explanations, but somehow Rosemary had the impression that he lied. He rambled on for a while in the same strain; Rosemary did not hear him. Her brain was at work trying to find a way to combat this net of intrigue that was hemming her in. She was quite sure that the man was lying--that Naniescu had ordered these ignorant yokels to tell the lies that suited him. She, Rosemary, Lady Tarkington, a British subject, could not be held up at the frontier, of course, but there could be a landslide, a block on the line, no conveyance available, horses commandeered by the military, two, three, perhaps four days' delay while Naniescu's courier was speeding to London with Rosemary's manuscript and her letter to the editor of The Times asking for early publication.

She turned with some impatience to Jasper.

"What shall I do?"

Gravely he shook his head.

"Accept the inevitable," he replied gently. "I understand that there is quite a clean little hotel in the place, and twenty-four hours' delay is not very serious, is it?"

"It would not be," she admitted, "if it were not prolonged."

"It can't be prolonged indefinitely."

"No," she retorted, "for I can always walk to the frontier."

"Over mountain passes?" he queried, with a smile.

But she only gave a scornful shrug. "Accept the inevitable?" How little he knew her. The more she saw difficulties ahead, the more she felt ready for a fight. Time was still in her favour. Hódmezö was not far with its telegraph service, and Naniescu's power did not extend beyond the frontier.

Always supposing that Elza did wish her to wire.

Rosemary thought tings over for a moment or two; then she said to Jasper: "Very well! I'll possess myself in patience for twenty-four hours. Will you see about rooms at the hotel? And I suppose this man will see about our luggage being taken across?"

"Of course I'll see to everything, dear," Jasper said meekly. "But you would like some breakfast, wouldn't you?"

CHAPTER XLI

Meekly and obediently Jasper went off to see after the luggage, and Rosemary wandered away as far as the village. Her first thoughts as far as the village. Her first thought was to ascertain definitely whether indeed there was no chance of hiring some sort of conveyance to take her as far as Hódmezö. The first man she spoke to was the keeper of the inevitable grocery store. He had heard a rumour that there was a block on the railway line somewhere near the frontier, and this annoyed him very much because he was expecting a consignment of maize from Hungary, and he supposed that he would not now get it for two or three days. He had no horse. Hadn't had one since the beginning of the war, when his nag was commandeered. Now even an old crock was so dear it did not pay to buy.

Rosemary asked him if he knew of anyone in the village from whom she could hire a horse and cart to take her as far as the frontier, but the man shook his head. The Jew at the hotel had two horses, and the priest had one, but the military were down from the barracks yesterday and took those away. There were maneuvers in progress somewhere, it seems. The soldiers said they would bring the horses back in two or three days, but it was very hard and inconvenient for everybody when that sort of thing was done.

Rosemary asked, what about oxen? But draft-oxen and some buffaloes belonging to the mayor had also been commandeered. It was very hard. Did not the gracious lady think so?

Finally the storekeeper made a suggestion that with the help of a little baksheesh the gracious lady might succeed in getting the officer at the château to let her have what she wanted. The château was only a couple of kilometres from the village. It lay close to the road; the gracious lady couldn't fail to spy the great iron gates. It had belonged at one time to Count Fekete, but the family had been gone some time, and the château was now a cavalry barrack, and some prisoners of war were still kept there.

The storekeeper offered his son as an escort to the gracious lady, so that she should not miss her way. But Rosemary declined the offer; she purchased a few stale biscuits from the man, intending to ask for a glass of milk from some cottage on the way; then she set out at a brisk pace down the road. It ran along the mountain-side, and some fifty feet below the turbulent little stream tossed and tumbled over stones and boulders, its incessant murmuring making a soothing accompaniment to Rosemary's thoughts. At the last cottage in the village, where Rosemary had obtained a glass of fresh milk from a comely peasant woman, the latter had directed her to a mountain path which ran below the road, parallel with it, and close to the edge of the stream. Here it was perfectly lovely; the moist, sweet air, the occasional call of birds, the beech and oak and dense undergrowth, the carpet of moss, the occasional clearing where the grass was a luscious green, and the mauve campanula grew to a stately height. At times the path rose sharply, twenty feet or more above the stream; at others it ran level with the water's edge; and at one place the stream widened into a little bay, where the water was as clear as a fairy pool and of a translucent blue.

Rosemary lingered for a little while beside the pool, thinking how delicious it would be to bathe in it. When she went on again she came to a sharp bend in the path, and as soon as she had rounded this she saw some twenty yards farther on a man dressed in the uniform of a Roumanian officer, sitting upon a tree stump close by the water's edge. The man sat with his elbows resting on his knees, and his head was buried in his hands. He looked like a man in trouble. Rosemary walked on, a dry twig crackled under her tread, and the man suddenly looked up.

It was Peter.

The moment he caught sight of Rosemary he jumped up, and then made a movement as if he meant to run away. But Rosemary, with sudden impulse, called to him at once:

"Don't go, Peter."

It seemed as if the magic of her voice rooted him to the spot. He stood quite still, but with his back to her; and then he took off his képi with one hand, and passed the other once or twice across his forehead.

Rosemary felt strangely disturbed and puzzled. Why was Peter here? How did he come to be here? And in this uniform?

"Aren't you going to speak to me, Peter?" she asked, because Peter being here seemed so amazing that for the moment she thought that she was seeing a vision; "or even look at me?" she added.

"I did not suppose you particularly wished me to speak to you," he said, without turning round to face her.

"Why should you say that?" she asked simply.

"Because I imagine that you look upon me as such an unmitigated blackguard that the very sight of me must be hateful to you."

She said nothing for a moment or two. Perhaps she was still wondering if he was real, and if so, how he came to be here--just to-day and at this hour. Then she went deliberately up to him, put her hand on his arm, and forced him to look at her.

"It is true, then?" she asked, and her eyes, those pixie eyes of hers, luminous and searching, were fastened on his as if seeking to penetrate to the very soul within him. But a look of dull and dogged obstinacy was all that she got in response.

"It is all true, Peter?" she insisted, trying with all her might to steady her voice, so that he should not hear the catch in her throat.

He shrugged his shoulders, indifferent and still obstinate.

"I don't know what you mean," he retorted, almost roughly.

"I mean," she said slowly, "that these last few days have not just been a hideous nightmare, as I still hoped until--until two minutes ago. That things have really happened--that you--that you--"

She paused, physically unable to continue. It was all too vile, too hideous to put into words. Peter gave a harsh laugh.

"Oh, don't spare me," he said, with a flippant laugh. "You mean that you did not believe until two minutes ago that I was really a spy in the pay of the Roumanian Government, and that you did not believe that I had intrigued to have Philip and Anna arrested, stolen your articles for The Times, and bought Kis-Imre over Aunt Elza's head, and turned her and Maurus out of their home. Well, you believe it now, don't you? So that's that. And as I am on my way to meet a friend, you'll excuse me, won't you, if I run away? Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Yes," she said. "You can look me straight in the eyes and tell me what has brought you down to--to this. Is it money?"

Peter shrugged. "The want of it, I suppose," he replied.

"I have no right to ask, I know. Only--only--we were friends once, Peter," she went on, with a note of pleading in her tone. "You used to tell me all your plans--your ambitions. You used to say that you did not want to--to bind me to a promise until you had made a name for yourself. If you had told me that you were short of money, and that you were actually thinking of taking up this--this sort of work, I could have helped you. I know I could have helped you. I know I should have found the right words to dissuade you. Oh, Peter!" she went on almost wildly, unable to hold her tears longer in check, or to control the tremor in her voice, "it is all so horrible! Can't you see? Can't you see? We were such friends! You used to tell me everything. You were taking up your father's work. Some of your scientific experiments were already attracting attention. And you were a sportsman, too! And your V.C. And now this--this! Oh, it is too horrible--too horrible!"

Her words were carrying her away. The murmur of the water grew louder and louder in her ears, and in the trees the soughing of the wind among the leaves grew almost deafening. She felt herself swaying, and for a few seconds she closed her eyes. But when she put out her hand she felt it resting on Peter's arm. There was the feel of the rough cloth of his tunic. So she opened her eyes and raised them slowly until they met his. Her glance had wandered on the ugly uniform, the livery of his unspeakable shame. Her eyes expressed the contempt which she felt, the loathing which was almost physical. But Peter's glance now was not only dogged, but defiant. In it she read the determination to follow in the path of life which he had chosen for himself, and a challenge to her power to drag him away from it. This was no longer the Peter of Kis-Imre, the irresponsible young English athlete, whose thoughts would never soar above the interest in a cricket-match. It was more the Peter of olden times--the tempestuous lover, the wayward creature of caprice, the temperamental enthusiast capable of heroic deeds, and always chafing under the restraint imposed by twentieth-century conventions; the Peter whose soul had once been equally great in virtue as it was now steeped in crime; the gallant soldier, the worthy descendant of the Scarlet Pimpernel. It was the Peter of olden times, but his love for her was dead. Dead. If one spark of it had remained alive, if something of her image had remained in his heart, he could never have given himself over to this vile, vile thing. But while she had been battling bravely to banish from her mind all memories of their early love, he had torn her out of his heart, and turned to this ignominious calling to help him to forget.

Rosemary felt giddy and ill; even the sweet woodland air seemed to have turned to poisonous fumes of intrigue and venality. She roughly pushed away from Peter's arm that supported her, but she was still swaying; her hat fell from her head, and her glorious hair lay in a tumbled mass of ruddy gold around her face.

"Better sit down on this old stump," Peter remarked drily. "You'll have to lean on me till you get to it."

But Rosemary did not really know what happened just then--she had such a gnawing pain in her heart. She certainly tottered forward a step or two until she reached the tree-stump, and she sank down on it, helped thereto, no doubt, by Peter's arm. The next thing of which she was conscious was a flood of tears that would not be checked. It welled up to her eyes, and eased that heavy pain in her heart. Great sobs shook her bowed shoulders, and she buried her face in her hands, for she was ashamed of her tears. Ashamed that she cared so much.

And the next thing that struck her consciousness was that Peter sank down on his knees before her, that he raised her skirt to his lips, and that he murmured: "Good-bye, sweetheart. My Rosemary for remembrance. God bless and keep you. Try to forget." Then he jumped to his feet and was gone. Gone! She called him back with a cry of despair: "Peter!" But he was nowhere to be seen. He must have scrambled up the incline that led to the road. She certainly heard high above her the crackling of dry twigs, but nothing more. Peter had passed out of her life, more completely, more effectually, indeed, than on the day when she became Jasper Tarkington's wife. Peter--her Peter, the friend of her girlhood, the master from whom she had learned her first lesson of love, was dead. The thing that remained was a vague speck, a creation of this venal post-war world. It was as well that he should go out of her life.

CHAPTER XLII

A minute or two later Rosemary was startled out of her day-dream by the sound of Jasper's voice calling to her from somewhere in the near distance. She had barely time to obliterate the traces of tears from her eyes and cheeks before he appeared round the bend of the path. The next moment he was by her side. Apparently he had been running, for he seemed breathless and not quite so trim and neat in his appearance as he usually was.

"I heard a scream," were the first words he said, as soon as he came in sight of her. "It terrified me when I recognized your voice. Thank God you are safe!"

He was obviously exhausted and, for him, strangely agitated. He threw himself down on the carpet of moss at her feet; then he seized her hand and covered it with kisses. "Thank God!" he kept on murmuring. "Thank God you are safe!"

Then suddenly he looked up at her with an inquiring frown. "But what made you scream?" he asked.

Rosemary by now had regained control over her nerves. She succeeded in disengaging her hand, and in smiling quite coolly down upon him.

"It was very stupid of me," she said, with a light laugh. "I saw a pair of eyes looking at me through the undergrowth. It startled me. I thought that it was a wild cat--I had heard that there were some in these parts--but it was only a homely one."

She tried to rise, but Jasper had recaptured her hand. He was engaged in kissing her finger-tips one by one, lingering over each kiss as if to savour its sweetness in full. Now he looked up at her with a glance of hungering passion. Rosemary felt herself flushing. She was conscious of an intense feeling of pity for this man who had lavished on her all the love of which he was capable, and hungered for that which she was not able to give. He looked careworn, she thought, and weary.

"You were not anxious about me, Jasper, were you?" she asked kindly.

He smiled. "I am always anxious," he said "when I don't see you."

"But how did you find me?"

"Quite easily; I went to the hotel, you know. Not at all a bad little place, by the way; rather primitive, but with electric light and plenty of hot water. In engaged the rooms, and had a mouthful of breakfast. Then I sallied forth in quest of you. A man in the village told me you had been asking the way to the château, and I knew you would never stand the dusty road. So when I found that there was a woodland path that went through the same way as the road, I naturally concluded that you would choose it in preference. You see," Jasper concluded, with a smile, "that there was no magic in my quest."

Then he looked up at her again, and there was a gleam of suspicion in his dark, questioning eyes. "You must have walked very slowly," he said. "I started quite half an hour, probably more, after you did."

"I did walk very slowly. This path is enchanting, and this is not the first time I have sat down to think and to gaze at this delicious little stream. But," Rosemary went on briskly, "I think I had better be getting on."

But Jasper putout his arms and encircled her knees. "Don't go for a minute, little one. It is so peaceful here, and somehow I have had so little of you these last days. I don't know, but it seems as if we had taken to misunderstanding one another lately." Then, as she made an involuntary movement of impatience, he continued gently: "Do I annoy you by making love to you?"

Rosemary tried to smile. "Of course not, dear. What a question!"

"Then tell me if there is anything in the world I can do to make you happier. You have not looked happy lately. I have been tortured with remorse, for I feel somehow that it has been my fault."

"You are sweet and kind, Jasper, as always. But you must be a little patient. I have gone through a great deal these last few days."

"I know, I know, little one. Don't let us talk any more about it."

He was wonderfully kind--kinder and gentler than he had been since the first days of their married life. It almost seemed as if he had set himself the task of making her forget all that he had involuntarily revealed to her of his violent, unbridled temperament, and of that lawless passion that lay at the root of his love for her.

He talked of the future, of their return to England, the home that he would make for her, which would be a fitting casket for the priceless jewel which he possessed. Rosemary, who felt inexpressibly lonely, was once more conscious of that feeling of gratitude towards him which she had once hoped might be transmuted, in days to come, into something more ardent than friendship.

She had suffered so terribly in her love for the one man who, with all his faults, had come very near to her ideals, that she felt a desperate longing to cherish and to cling to the husband whom she had chosen half out of pique, the man on whom she had inflicted so much cruelty by becoming his wife.

CHAPTER XLIII

Rosemary was the first to remember that time was slipping by. She looked at her watch. It was past ten o'clock--over an hour since Peter had asked her to try to forget. She rose briskly to her feet, and arm in arm, like two good comrades, she and Jasper made their way together towards the château. When they came in sight of the great gates-a couple of hundred yards still ahead of them--Rosemary was the first to spy a motor-car standing there, and some half-dozen persons in the act of getting into the car. There were two sentries at the gates, and seemingly a few people on the other side.

"It looks like a man and a woman and three soldiers in uniform getting into that car," Rosemary remarked casually. And immediately, for no apparent reason, Jasper started to walk along more rapidly; a few seconds later he almost broke into a run. At that moment the car started off, and was soon lost to sight in a cloud of dust. Rosemary thought that she heard Jasper utter a savage oath.

"Is anything wrong?" she asked. But he did not answer, only hurried along so quickly that she was not able to keep up with him. He had passed through the gates when she reached them, and when she tried to follow she was stopped by the sentry. She called to Jasper, who apparently did not hear; pointing to him, she explained to the man on duty that she was that gentleman's wife, and if he was allowed to go in, why not she? They were as mute as if she had spoken in an unknown tongue, but they would not allow her to pass. In the meanwhile Jasper had disappeared inside the château. Rosemary had seen him go in by the main entrance, challenged by the sentry on guard at the door, but after a second or two allowed to pass freely in.

Fortunately she was provided with money, and her experience of this part of the world was that most things could be accomplished with the aid of baksheesh. A young officer was crossing the courtyard; he looked in the direction of the gates, saw an excessively pretty woman standing there, and, true to his race and upbringing, came at once to see if he could enter into conversation with her. Very politely he explained to her that no one was allowed to enter the château, or to visit any of the prisoners, without a special permit from the commanding officer.

Rosemary told him that she desired to speak with the commanding officer. This also, it seems, was impossible. But a hint from Rosemary as to reward if the matter could be managed simplified matters a great deal.

The young officer conducted her across the courtyard and into the château. It had been a fine place once, not unlike Kis-Imre in architecture, but its occupation by the military had stripped it of every charm. There were not carpets on the floors, and only very rough furniture in the way of chairs and tables in what had obviously been at one time a cosy lounge hall. The officer led the way through a couple of equally bare rooms en enfilade, and came to a halt outside a door which bore roughly chalked upon the finely carved and decorated panels the legend: "Major Buriecha. Private. No admittance." He offered one of the rough chairs rather shamefacedly to Rosemary, and said: "Major Buriecha will becoming through here presently. Will you wait, gracious lady? You will be sure to see him. I am afraid," the young man added, with a pleasant smile, "that it is the best I can do."

"Couldn't you announce me?" Rosemary asked. "I am Lady Tarkington. I am sure Major Buriecha would not refuse to see me."

The officer's smile became self-deprecating. "It is more that I should dare to do, milady," he said. "The major is engaged in conversation with an important government official. I would even ask you kindly, when you see him, not to tell him that I brought you as far as here."

"I couldn't do that, even if I wished, as I don't know your name."

"Lieutenant Uriesu, at your service, milady."

"I suppose," Rosemary went on, after a moment's hesitation, "you couldn't tell me what has become of my husband, Lord Tarkington. He went through the gates and entered the château, then I lost sight of him. But he seemed to be well known inside this place. Could you find out for me where he is?"

"I am afraid not, milady," the young officer replied politely. "I have not the honour of Lord Tarkington's acquaintance."

He stood at attention, waiting for a moment or two to see if the English lady had any further questions she wished to ask; then as she remained silent, he saluted gravely and went out of the room, leaving Rosemary to bear her soul in patience, and to wonder what in the world had become of Jasper.

At first only a confused murmur of voices came to her ears through the closed doors of Major Buriecha's private room. But gradually one of those voices grew louder and louder, as if raised in anger; and Rosemary, astonished, recognized that it was Jasper speaking--in French, and obviously with authority--to Major Buriecha, the officer commanding! . . . What in the world--?

She heard some words quite distinctly:

"You are a fool, Buriecha! No one but a fool could have been taken in like this."

And the voice that gave reply was humble, apologetic, decidedly tremulous with fear. Rosemary could not distinguish what it said.

Major Buriecha engaged in conversation with Jasper! And Jasper reprimanding him with obvious authority! What could it mean? At first she had only been puzzled, now a vague sense of uneasiness stirred in her heart. Uneasiness that almost partook of fear. With sudden impulse she rose and went to the door. Orders or no orders, she must know what was going on inside that room. Her hand was on the latch when she paused, listening. Was it mean to listen? Perhaps; but instinct was stronger than good conduct, and she had just heard Jasper's harsh voice giving a curt command:

"Get through to General Naniescu at once," and then the click of the telephone receiver being lifted from its hook and the whir of the bell-handle. What could she do but listen? There was silence inside the private room now, but Rosemary could hear Jasper's easily recognizable step pacing restlessly up and down. And one moment he paused quite close to the door, and Rosemary quickly drew back a step or two, ready to face him if he came. But he resumed his pacing and she her watch by the door. Presently she heard the other voice--the major's, presumably--saying: "Is that you, Marghilo? Ask his Excellency the Governor to come to the telephone, will you?" There was a pause, then Buriecha spoke again: "Tell him it is Major Buriecha. And, I say, Marghilo, tell him it is very important and desperately urgent."

Again there was a pause, a long one this time. Jasper was still pacing up and down the room. Rosemary could picture him to herself, with his habitual stoop and his thin hands held behind his back. Once he laughed, his usual harsh, mirthless laugh. "You'll get a fine dressing-down for this, my friend. I am thinking," he said. "Naniescu won't make light of it, I can tell you."

Silence once again. Then Jasper's voice speaking into the telephone, and always in French: "Hallo! Hallo! Is that you, Naniescu? good! Number Ten speaking."

Number Ten! What--? But there was no time to think, no time for puzzlement or fear. Jasper was speaking again.

"Buriecha has bade a complete fool of himself. He has allowed young Imrey and the girl Heves to escape! Hallo! Did you hear me? It's no use swearing like that, you'll only break the telephone. Yes, they've gone, and you've got to get them back. Went by car half an hour ago, in the direction of Cluj, but probably making for the frontier--what? Oh, a plot, of course, engineered by that damned Blakeney. No use cursing Buriecha; you are as much to blame as he is. Eh? Of course, for treating with that young devil behind my back! Yes, you---Well, hold on and listen. Blakeney, I am sure it was he, came here with a forged order from you, demanding that Imrey and the girl shall be delivered to him for transference to an unknown destination. Eh? Well, of course he should have known, but he says your signature looked perfect; he thought it was all in order. The rascal was in officer's uniform, and had two men with him also in uniform. What can you do? Telephone all along the roads to your frontier police, of course. If they stick to the car they are bound to be stopped. Yes, five persons--three of the men in uniform, in an open car. The prisoners have probably taken on some disguise by now. Shoot at sight, of course, if the car does not slow down. Police the mountain paths as well. Blakeney can't know them well. I don't know who the other two men are. Hungarian, perhaps, or English. Don't delay. Yes, yes! What's that? Marghilo getting through? Good! Well, that's the best you can do. We'll have a reckoning presently, my friend. You should not have treated with him, I say. He has probably robbed your courier of the newspaper articles or else telegraphed in Uno's name to The Times not to print them, and then got the prisoners out of your clutches by this impudent trick. Oh, all right. Hurry up! You have no time to waste, nor have I. Yes! All right. Come along if you want to. I shall be at Sót all right enough. But you won't enjoy the interview, my friend, I promise you that. What?"

Jasper had ceased speaking for some time, but Rosemary still stood beside the door--a woman turned to stone. Her hands and feet were numb. She could not move; only from time to time a cold shudder travelled down her spine. She felt nothing, not even horror. It was all too stupendous even for horror. A cataclysm, a ball of fire, a flame that froze, ice that scorched. A topsy-turvydom that meant the kingdom of death.

And Jasper, her husband, was on the other side of that door, Jasper Tarkington, her husband! The spy of an alien government, Number Ten! A thing! A rag torn and filthy. The man whose name she bore. She could hear his footstep in the next room, his mirthless laugh, his harsh voice muttering curses or else invectives against the other man, who was only a fool. Then suddenly the footsteps came to a halt. The door was pulled open and Rosemary stood face to face with Jasper.

At sight of her he stood stock-still. An ashen hue spread over his face. The curse that had risen to his throat died before it reached his lips.

From the room behind him Major Buriecha's tremulous voice was asking if anything was amiss. Jasper closed the door and stood with his back to it, still facing Rosemary. His eyes, always hawk-like and closely set, had narrowed till they were mere slits, and his lips had curled up over his jaws, showing his teeth white and sharp, like those of a wolf. An expression of intense cruelty distorted his face. He was about to speak, but Rosemary put up her hand to stop him.

"Not here," she commanded. "Not now."

He gave a hard laugh and shrugged his shoulders.

"It had to come some time, I suppose," he said coolly. "I am not sorry."

"Nor I," she replied. "But will you please go now? We'll meet later--in the hotel."

He looked her up and down with that glance which she had learned to dread, and for a moment it seemed as if he would yield to that ungovernable passion in him and seize her in his arms. Rosemary did not move. Her luminous eyes, abnormally dilated, never left his face for one instant. She watched the struggle in the man's tortuous soul, the passion turned to hatred now that he stood revealed. She did not flinch, because she was not afraid. The man was too vile to inspire fear.

"Go!" she said coldly.

For another second he hesitated, but it was the banal sound of Buriecha spluttering and coughing on the other side of the door that clinched his resolve. This was neither the place nor the time to assert his will, to punish her for the humiliation which he was enduring. Once more he laughed and shrugged his shoulders, then he walked slowly out of the room.

CHAPTER XLIV

For over half an hour Rosemary waited in that bare, cheerless room, and gazed unseeing out of the window while she tried vainly to co-ordinate her thoughts. In the forefront of her mind there was a feeling of great joy which she hardly dared to analyse. Joy! And she also had the feeling, though she had come to the very brink of an awful precipice, though she was looking down into an abyss of shame and horror, with no hope of ever being able to bridge the chasm over, that yet on the other side was peace--peace that she would never attain, but which was there nevertheless, to dwell on, to dream of, when the turmoil was past and she be allowed to rest.

After about half an hour the young officer who had first conducted her to the fateful spot came back to see what had happened. He seemed astonished that she was still there.

"Major Buriecha has not yet come out of his room," Rosemary managed to say quite coolly. "It is getting near dinner-time. I don't think I'll wait any longer."

The young man appeared relieved. Anyway he was not likely now to get into trouble on the English lady's account. He clicked his heels together, expressed perfunctory regret at her disappointment, the offered to conduct milady out of the château. Rosemary accepted his escort and took leave of him at the gates.

"If milady, will write to the commanding officer," Lieutenant Uriesu said at the end, "I am sure he will give the permit milady requires."

"I will certainly take your advice," Rosemary assented cheerfully. "Good-bye, Lieutenant Uriesu, and thank you for your kind efforts on my behalf."

She walked back towards the village by way of the path. When she came to the spot where first she had seen Peter that morning, she sat down on the tree-stump and listened to the murmur of the stream. She would not allow herself to think of Peter--only of Philip and Anna, whom he was taking across the frontier by another clever trick--in disguise, probably--and over the mountain passes. Rosemary could not believe that they would stick to the car and be stopped by the frontier police. They would get away into Hungary-on foot. They were young, they knew the country, and they could scramble over the mountain passes and be at Hódmezö soon, where Elza would be waiting for them. Elza knew, of course, and Maurus knew too. That was why he had been so calm and so composed when he was told that he must leave Kis-Imre within four-and-twenty hours. The all knew. Peter had trusted them. Only she, Rosemary, had been kept out of his councils, because she might have betrayed them to Jasper, and Peter could not tell her that it was Jasper who was the miserable spy.

But no, she would not think of Peter, or of how he had worked to circumvent Jasper at every turn. She only wanted to think of Philip and Anna, those two children who were so ingenuously learning the lesson of love one from the other, and of Elza, so patient and so heroic, and of Maurus, who had played his part so well. Maurus would be coming through from Cluj some time to-day, and he, too, would be held up at Sót, and perhaps spend the night in the funny little hotel. Rosemary hoped that she would see him. His company would be very welcome whilst Jasper was still there. Then to-morrow she and Maurus would get across the frontier somehow, and join up with Elza and the children at Hódmezö. And there was always the British Consul in Cluj to appeal to. There was no desperate hurry now. The children were safe and those articles of hers would not be published in The Times. Peter would have seen to that.

But no, she did not want to think of Peter. Was she not still Jasper Tarkington's wife?

CHAPTER XLV

It was late in the afternoon when Rosemary at last made her way back to the small hotel in Sót. She had spent the day roaming about the forests, and eating such scrappy food as she could purchase at one or other of the cottages. Twice she had been to the railway station to meet the trains that were due in from Cluj. She hoped that Maurus might have come by one of them. Now there was not another due before the midnight express, which got to Sót in the small hours of the morning. The farce of there being a block on the line was still kept up. Passengers got out of the train, grumbling, and the small hotel was full to capacity. It was a low, irregular building, with a very large courtyard closed on three sides, and a wide archway, through which cars and carriages could drive in, intersecting the fourth. One side of the house was given over to stabling and cowsheds, another to kitchens and offices, the other two held the guest-rooms and one or two public rooms. Some of the bedrooms were level with the ground, and on the floor above a wooden gallery ran right round the courtyard. The courtyard itself seemed to be the principal meeting-place for cows and chickens, and even pigs, which roamed freely about the place and entered any door that happened to be conveniently open. The best bedrooms gave on the balcony above. On inquiry Rosemary was informed that the English milord had booked three rooms that morning for himself and milady who would be coming during the day. A buxom, bare-footed peasant girl then conducted milady up to these rooms.

Rosemary went along heavy-footed. She was more tired than she would have cared to admit. She had had very little food all day, and her nerves by now were terribly on edge. It had been a day packed full of emotion and there was more to come. There was the inevitable interview with Jasper. Horrible as it would be, she had no intention of shirking it. She would leave him, of course, with the hope never to set eyes on him again, but certain matters would have to be arranged between them, and Rosemary's moral courage would not allow her to have recourse to letter-writing or to the help of lawyers. She knew what she wished to say to Jasper, and would have despised herself if she had shrunk from the ordeal.

The hours went slowly by. Later in the evening she ordered some supper to be brought up to her room. She found it difficult to swallow any food, but she drank two cups of deliciously strong coffee, and munched some of the excellent and very sustaining maize bread for which this part of the country is famous. She had a book in her suit-case and contrived to read for a while, but she could not concentrate on what she was reading, and soon had to put the book away. Time hung very heavily. She was terribly weary and yet she could not sleep. And she could not understand what had become of Jasper. She had seen or heard nothing of him since they parted in that ugly, bare room, the picture of which would for ever remain graven in her mind as the place where she had experienced the greatest horror in her life. No one in the hotel had seen him. A vague sense of uneasiness began to stir within her. At the same time she dismissed from her mind any fear for his safety. She was quite sure that whatever he ultimately decided to do, he would not pass out of her life without a final struggle for mastery. She did not dread the interview. She knew it to be inevitable; but she longed passionately for it to be over--to know the worst--to feel certain of that measure of freedom for which she meant to fight.

And because she longed for the interview to be over she would not go to bed before Jasper returned. She sat in the narrow slip-room, grandiosely described by the hotel proprietor as the salon, which divided Jasper's room from hers. The one window, which was wide open, gave her a beautiful view over the mountains, and the evening sky studded with stars. Somewhere the other side of those mountain-tops Philip and Anna were speeding towards freedom-the freedom which Peter had won for them by dint of courage, resource and wit. Instinctively, memory recalled that other weary waiting at Kis-Imre, when she and Elza had watched and prayed together through the hours of the night. And torturing fears rose out of the darkness lest this second attempt at flight should prove as unsuccessful as the first.

It was past midnight when Rosemary heard Jasper's familiar step along the wooden balcony. He came straight to the door of the salon and entered, apparently without the slightest hesitation. He closed the door behind him, and throwing down his hat said coolly:

"I saw the light under the door, so I knew you had not gone to bed yet. I've been in some time, but stayed to have some supper in the coffee-room. Very good supper, too. They know how to cook in Hungary. That is the one thing the Roumanians might with advantage learn from them."

He threw himself into a chair and drew his cigarette-case out of his pocket. Having selected one he offered his case to Rosemary.

"Have one?" he asked. When she shook her head he shrugged and laughed, then he struck a match and lighted his cigarette. His hand was perfectly steady. The flame of the match brought for a moment into relief his narrow hatchet face, with the dark eyes set closely together and the harsh Wellingtonian features. Rosemary looked at him curiously. It was the first time she had really studied his face closely since she knew. Once or twice, before she had been repelled by a flash of animal passion in his eyes, and once she had caught sight of his face in the mirror in the smoking room at Kis-Imre, when it was distorted by a wolfish expression of cruelty. Now both the passion and the cruelty were there, expressed around his mouth and in his eyes which looked at her over the tiny flickering flame.

Deliberately he blew the match out, took a long whiff from his cigarette, and said calmly:

"How you are going to hate me after this!"

After a second's pause he added: "Well, I have had so much cruelty to endure from you in the past, a little more or less won't make much difference."

"I have never meant to be cruel, Jasper," Rosemary rejoined coldly. "But I know now that the cruelest thing I ever did to you was to become your wife."

"You only found that out, my dear, since you saw Peter Blakeney again."

To this Rosemary made no answer. She shrugged her shoulders and turned her head away. Jasper jumped up and gripped her by the arm, making her wince with pain.

"Before we go any further, Rosemary," he said with a savage oath, "I'll have it out with you. Are you still in love with Peter Blakeney?"

"I refuse to answer," Rosemary said calmly. "You have no longer the right to ask me such a question."

"No longer the right," he retorted with a harsh laugh. "You are still my wife, my dear. What happened this afternoon will not give you your freedom in law, remember."

"I know that, Jasper. What happened this afternoon has broken my life, but, as you say, it cannot give me my freedom, save with your consent."

He gave a derisive chuckle. "And you are reckoning on that, are you?" he asked drily.

"I am reckoning on it."

"Then all I can say, my dear, is that, for a clever woman, your calculations are singularly futile."

"I don't think so," she rejoined. "I know enough about the laws of England to know that they do not compel me to live under your roof."

"You mean that you intend to leave me?"

"I do."

"And create a scandal?"

"There need be no scandal. We'll agree to live apart; that is all."

"That is not all, my dear," he retorted drily, "as you will find out to your cost."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Peter Blakeney chose to follow you to Transylvania; any number of witnesses can testify to that. I mean, that we are now in a country where money will purchase everything, even such testimony as will enable Lord Tarkington to divorce his wife, and raise such a hell of scandal around Mr. Blakeney that no decent club would have him as a member, and he would have to live out of England for the benefit of his health."

Rosemary had listened to him without attempting to interrupt. She even tried hard not to reveal the indignation which she felt. When he had finished speaking, and once more threw himself into a chair, with a sigh of self-satisfaction, she said quite quietly:

"I thought that this afternoon I had probed the lowest depths to which a man's nature could sink. But, God help me! I have seen worse now!"

"That is as it may be, my dear. A man fights for what he treasures with any weapon that comes to his hand."

"For what he treasures, yes! But you--"

"I treasure you beyond all things on earth," he broke in hoarsely. "You are my wife, my property, my own possession. You may love Blakeney and hate me, but I have rights over you that all the sophistries in the world cannot deny me. I am alone," he went on--and in one second he was on his feet again, and before she had time to defend herself he had her in his arms--"I alone have the right to hold you as I am holding you now. I alone have the right to demand a kiss. Kiss me, Rosemary, my beautiful, exquisite wife, with the pixie eyes! Though you hate me, kiss me--though you love him, kiss me---Mine is still the better part."

He pressed his lips against hers, and for these few horrible moments Rosemary, half swooning, could only lie rigid in his arms. But horror and loathing gave her strength. With her two hands she pushed against him with all her might. "Let me go," she murmured. "I hate you."

But he only laughed. "Of course you hate me. Well, I like your hatred better than the cool indifference I have had from you up to now. You hate me, my dear, because you don't understand. With all your vaunted cleverness you don't understand. Women such as you--good women, I suppose we must call them--never would understand all that there is in a man that is evil and vicious and cruel. Yes, in every man! Deep down in our souls we are blackguards, every one of us! Some of us are what women have made us, others have vices ingrained in our souls at birth. Have you ever seen a schoolboy tease a cat, or a lad set a terrier against a stoat? Would you hate him for that? Not you! If he has revolted you too much, you may punish him, but even so you'll only smile: it is boy's nature, you will say. Well, boy's nature is man's nature. Cruel, vicious! Civilization has laid a veneer over us. Some of us appear gentle and kind and good. Gentle? Yes! On the surface. Deep down in our souls, grown men as we are, we would still love to tease the cat, or to see a terrier worry a stoat. Whilst men had slaves they thrashed them. Where wives are submissive their husbands beat them. Give a man power to torture and he will do it. Boy's nature, I tell you, but we dare not show it. We are gentlemen now, not men. And most of us have a false idea that women would despise us if they knew. And so we smirk and toady and pretend, and those of use who are not puppets writhe against this pretence. I was born a savage. When I was a schoolboy I was not content with teasing a cat, I loved to torture it; if a horse was restive I would thrash it with the greatest joy. Later I reveled in twisting a smaller boy's wrist until he screamed, in pulling a girl's hair or pinching her arm--anything that hurt. Boy's nature. Most women only smiled! Then came the war and the world was plunged in an orgy of cruelty. I was a very fine linguist and became attached to the secret service. I worked for the French army. I no longer pulled girl's hair nor pinched their arms, but I--the spy--tracked enemy spies down--women and men--dragged them out of their lair as a terrier would a stoat, and brought them before the military tribunals to be condemned and shot. But the women still smiled. Good women, mind you! Those whom I was tracking down were Germans, and so I-the spy--was a hero and they were only human refuse whom to torture was a duty. When war was over and my uncle died I inherited a title, and civilization threw the mantle of convention over me, imposed on me certain obligations. My work was done. I became a puppet. I smirked and toadied and tried to pretend. Oh, how I loathed it! Restrictions, civilization, drove me mad! If I had never met you I should have gone off to a land where I could keep slaves and work my will on them, or turned Moslem and kept numberless wives, whom I could beat when the mood seized me. But I met you, and all my desires were merged in the one longing to have you for my own. You were adulated, famous, rich probably. I had a title to offer you and nothing else. My friend de Kervoisin, who knew my capabilities, spoke to me of Transylvania, a conquered country where rebellion was rife. He spoke to me of Naniescu, an ambitious man, unscrupulous and venal, who wanted help to consolidate his position, to put himself right before his government and before the world by brining to light intrigues and conspiracies that did not always exist. The work meant money. I took it on. I made over £100,000 in three years, and there was more to come. Already I was a rich man and the work satisfied the boy's nature in me. Following up a clue. Disguises. Tracking a man down, or a woman. Seeing their fear, watching their terror. Arrests, secret trials. Executions in the early dawn. Scenes of desolation and farewells. I had them all! They helped me to endure the London seasons, the evenings at the club, the balls, the crowds, the futility of it all. And the money which I earned brought me nearer and nearer to you. Luck was on my side. Peter Blakeney courted you, and like a fool he lost you. How? I did not know and cared less. I won you because I was different from other men, because you were piqued, and because I interested you. Because I knew how to smirk and toady better than most. Then came the question of Transylvania. Naniescu entrusted me with the task of discovering the authorship of certain articles that had appeared in English and American newspapers which impugned his administration. He offered me ten thousand pounds if I succeeded in brining the author to justice, and ten thousand more if certain articles which you were to write were published in The Times. The very first morning that we were in Cluj the girl Anna Heves gave away her secret. Once I had her and Philip under arrest it was easy enough to bring pressure to bear upon you. I almost succeeded, as you know. At first it was difficult--whilst Elza and Maurus Imrey were ignorant of the bargain that Naniescu had proposed to you. I had only gained one victory, I was not likely to win the other. So, while you thought me in Bucharest, I came back disguised as a gipsy and warned Elza that Philip and Anna were in danger of death. This brought everything to a head. Unfortunately Peter Blakeney already suspected me. It began probably in England--exactly when I shall never know--but he was my friend once, and then suddenly I felt that we had become enemies. I must have given myself away at one time, I suppose, and he is as sharp as a wild cat. He followed us to Transylvania--to make sure. . . . Then at Cluj Anna Heves confided in him. The children's arrest confirmed his suspicions, and that night at Kis-Imre he recognized me under my disguise as a gipsy. Curse him! After that the whole adventure became a battle of wits between him and me. I won the first round when I spied out the plan for Philip and Anna's escape; I won again when I persuaded you to place the whole bargain between yourself and Naniescu before Elza, and indirectly induced you to write the newspaper articles which he wanted. I thought I had won an easy victory then. But Peter Blakeney stole your manuscript, and I feared then that I had lost everything. The death of Philip and Anna Heves would have been some compensation, it is true, but I wanted that extra ten thousand pounds more than I did the joy of seeing those two children shot. I thought that Peter had stolen the manuscript in order to bargain with it for the lives of his two cousins, but I know better now. He sold your manuscript to Naniescu for the Kis-Imre property. It will stand in his name until he can hand it over to the Imrey's again. In the meanwhile by a clever ruse he has got Philip and Anna out of the country. And by now he will have sent a telegram in your name to The Times. He has won the battle hands down. I am beaten in all, except in one thing, I have you. Not all his cleverness--and he is as clever as a monkey, it seems--can take you away from me. If you leave me, you do so knowing the consequences. Remember what I said: we are in a country where money can purchase everything, even such testimony as will enable me to divorce you and to raise such a hell of scandal around Peter Blakeney that no decent man in England would shake him by the hand. So now you know. I have told you my history, and I have extolled Peter Blakeney's virtues--his heroism, if you like to call it so. And I have done it deliberately so that you may admire him, regret him, love him if you must, even whilst you feel yourself irrevocably bound to me. You are just as much my slave now, as if I had bought you in the open market. If you continue to hate me, I shall probably hate you too in the end. But that would not help to free you. On the contrary, I think it would rather amuse me. I was never content to tease a cat, I invariably tortured it."

Jasper Tarkington had been speaking without interruption for nearly ten minutes, but he had not spoken without a pause. He was pacing up and down the narrow room with his hands held behind his back, but now and again he had come to a halt, quite close to Rosemary, either to emphasize a point, or to look her up and down with a glance of cruelty or merely mockery. Rosemary withstood every glance without flinching. She was standing close to the table with her hand resting on it, to giver herself support. She did not interrupt him. She wanted to hear everything he had to say, right to the end. When he renewed his threat that he would call false witnesses in order to create deadly scandal around Peter, and warned her that she was as much his slave as if he had bought her in the open market, she had, quite instinctively, glanced down on the tray which contained the remnants of her supper. There was a knife on the tray; one with a broad blade narrowing into a sharp point. She shuddered and turned her eyes away, but Jasper had caught her glance. He had just finished speaking, and he went deliberately up to the table, picked the knife up by its point, and with a mocking smile held it with its handle towards her.

"Very dramatic," he said lightly. "Did you ever see La Tosca?"

When she made no reply he laughed and threw the knife back on the table. Then he sat down and lit another cigarette.

There was silence in the little room now. Rosemary had scarcely moved. The horror and indignation which she had felt at first when Jasper embarked upon the history of his life had given place to a kind of moral numbness. She had ceased to feel. Her body seemed turned to stone; even her soul no longer rebelled. She was this man's wife, and he had warned her of the means which he would adopt to bind her, unresisting, to him. Nothing but death could loosen the bonds which he had tightened by his threats against Peter.

Jasper smoked on in silence. Only the fussy ticking of the old-fashioned little clock broke the stillness that had descended like a pall over this lonely corner of God's earth. A little while ago Rosemary had been vaguely conscious of a certain amount of bustle and animation in the house, and subconsciously she had associated this bustle with the probable arrival of guests who had come off the night train. But that had been some time ago. How long she did not know; probably before Jasper had begun speaking. She looked at her watch. It was half-past two. Jasper jumped to his feet.

"It must be very late," he said coolly. "I really must beg your pardon for having kept you up so long. Reminiscences are apt to run away with one."

He put down his cigarette, deliberately went up to his wife and took her by the shoulders.

"Kiss me, Rosemary," he said quietly.

It seemed to amuse him that she did not respond, for he gave a mocking chuckle and put his arms round her. He pressed his lips upon her mouth, her eyes, her throat. Then suddenly he let her go and she almost fell up against the table.

He then walked across to the door of his room.

CHAPTER XLVI

Jasper Tarkington, on the point of entering his room, had switched on the light and then paused on the threshold, uttering a gasp of astonishment.

"Maurus!" he exclaimed, "what in the world are you doing here?"

Maurus Imrey was sprawling on the horse-hair sofa, apparently fast asleep. At Jasper's ejaculation he opened his eyes, blinked, yawned, and stretched his arms.

"Ah! my dear Tarkington," he said in Hungarian. "I thought you were never coming."

He rose and shook himself like a big, shaggy dog, and passed his fingers through his tousled hair.

"I must have been fast asleep," he said.

"But what are you doing here, my friend?" Jasper asked, frowning.

"Waiting for you to do me a little service. It is so late, I don't really like to ask you. But I should be badly stranded if you did not help me."

"What is it?"

"I left Cluj by the midnight express," Maurus explained. "You know that we have all been turned out of Kis-Imre. And, by the way, it is Peter Blakeney who has bought the place. Isn't it a scandal? I never thought he would be such a swine. You know he is a near relation of my wife's."

"Yes, yes!" Jasper muttered impatiently. "What about it?"

"Well, simply that those damned officials at Cluj station never told me that I could only get as far as Sót. So I arrived here with my luggage and Anton, and, of course, I found this beastly hotel full. Not a room to be had, my dear fellow. Did you ever hear of such a thing? In the olden days one would just have taken a man by the scruff of his neck and thrown him out of any room one happened to want for oneself. I don't know what it's like with you in England, but here--"

"Just as bad," Jasper broke in with a curse, "but in heaven's name get on, man."

"Well, then, I left my big luggage here, and Anton and I went on to another little tavern I know of in the village. There, as luck would have it, the proprietor whom I used to know is dead, and the new man is one of those Bulgarian agriculturists who come over every year, you know, for the harvesting. Some of these men do settle down here sometimes, and this man--"

"Well, what about him?"

"He doesn't know a word of Hungarian, my dear fellow, and he does not seem to understand much Roumanian either. You once told me that you had been in Bulgaria and that you knew a little of their beastly language, so I thought--"

"What is it you want me to do?" Jasper broke in impatiently. "Walk over with you and arrange with the man about your rooms?"

"If you would not mind. Or could you let me sleep on your sofa?"

Jasper had hesitated at first. It was close on three o'clock, and he did not relish the idea of turning out again at this hour; but the suggestion that Maurus should be his room companion for the night was far more unpleasant.

"Come along, then," he said curtly. "It isn't far, I suppose?"

"Five minutes' walk, my dear fellow," Maurus said with obvious relief, "just the other side of the stream. And Anton shall walk back with you afterwards."

"I don't want anybody to chaperon me," Jasper retorted roughly.

He had to go into the salon to fetch his hat. Rosemary was still standing there leaning against the table for support. She had very much wanted to see Maurus at one time, but now it did not seem to matter. Nothing probably would ever matter again. She heard Jasper's voice saying in a whisper, "You've heard what this fool wants. I suppose I shall have to go."

She nodded in response. And then Jasper added with mocking courtesy:

"Good night, Lady Tarkington."

CHAPTER XLVII

Anton saw it all, and it was he who broke the news to Rosemary.

He had been sitting up in the small slip of a room on the ground floor which had been assigned to him, waiting for his master and wondering why the gracious count should be so long upstairs at this hour with the English lord and lady, when he saw the gracious count and the English milord come along the first floor balcony, he heard them go downstairs, and saw them go out of the house.

Anton was rather anxious about his master because the gracious count had been very, very queer the last twenty-four hours. Sometimes he would be very hilarious; he would laugh and sing and shout "Hurrah for Peter! Bravo!" and so on; at others he would be terribly depressed and sit and cry like a child, or else tear about the place in a passion of fury. He had had a slight fit after the gracious English lord and lady had gone, and the sisters thought that probably the control he had put on himself when the Roumanian soldiers brought the expulsion order had been too much for his nerves.

So when Anton saw the gracious count go out with the English lord at this extraordinary hour he could not help but follow him. Though there was no moon the sky was clear and the darkness of the night was just beginning to yield to the first touch of dawn. The two gentlemen walked quite fast, but Anton was able to keep them in sight. When they came to the little wooden bridge that spans the stream the English lord was a few steps ahead of the gracious count. Suddenly, in mid-stream, the count sprang upon milord from behind, and in a moment had him by the throat. The English lord, taken entirely by surprise, fought desperately nevertheless. Anton had uttered a great shout, and ran to the rescue as fast as ever he could. Through the gloom he could just see the English milord forced down, with his back nearly doubled over the slender parapet of the bridge, and the gracious count bending over him and holding him by the throat. Anton's shout echoed from mountain to mountain, but all around there was the silence of the night, broken only by the howling of a dog outside a cottage door.

Then suddenly, before Anton set his foot upon the bridge, the catastrophe occurred. The parapet suddenly crashed and gave way under the weight of the two men, and they were hurled into the stream below. One awful cry rent the stillness of the night. Anton, half crazy with horror, waded into the stream, the waters of which at a point near a huge boulder were stained with a streak of crimson. The English milord in falling had broken his head against the stone. The gracious count had probably fallen at first on the top of him, and then rolled over on his back, thus breaking his fall. Anton dragged them both, single-handed, out of the stream, first his master, then the English lord. The latter was dead, but the gracious count was still breathing and moaning softly. Anton laid him down upon the grass, and made a pillow for him with his own coat, which he had taken off. Then he ran to the priest's house, which was quite close, and rang the bell until he made someone hear. The priest had been quite kind. He roused his servant, and together--the priest and Anton and the servant--carried the gracious count into the presbytery. But the English milord, who was quite dead, they laid upon the bier in the tiny mortuary chapel which was by the entrance to the churchyard.

The priest had already sent for the village doctor, who had done what he could for the gracious count, but of course, he was ignorant, and, anyhow, Anton was of the opinion that there was nothing that any man could do. But he had been to the station and roused the station-master and asked him to telephone to Dr. Zacharias at Cluj. Anton was just going to run back and see if the answer had come through. In the meanwhile he had come over to the hotel to see if he could speak with the gracious lady.

Rosemary had not yet thought of going to bed. For two hours after Jasper went out with Maurus she had sat, unthinking, by the open window. Time for her had ceased to be. She had heard the howling of a dog. At one moment she had heard a shout, and then a weird and prolonged cry. But these sounds conveyed no meaning to her brain. Her thinking powers were atrophied.

Then the bare-footed, buxom, very sleepy little maid came to tell her that Anton, the valet of the gracious count at Kis-Imre, desired to speak with her at once. She was fully dressed; she sent for Anton and he told her what he had seen.

Hastily seizing hat and wrap, she went with Anton out of the house and through the village to the priest's house. The soft, colourless light of dawn lay over the mountain and valley. On ahead the turbulent waters of the stream tossed and played around the projecting boulders, murmuring of the tragedy which had culminated within their bosom. Nearing the priest's house Rosemary could see the narrow bridge, with its broken parapet-—

The priest met her at the gate. The gracious count, he said, had not regained consciousness. He still lived, the doctor said, but life only hung by a thread. Rosemary sat down by Maurus; bedside and watched that life slowly ebbing away. In the late afternoon Dr. Zacharias came over from Cluj. He only confirmed what the village doctor had said. The spine was broken. It was only a question of hours. He could do nothing, but at Rosemary's earnest request--or perhaps on the promise of a heavy fee--he agreed to come again in the morning.

Less than an hour after he left, the dying man rallied a little. He opened his eyes, and seeing Rosemary, his face was illumined by a great joy. She bent over him and kissed his forehead. Two tears rolled slowly down his wan cheeks. He murmured something, and she bent her ear till it was quite close to his lips.

"He was a monster," he murmured. "I heard everything. I had to punish him for the evil he did to my wife and the children. And I have made you free."

At sunset Maurus Count Imrey passed away into the Unknown.

Then only did Rosemary leave his bedside. Accompanied by the priest, she went to the little mortuary chapel to take a last look at the man who had done her such an infinity of wrong. Now that his stormy life was ended, and his hard features were set in lines of peace, Rosemary felt once more that aching sense of pity for him which so often before had prompted her to forgive. She was able to commend his turbulent soul to God without the slightest thought of hatred or revenge. He had said once that she would never understand; but the infinite pity in her heart was born of an infinite understanding. The man who had atoned for his sins by this tragic death was not wholly responsible for his actions. He was the victim of his temperament: more sinned against, perhaps, than sinning. Who knows? If some other woman had captured his fancy she might have made him happy, found what was strong and fine in him, and all that was cruel would perhaps have been submerged beneath a great wave of love.

CHAPTER XLVIII

Since then, nearly two years! And this was the season of 1924! Wembley! The Rodeo! Royalties from Italy and Denmark and Roumania! The Labour Government!

How far, how very far, seemed Transylvania and Sót and the little mortuary chapel wherein Rosemary had gazed for the last time on the enigmatic personality which had once been Jasper Tarkington--her husband.

Even in death he had kept his secret--the secret of the strange dual identity which she had never been able to reconcile one with the other, the cruel, wolfish nature so skillfully hidden beneath the mantle of super-civilization.

Rosemary had not seen Peter since then. After the tragedy at Sót she had at last succeeded, by dint of bribery, in entering into direct communication with the British Consulate at Cluj.

Arrangements for the conveying of Lord Tarkington's body to England took up some considerable time. She only met Elza in Budapest when she herself was on her way home. Peter had left by then for an unknown destination. He had conveyed Philip and Anna over the frontier. They had soon abandoned the car, fearing pursuit, and in disguise had made their way to the frontier over the mountains. They were young and strong, the hardships were not serious, and the dangers reduced to a minimum once they had reached the lonely mountain passes. It was the planning of the escape that had been so wonderful. Peter Blakeney, disguised as a Roumanian officer, and having with him Captain Payson and a young Hungarian cricketer, both dressed as Roumanian soldiers, had presented a forged order for the surrender of the two prisoners, Philip Imrey and Anna Heves. To the officer commanding the depôt the order appeared in no way suspicious, and he gave up the prisoners without question. After that the whole thing became just a delightful adventure, nothing more. But Elza spoke of Peter with tears in her eyes. They had all of them mistrusted him. Wasn't that strange? Did Rosemary guess? Elza wanted to know, and Philip and Anna plied her with questions.

These were sad days for them all. But still Elza was wonderful, as wonderful as she had ever been. Even Rosemary never actually found out just how much of the tragedy Elza knew or guessed. Anton did not tell her, and to their world the death of the two men who were known to have been friends was just a terrible accident. Darkness. A broken bridge. Fatality.

Rosemary never told, of course. She wondered if Peter knew. She waited on in Budapest for some days hoping for news of him. But none came. Captain Payson heard in an indirect way that Peter was still in Transylvania, but no reliance could be placed on the truth of the rumour. It was only when Rosemary was back in England that she heard definite news of Peter. Elza wrote to say that he was living in Kis-Imre. "He is administering the property for us," she went on. "Isn't he wonderful? I am sure he will make something more of it than poor Maurus was able to do. Of course, they dare not do anything to him, because he is a British subject, and he tells me in his last letter that he hopes in a very few years' time, when justice had been at last meted out to our unfortunate country, to hand over Kis-Imre to Philip in a better state than it is now. Then my poor Philip's dream will, I hope, come true. He and Anna have loved each other ever since they were tiny children. When he has once more a fine home to offer her they will be married with my blessing. And all this we shall owe to Peter Blakeney. Can you wonder, my dear, that we all worship him? When I look at him I seem to see my dear and beautiful sister gazing at me through his eyes, and in his smile I see something of hers, because, just like Peter, she was always ready to laugh, always smiling at the world, always doing great and kind things under cover of a joke. So Philip and Anna and I, we bless Peter and for some reason, which perhaps you can explain better than I, when we think of him we also think of you."

Since then nearly two years! Rosemary has resumed work. Her powerful articles in The International Review on the conditions obtaining in Transylvania under alien occupation have begun at last to arouse from its apathy public opinion in England and America. Time and her own perseverance, aided by the lovers of justice and fairplay who abound in Anglo-Saxon communities, would after a while, she felt, do the rest. Rosemary had seen the rampant evil with her own eyes, now she was conscious of her power to help in remedying, or, at any rate, mitigating it. She threw herself heart and soul into the work not only because she loved it and because it thrilled her, but because work alone could help her to forget. "Try to forget" were the last words which she heard Peter speak, there in the woods beside the turbulent mountain stream when she had thought him a spy, a vile and venal wretch, and he had not said one word to exculpate himself. How could he when this might have meant rousing her suspicions of Jasper?--or perhaps it was just pride that had caused him to hold his tongue. Pride, which so often has proved love's most persistent enemy.

Or perhaps he no longer cared, and that was why he thought it would be so easy for her to forget.

Since then nearly two years! Rosemary walking through the park that late afternoon in July. She had been to the Albert Hall to hear Kreisler, and she wandered up the Broad Walk under the trees, because she did not feel that she could stand the noise and bustle of streets at a moment when her whole soul was still full of the exquisite music conjured up by that great magician. It was very hot and she was rather tired, so she sat down on a chair in the shade. Then suddenly she saw Peter. He was coming towards her, quite naturally, as if to an assignation. He looked just the same as he always did--like a boy, clean and straight-limbed as a young god, his eyes shining with excitement, that quaint, self-deprecating smile on his lips that Rosemary knew so well.

"I've been to hear old Kreisler," were the first words he said. "Wasn't he wonderful?"

So like Peter! He dragged a chair quite close to hers and sat down. He threw down his hat and passed his hand through his hair. He did not attempt to greet her in any way. "I've been to hear old Kreisler!" So like Peter! The very first words . . . and she hadn't seen him for nearly two years.

After a second or two he went on: "I wouldn't speak to you in the Albert Hall. When you went out I followed you. I knew you would wander out here."

And Rosemary asked quite casually: "Have you been in England long?"

"Only a few hours," Peter replied with a laugh. "I crossed over by the night boat, via Havre. I always meant to sample that journey, and it was really rather nice." After that he was silent for a moment; then suddenly he seized her hand. She had no gloves on, and he held the soft palm to his lips. Rosemary did not move. She was not looking at Peter; she was just watching a huge blackbird that had landed on the elm tree opposite and who was whistling away for dear life.

"Rosemary, when can we be married?" Peter asked abruptly.

She couldn't help smiling. It, too, was so like Peter. "I've waited two years, dash it all," he went on. "Two years in hell. Now I'm not going to wait any longer. When can we be married, Rosemary?"

Then Rosemary ceased to watch the blackbird and turned slowly to look at Peter.

"Whenever you like, dear," she replied.

THE END

Sir Percy Hits Back

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 1

On the spot where the Hotel Moderne now rears its more ambitous head, there stood at that time a cottage with sloping red-tiled roof and white-washed walls. It was owned by one Baptiste Portal, an old peasant of the Dauphine, who dispensed refreshments to travellers and passers-by, as his father and grandfather had done before him, in the shape of somewhat thin vin du pays and an occasional glass of eau-de- vie, while he spent his slack time chiefly in grumbling at the fact that the new posting-inn on the high road had taken all his trade away. He did not see the necessity of the posting-inn, did not old Baptiste, nor for that matter that of the high-road or the post- chaise. Before all these new notions had come into the heads of the government people up in Paris, travellers had been content to come squelching through the mud on the back of a good horse, or come ploughing through inches of dust in the old coche. So why not now? And was not the old wine of Les Amandiers as good and better than the vinegar dispensed at the more pretentious posting-inn? The place was called Les Amandiers because at the back of the house there were two anaemic almond-trees with gaunt, twisted arms which covered themselves in the spring with sickly blooms, and in the summer with dust. In the front of the house, up against the white-washed wall, there was a wooden bench on which Baptiste's priveleged customers were wont to sit on fine evenings, to drink their vin du pays and join the old man in his wholesale condemnation of the goverment "up in Paris" and its new- fangled ways. From this vantage-point a glorious view was obtained over the valley of the Bueche, and beyond Laragne as far as the peaks of Pelvoux: whilest to the right towered in the distance the grand old citadel of Sisteron with its turets and fortifications dating from the fourteenth century, and the stately church of Notre Dame. But views and winding rivers, snowy peaks, and medieval fortresses did not interest Baptiste Portal's customers nearly as much as the price of almonds or the alarming increase in the cost of living.

Now, on this particular afternoon in May the mistral was blowing mercilessly across the valley from over the snows of Pelvoux, and the cold and the dust had driven all of good Portal's customers indoors. The low-raftered room, decorated with strings of onions which hung from the ceiling together with a bunch or two of garlic, of basil and other pot-herbs, and perfumed also with the aroma of the pot-au-feu simmering in the kitchen, had acquired just that right atmosphere, cosy, warm, and odorous, beloved of every true man born in the Dauphine. It was a memorable afternoon, remembered long afterwards and retold by the gossips of Sisteron and Laragne in all its dramatic details. But at this hour, nothing more dramatic had occurred than the arrival of a detachment of soldiers, under the command of an under- officer, who had come up from Orange, so they said, in order to fetch away the young men who were wanted for the army. They had demanded supper and shelter for the night.

Of course soldiers, as soldiers, were very much disapproved of by those worthies of Sisteron who frequented Les Amandiers, more especially now when what they did was to fetch away the young men for cannon-fodder, to fight the English and prolong this awful war which caused food to be so dear and hands for harvesting so scarce. But, on the other hand, soldiers, as company, were welcome. They brought news of the outside world, most of it bad, it is true--nothing good did happen anywhere these days--but news nevertheless. And though at the recital of what went on in Paris, in Lyons, or even as near as Orange, the guillotine, the tumbrils, the wholesale slaughter of tyrants and aristos, one shuddered with horror and apprehension, there were always the lively tales of barrack-life to follow, the laughter, the ribald song, and something of life seemed to infiltrate into this sleepy half-dead corner of the old Dauphine.

The soldiers--there were a score of them--occupied the best place in the room, as was only fitting; they sat squeezed tightly against one another like dried figs in a box, on the two benches on either side of the centre trestle table. Old Baptiste Portal sat with them, beside the officer. Some kind of lieutenant this man appeared to be, or other subaltern: but, oh dear me! these days one could hardly tell an officer from the rag-tab and bob-tail of the army, save for the fact that he wore epaulettes. Now this man--but there! What was the use of comparing these ruffians with the splendid officers of the King's armies in the past?

This one certainly was not proud. He sat with his men, joked, drank with them, and presently he convened friend Portal to a glass of wine: "A la sante!" he added, "de la Republique, and of Citizen Robespierre, the great and incorruptible master of France!"

Baptiste, wagging his old head, had not liked to refuse, because soldiers were soldiers and these had been at great pains to explain to him that the reason why the guillotine was kept so busy was because Frenchmen had not yet learned to be good Republicans.

"We've cut off the head of Louis Capet and of the widow Capet, too," the officer had added with grim significance, "but there are still Frenchmen who are bad patriots and hanker after the return of the tyrants."

Now Baptiste, like all his like in the Dauphine, had learned in childhood to worship God and honour the King. The crime of regicide appeared to him unforgiveable, like that mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost which M. le Cure used vaguely to hint at, and which no one understood. In addition to that, Baptiste greatly resented His late Majesty King Louis XVI and his august Queen being irreverently referred to as Louis Capet and the widow Capet. But he kept his own counsel and silently drank his wine. What his thoughts were at the moment was nobody's business.

After that, talk drifted to the neighbourhood: the aristos who still clung to the land which by right belonged to the people. Neither Baptiste nor his customers--old peasants from the district--were a match for the lieutenant and his corporals in such discussions. They did not dare argue, only shook their heads and sighed at the coarse jests which the soldiers uttered against people and families whom everyone in the Dauphine knew and esteemed.

The Frontenacs, for instance.

The talk and the jests had turned on the Frontenacs: people who had owned the land for as long as the oldest inhabitant could remember and God only knows how long before that. Well! it appeared that in the eyes of the Republic the Frontenaces were bad patriots, tyrants and traitors. Didn't Citizen Portal know that?

No! Portal did not--he had never been called "citizen" before, and didn't like it: he was just Baptiste to those who knew him, quoi?--nor would he admit that the Frontenacs were traitors. There was Monsieur, who knew more about cattle and almonds than any man for leagues around. How could he be a bad patriot? And Madame, who was very good and pious, and Mademoiselle who was so ill and delicate. But on this there followed an altercation--stern rebuke of Baptiste from the officer for talking of "Monsieur", of "Madame" and "Mademoiselle". Bah! there were no aristos left in these days.

"Aren't we all citizens of France?" the lieutenant concluded grandiloquently.

Silence and submission on the part of all the groundlings which followed the lieutenant's rebuke, somewhat mollified the latter's aggressive patriotism. He condescended to relate how he had been deputed to make a perquisition in the house of the Frontenacs, and if anything was found in the least compromising, then the devil help the whole brood: their lives would not be worth an hour's purchase. In fact, in the lieutenant's opinion--and who better qualified to hold one?--the Frontenacs were already judged, condemned, and as good as guillotined. He held with the "law of the suspect" lately enacted by the National Assembly, did Lieutenant Godet.

Again much wagging of heads! "The Committees in all Sections," Godet now goes on airily, and proceeds to pick his teeth after that excellently stewed scrag-end of mutton, "the Committees in all Sections are ordered in future to arrest all persons who are suspect."

No one knows what is a Committee, nor yet a Section: but they are evidently fearsome things. But no matter about them: the thing is, who are the "suspect" who are thus arrestable?

"The Frontenacs are suspect," the lieutenant explains whilest sucking his tooth-pick, "and so are all persons who by their actions--or-- their writings--have become--er--suspect."

Not very illuminating, perhaps, but distinctly productive of awe. The worthies of Sisteron, those who are priveleged to sit close to the centre table and actually to put in a word with the soldiers, sip their wine in silence. Just below the tiny window at the end of the room, two charcoal-burners, or wood-cutters--I know not what they are--are lending an attentive ear. They dare not join in the conversation because they are comparative strangers, vagabonds really, come to pick up a few sous by doing menial work too lowering for a local peasant to do. One of them is small and slender, but looks vigorous; the other, much older, with stooping shoulders, and grey, lank hair that falls over a wrinkled forehead. He is harrassed by a constant, tearing cough which he strives in vain to supress out of respect for the company.

"But," the worthy Portal puts in tentatively, "how does one know Monsieur le--I mean, citizen officer, that a person is in verity suspect?"

The lieutenant explains with a sweeping gesture of the tooth-pick: "If you are a good patriot, Citizen Portal, you are able to recognize a Suspect in the street, you can seize him by the collar then and there, and you may drag him off before the Committee, who will promptly clap him in prison. And remember," he added significantly, "that there are forty-four thousand Committees in France to-day."

"Forty-four thousand?" somebody exclaims.

"And twenty three," Godet replies, gloating over his knowledge of this trifling detail.

"Forty-four thousand and twenty three," he reiterates, and claps the table with the palm of his hand.

"One in Sisteron?" someone murmurs.

"Three!" the lieutenant replies.

"And the Frontenacs are suspect, you say?"

"I shall know that tomorrow," rejoins the other, "and so will you."

The way he said those last three words caused everyone to shudder. Over at the far end of the room, the charcoal burner, or whatever he was, had a tearing fit of coughing.

"'Tis little Fluerette who will weep her eyes out," good old Baptiste said with a doleful shake of the head, "if anything happens to Mad--to the citizens up at the chateau."

"Fluerette?" the lieutenant asked.

"She is Armand's daughter--Citizen Armand you know--why---?"

He might well stare, for the officer, for some unaccountable reason, had burst into a loud guffaw.

"Citizen Armand's daughter, did you say?" he queried at last, his eyes still streaming with the effort of laughing.

"Yes, of course. As pretty a wench as you can see in Dauphine. Why shouldn't Armand have a daughter, I'd like to know."

"Do tigers have daughters?" the lieutenant retorted significantly.

Somehow the conversation languished after that. The fate which so obviously awaited the Frontenacs, who were known and loved, cast a gloom over the most buoyant spirits. Not even the salacious stories of barrack-life, on which the men now embarked with much gusto, found responsive laughter.

It was getting late, too. Past eight o'clock, and tallow was dear these days. There was a cart-shed at the back of the house, with plenty of clean straw: some of the soldiers declared themselves ready for a stretch there: even the voluble officer was yawning. The regular customers of Les Amandiers took the hint. They emptied their mugs, paid over their sous, and trooped out one by one.

The wind had gone down. There was not a cloud in the sky, which was a deep, and intense saphire blue, studded with stars. The waning moon was not yet up, and the atmosphere was redolent of the perfume of almond blossoms. Altogether a lovely night, Nature in her kindest, most gentle mood. Spring in the air and life stirring in the entrails of the earth in travail. Some of the soldiers made their way to the shed, whilest others stretched out on the floor, or the benches of the room, there to dream perhaps of the perquisition to be made tomorrow and of the tragedy which would enter like a sudden devastating gust of wind into the peaceful home of the Frontenacs.

Nature was kind and gentle: and men were cruel and and evil and vengeful. The Law of the Suspect! No more cruel, more tyrannical law was ever enacted within the memory of civilization. Forty-four thousand and twenty-three Committees to mow down the flower of the children of France. A harvest of innocents! And lest the harvesters prove slack, the National Convention has just decreed that a perambulating army shall march up and down the country, to ferret out the Suspect and feed the guillotine. Lest the harvesters prove slack, men like Lieutenant Godet with a score of out-at-elbows, down-at-heels brigands, are ordered to scour the country, to seize and strike. To feed the guillotine, in fact, and to purge the Soil of Liberty.

Is this not the most glorious revolution the world has ever known? Is it not the era of LIberty and of the Brotherhood of Man?

Chapter 2

The perambulating army had now gone to rest: some in the cart-shed, some along the benches and tables or floor of the inn. The lieutenant in a bed. Is he not the officer commanding this score of ardent patriots? Therefore he must lie in a bed--old Portal's bed--whilst old Portal himself and his wife, older and more decrepit than he, can lie on the floor, or in the dog's kennel for aught Lieutenant Godet cares.

The two wood-cutters--or shall we call them charcoal-burners?--were among the last to leave. They had petitioned for work among the worthies here present: but money was very scarce these days, and each man did what work he could for himself, and did not pay another to do it for him. But Papa Tronchet, who was a carpenter by trade and owned a little bit of woodland just by the bridge, close to Armand's cottage, he promised one of the men--not both--a couple of hours' work tomorrow: wood-cutting at the rate of two sous an hour, and then he thought it dear.

And so the company had dispersed: each man to his home. The two vagabonds--wood-cutters or charcoal-burners, they were anyhow vagabonds--found their way into the town. Wearily they trudged, for one of them was very old and the other lame, till they reached a narrow lane at right angles to the riverbank. The lane was made up of stone houses that had overhanging eaves, between which the sun couldn't ever penetrate. It was invariably either as damp as the bottom of a well, or as dry and wind-swept as an iron stove-pipe. Tonight it was dry and hot: broken-down shutters, innocent of paint, creaked upon rusty hinges. A smell of boiled cabbage, of stale water and garlic hung beneath the eaves; it came in great gusts down pitch- dark stairways, under narrow doors, oozing with sticky moisture.

The two vagabonds turned into one of these doors and by instinct seemingly, for it was pitch dark, they mounted the stone stairs that squelched with grease and dirt underneath their feet. They did not speak a word until they came to the top of the house, when one of them with a kick of his boot threw open a door; it groaned and creaked under the blow. It gave on an attic-room with sloping ceiling, black with the dirt of ages, and with dormer window masked by a tattered rag that had once been a curtain. There was a wooden table in the centre of the room, and three chairs, with broken backs and ragged rush- seats, dotted about. On the table a couple of tallow candles guttered in pewter sconces.

One of the chairs was drawn close up to the table and on it sat a young man dressed in a well-worn travelling-coat with heavy boots on his feet, and a shabby tricorne hat on the top of his head. His arms were stretched out over the table and his face was buried in them. He had obviously been asleep when the door was so unceremoniously thrown open. At the sound he raised his head and blinked drowsily in the dim light at the newcomers.

Then he stretched out his arms, yawned, and gave himself a shake like a sleepy dog, and finally exclaimed in English! "Ah! At last!"

One of the vagabonds--the one namely who at Les Amandiers had appeared with bent shoulders and a hacking cough, now straightened out what proved to be a magnificent athletic figure, and gave a pleasant laugh.

"Tony, you lazy dog!" he said, "I've a mind to throw you downstairs. What say you, Ffoulkes? While you and I have been breaking our backs and poisoning our lungs with the scent of garlic, I verily believe that this villain Tony has been fast asleep."

"By all means, let's throw him downstairs," assented the second vagabond, now no longer lame, whom his friend had addressed as Ffoulkes.

"What would you have me do but sleep?" Tony broke in with a laugh. "I was told to wait, and so I waited. I'd far rather have been with you."

"No, you wouldn't," Ffoulkes demurred, "for then you would have been dirtier than I, and almost as filthy as Blakeney. Look at him; did you ever see such a disgusting object?"

"By Gad!" rejoined Blakeney, surveying his own slender hands coated with coal-dust, grease and grime. "I don't know when I have been quite so dirty. Soap and water!" he commanded with a lofty gesture, "or I perish."

But Tony gave a rueful shrug.

"I have a bit of soap in my pocket," he said, and diving into the capacious pocket of his coat he produced an infinitesimal remnant of soap which he threw upon the table. "As for water, I can't offer you any. The only tap in the house is in the back kitchen which Madame, our worthy landlady, has locked up for the night. She won't have anything wasted, she tells me, not even water."

"Fine, thrifty people, your Dauphinois," commented Blakeney, wisely shaking his head. "But did you try bribery?"

"Yes! But Madame--I beg your pardon, Citizeness Martot--immediately called me a cursed aristo, and threatened me with some committee or other. I couldn't argue with her, she reeked of garlic."

"And you, Tony, are an arrant coward," Blakeney rejoined, "where garlic is concerned."

"I am," Tony was willing to admit. "That's why I am so terrified of you both at this moment."

They all laughed, and since water was not obtainable, Sir Percy Blakeney, one of the most exquisite dandies of his time, and his friend Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, sat down on rickety chairs, in clothes sticky with dirt, their faces and hands masked by a thick coating of grime. Down the four walls of the small attic-room fillets of greasy moistures trickled and mingled with the filth that lay in cakes upon the floor.

"I can't bear to look at Tony," Blakeney said with a mock sigh, "he is too demned clean."

"We'll soon remedy that," was Ffoulkes' dry comment.

And behold Sir Andrew Ffoulkes at close grips with Lord Antony Dewhurst, and this in silence for fear of disturbing the rest of the house, and bringing attention on themselves. It was a sparring match in the best style, Blakeney acting as referee, its object--to transfer some of the grime that coated the clothes and hands of Sir Andrew on to the immaculate Lord Tony. They were only boys after all, these men, who even now were risking their lives in order to rescue the innocent from the clutches of a bloody tyranny. They were boys in their love of adventure, and in their hero worship, and men in the light-hearted way in which they were prepared for the supreme sacrifice, should luck turn against them.

The sparring match ended in a call for mercy on the part of Lord Tony. His face was plastered with grime, his hands as dirty as those of his friends.

"Tony," Blakeney said finally, when he called a halt, "if her ladyship were to see you now, she would divorce you."

Vent having been given to unconquerable animal spirits, there was a quick return to the serious business of the day.

"What is the latest?" Lord Tony asked.

"Just this," Sir Percy replied: "That these hell-hounds have sent out detachments of soldiers all over the country to ferret out what they are pleased to call treason. We all know what that means. Since their iniquitous "Law of the Suspect", no man, woman, or child is safe from denunciation: now with this perambulating army, summary arrests occur by the thousand. It seems that at any moment any of those brigands can seize you by the coat-collar and drag your before one of their precious committees, who promptly sends you to the nearest guillotine."

"And you came from a detachment of those brigands, I suppose."

"We have; Ffoulkes and I spent a couple of hours in their company, in the midst of fumes of garlic that would have reduced you, Tony, to a drivelling coward. I vow the smell of it has even infested my hair."

"Anything to be done?" Tony asked simply. He knew his chief well enough to perceive the vein of grim earnestness through all this flippancy.

"Yes!" Blakeney replied. "The squad of brigands who are scouring this part of France are principally after a family named Frontenac, which consists of father, mother and an invalid daughter. I had already found out something about them in the course of the day, whilst I carted some manure for a farmer close by. Beastly stuff, manure, by the way! I tried to get into touch with Monsieur, who is a stubborn optimist, and does not believe that any man could mean harm to him or to his family. I went to him in the guise of a royalist agent, supposed to have inside information of impending arrests. He simply refused to believe me. Well! we've met that type of man before. He will have a terrible awakening tomorrow."

Sir Percy paused for a moment or two, a deep frown between his brows. His keen intellect, alive to all those swift tragedies which he had devoted his life to countermine, was already at work envisaging the immediate future, the personages of the coming drama, husband, wife, invalid daughter; then the perquisition, the arrest, summary condemnation and slaughter of three helpless innocents.

"I can't help being sorry for the man," he said after awhile, "though he is an obstinate fool! but it is the wife and daughter whom we cannot allow those savage beats to capture and to kill. I caught sight of them. The girl is pathetic, frail and crippled. I couldn't bear--"

He broke off abruptly. No need to say more, of course; they understood one another, these men who had braved death so often together for love of humanity and for love of sport. Blakeney silent, one firm, slender hand clutched upon the table, was working out a problem of how to rescue three helpless people from that certain death-trap which was already laid for them. The other two waited in equal silence for orders. The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel! pledged to help the innocent and to save the helpless! One to command, nineteen to obey: the two who were here, in this filthy, dark attic-room, were the chief's most trusted officers; but the others were not far away!

Seventeen others! scattered about the countryside, disguised, doing menial work in order to keep in touch with the population, spying, hiding in woods or huts: all of them under orders from their chief, and prepared for the call from him.

"Tony," Blakeney said at last, "you'd better find Hastings and Stowmaries at once and they must pass the word round to others. I want three of them--they can draw lots for that--to go to the Four Oaks and there to remain until I can send Ffoulkes to them with full instructions. When you've done that, I want you and Ffoulkes to spend the night in and about Les Amandiers, and gather what you can of the projects of these brigands by keeping your ears open. I'll keep in touch with you from time to time."

"You think," Ffoulkes put in, "that we'll have trouble with the Frontenacs?"

"Not with the ladies, of course," Blakeney replied. "We'll get them safely out of the way before the perambulating army of jackals arrives. With God's help we ought to have enough time to gather a few valuables together. The problem will be with that obstinate, tiresome man. I feel sure he won't move until the soldiers are hammering at his door. Anyway I shall know my way in and about the chateau by tomorrow morning, and will then get into touch with you both at Les Amandiers."

He rose: a tall, straight figure on whom the filthy clothes of a vagabond sat with strange incongruity. But even in this strange garb which was grotesque as well as degrading, there was an extraordinary dignity in the carriage of the head, the broad shoulders, the firm, long Anglo-Saxon limbs, but above all in the flash of the eyes beneath their heavy lids and in the quiet, low-toned voice so obviously accustomed to be heard and obeyed. The two others were ready on the instant to act according to instructions: to act without argument or question. The fire of excitement was in their eyes: the spirit of adventure, of sport for sport's sake, had them in its grip.

"Do I go with you now, Blakeney?" Ffoulkes asked, as his chief had remained for a moment standing, as if following a train of thought.

"Yes," Blakeney replied. "And by the way, Ffoulkes, and you too, Tony, while you are at Les Amandiers try and find out about this girl Fleurette the old innkeeper spoke about. He said that the girl would cry her eyes out if anything happen to the Frontenacs. You remember?"

"I do. He also said that she was as pretty a wench as could be found in the Dauphine," Ffoulkes put in with a smile.

"Her father is named Armand," Blakeney rejoined.

"And the lieutenant called him a tiger, rather enigmatically I thought."

"This Fleurette sounds like an engaging young person," Lord Tony commented with a smile.

"And should be useful in our adventure," Blakeney concluded. "Find out what you can about her."

He was the last to leave the room. Ffoulkes and Lord Tony had already gone down the stone staircase, feeling their way through the darkness. But Sir Percy Blakeney stood a minute or two longer, erect, silent, motionless. Not Sir Percy Blakeney, that is, the elegant courtier, the fastidious fop, the spoilt child of London society, but the daring adventurer, ready now as so often before, to throw his life into the balance to save three innocent people from death. Would he succeed? Nay! that he did not for a moment doubt. Not for a moment. He would save the Frontenacs as he had saved scores of helpless men, women and children before, or leave his bones to moulder in this fair land where his name had become anathema to the tigers that fed on the blood of their kindred. The true adventurer! Reckless of risks and dangers, with only the one goal in view: Success.

Sport? Of course it was sport! grand, glorious, maddening sport! Sport that made him forget every other joy in life, every comfort, every beatitude. Everything except the exquisite wife who in far-off England waited patiently, with deadly anxiety gnawing at her heart, for news of the man she worshipped. She, perhaps, the greatest heroine of them all.

With a quick sigh, half of impatience, half of longing, Sir Percy Blakeney finally blew out the tallow-lights and made his way out into the open.

Chapter 3

The house where Fleurette was born and where she spent the first eighteen years of her life, still stands about halfway down the road between Sisteron and Serres and close to Laragne, which was then only a village nestling in the valley of the Bueche. To get to it you must first go cautiously down the slope at the head of the old stone bridge, and then climb up another slope to the front door beside the turbulent little mill stream, the soft gurgle of which had lulled Fluerette to sleep ever since her tiny ears had wakened to earthly sounds.

The house is a tumble-down ruin now, only partly roofed in: doors and shutters are half off their hinges: the outside staircase is worm- eaten and unsafe, the white-washed walls are cracked and denuded of plaster; the little shrine above the door has long been bereft of its quaint, rudely painted statue of St. Anthony of Padua with the Divine Child in his arms. But the wild vine still clings to the old walls, and in the gnarled branches of the old walnut tree, a venturesome pair of blackbirds will sometimes build their nest.

A certain atmosphere of mystery and romance still lingers in the tiny dell, and when we fly along the road in our twentieth-century motor- car, we are conscious of this romantic feeling, and we exclaim: "Oh! how picturesque!" and ask the chauffeur to halt upon the bridge, and then get our Kodaks to work.

Perhaps when the plate is developed and we look upon the print, we fail to recapture that sense of a picturesque by-gone age, and wonder why we wasted a precious film on what is nothing but a tumble-down old cottage, and why so many tumble-down old cottages are left to crumble away and disfigure the lovely face of France. But a century and a half ago, when Fluerette was born, there was an almond tree beside the front door, which in the early spring looked as if covered with pink snow. In those days the shutters and the doors and the outside staircase were painted a beautiful green, the walls were resplendent with fresh white-wash every year. In those days too the wild vine turned to a brilliant crimson in the autumn, and in June the climbing rose was just a mass of bloom. Then in May the nightingale often sang in the old walnut-tree, and later on, when Fluerette was tall enough, she always kept a bunch of forget-me-nots in a glass, in the recess above the front door, at the foot of St. Antoine de Padoue, because, as is well known, he is the saint to appeal to in case one has lost anything one values. One just made the sign of the cross and said fervently "St. Antoine de Padoue priez pour nous!" and lo! the kindly saint would aid in the search, and more often than not the lost treasure would be found.

All this was, of course, anterior to the horrible events which in a few days transformed the genial, kindly people of France into a herd of wild beats thirsting for each other's blood, and before legalized cruelty, murder and regicide had arraigned that fair land at the bar of history, and tarnished her fair fame forever. Fluerette was just eighteen when the terrible events came to pass that threatened to wreck her young life, and through which she learned not only how cruel and evil man could be, but also to what height of self-abnegation and heroism they could at times ascend.

Fluerette's birthday was in May, and that day was always for her the gladdest day of the year. For one thing she could reckon on Bibi being home--Bibi being the name by which she had called her father ever since she had learned to babble. Fleurette had no mother, and she and Bibi just worshipped each other. And of course Bibi had come home for her eighteenth birthday, and had stayed three whole days, and he had brought her a lovely shawl, one that was so soft and fleecy that when you rubbed your cheek against it, it felt just like a caress from a butterfly's wing.

Old Louise--who had looked after the house and watched over Fluerette ever since Fluerette's mother had gone up to heaven to be with the bon Dieu and all the Saints--old Louise had cooked a delicious dinner, which was a very difficult thing to do these days when food was scarce and dear, and eggs, butter and sugar only for the very rich who could bribe M'sieu' Colombe, the epicier of the Rue Haute, to let them have what they wanted. But no matter! Old Louise was a veritable genius where a dinner was concerned, and M'sieu' Colombe, the grocer, and M'sieu' Duflos the butcher, had allowed her to have all she asked for: a luscious piece of meat, three eggs, a piece of butter, and this without any extra bribe. Then there were still half a dozen bottles of that excellent red wine which Bibi had bought in the happy olden days; and he had opened one of the bottles, and Fluerette had drunk some wine and felt very elated and altogether happy--but for this there was another reason of which more anon.

Of course the latter part of the day had been tinged with sadness, again for that one reason which will appear presently: but not only because of that, but because of Bibi's departure, which it seems, could not be postponed, although Fluerette begged and begged that he should remain at least until tomorrow so as not to spoil this most perfect day. Le bon Dieu alone knew when Fluerette would see Bibi again, his absences from home had of late become more frequent and more prolonged.

Mais voila! on one's eighteenth birthday one is not going to think of troubles until the very last minute when it is actually on the doorstep. And the day had been entirely glorious. Not a cloud: the sky of such a vivid blue that the forget-me-nots that grew in such profusion beside the stream looked pale and colourless beneath it. The crimson peonies behind the house were in full bloom, and the buds of the climbing rose on the point of bursting.

And now dinner was over. Louise was busy in the kitchen washing up the plates and dishes, and Fluerette was carefully putting away the beautiful silver forks and spoons which had been brought out for the occasion. She was putting them away in the fine leather case with the molleton lining, which set off the glistening silver to perfection, and little Fluerette felt happy and very contented. She worked away in silence because Bibi had leaned his darling old head against the back of his chair, and closed his eyes. Fluerette thought he had dropped off to sleep.

He looked thin and pale, the poor dear, and there were lines of anxiety and discontent around his thin lips: his hair too had of late been plentifully sprinkled with gray. Oh! how Fluerette longed to have him here at Lou Mas. Always and always. It was the only home she had ever known; dear, beautiful, fragrant Lou Mas. Here she would tend him and care for him until all those lines of care upon his face had vanished. And what more likely to bring a smile to his lips than dear old Lou Mas with its white-washed walls and red-tiled roofs, with its green shutters and little mill streams beside which, for nine months of the year, flowers grew in such profusion; violets, forget-me-nots, and lilies of the valley in the spring, and meadowsweet throughout the summer until an early frost cut them down?

As for this room, Fluerette knew that there could not be in the whole of France, anything more beautiful or more cosy. There was the beautiful walnut side-board, polished until it shone like a mirror, there were the chairs covered in crimson rap, rather faded it is true, but none the worse for that, and there was Bibi's special armchair adorned with that strip of tapestry which Fluerette had worked in cross-stitch, expressly for his birthday the year of her first communion. Never had there been such chairs anywhere. And that beautiful paper on the walls, the red and yellow roses that looked as if you could pick them off their lovely chocolate-coloured ground, and the chandelier with the crystal drops, and the blue vases with the gold handles that adorned the mantelpiece, not to mention the print curtains and the pink and blue check cloth upon the table. Oh, Fluerette loved all these things, they had been the playthings of her childhood and now they were her pride. If only Bibi would smile again, she felt that the whole world would be like heaven.

And then all at once everything went wrong. Fluerette had got her beautiful new shawl out of its wrappings and draped it round her shoulders and rubbed her cheek against it. Then she had said quite innocently: "It is so lovely, Bibi, and the wool is so soft and fine. I am sure that it came from England."

And it was from that moment that everything went wrong. To begin with, and quite by accident, of course, Bibi broke the stem of the glass out of which he had been drinking, and a quantity of very precious wine was spilt over the beautiful tablecloth.

Whereupon, unaccountably, because of course the table cloth could be washed, Bibi pushed his plate aside quite roughly and suddenly looked ten years older; so wan and pale and shrivelled and old. Fluerette longed to put her arms round him--as she used to do in the happy olden days--and ask him to tell her what was amiss. She was grown up now-- eighteen years old today--quite old enough to understand. And if Bibi loved her as she thought he did, he would be comforted.

But there it was! There was something in the expression on Bibi's face that checked Fluerette's impulse. She went on quietly--very quietly, like a little mouse--with her work, and for a while there was silence in the cosy room with the beautiful roses on the wall that looked as if you could pick them off their chocolate ground: a silence that was unaccountably full of sadness.

Chapter 4

Bibi was the first to hear the sound of footsteps coming up to the door. He gave a start, just as if he were waking from a dream.

"It's M'sieu' Colombe," Fluerette said.

At once Bibi reproved her, a thing he hardly ever did: "Citizen Colombe," he said sternly.

Fluerette shrugged her plump shoulders: "Ah well---!" she exclaimed.

"You must learn, Fluerette," Bibi insisted, still with unwonted severity. "You are old enough to learn."

She said nothing more; only kissed the top of his head, the smooth brown hair, of late so plentifully tinged with grey, and promised that she would learn. She stood by the sideboard intent on putting the silver away, with her back turned to Bibi so that he could not see the soft tone of pink that had crept into her cheeks, as soon as she perceived that two pairs of feet were treading the path outside the door.

Now there was a vigorous knock against the door, and a cheery, raucous voice called out loudly: "May one enter?"

Fluerette ran to the door and opened it.

"But certainly, certainly," she said, and then added, seemingly very astonished: "Ah! and M'sieu' Amédé, too?" From which the casual observer would perhaps infer that the pink colour in her cheeks had been due to the arrival of M'sieu' Colombe, the epicier of the Rue Haute, rather than to that of his son Amédé. It was no doubt also that worthy epicier with his round, florid face, dark, twinkling eyes, and general air of ferocious kindliness that caused the pink colour to spread from Fluerette's cheeks down to her neck and the little bit of throat that peeped out above her kerchief.

The good Colombe had already stalked into the room and with a familiar "Eh bien! Eh bien! We did contrive to come and drink Fluerette's health after all?" had slapped Bibi vigorously over the lean shoulders. But Amédé had come to a halt on the mat in which he was mechanically wiping his boots as if his very life depended on their cleanliness. Between his fingers he was twirling an immense posy of bright pink peonies, but his eyes were fixed on Fluerette, and on his broad, plain face, which shone with perspiration and good temper, there was a half-shy, wholly adoring look.

He gulped hard once or twice before he murmured, hoarse with emotion:

"Mam'zelle Fluerette!"

And Fluerette wiped her hot little hand against her apron before she whispered in shy response:

"M'sieu' Amédé!"

Not for these two the new fangled "citoyen" and "citoyenne" decreed in far-off Paris. To their unsophisticated ears the clamour of a trumpet- tongued revolution only came as an unreal and distant echo.

Amédé appeared to have finished cleaning his boots, and Fluerette was able to close the door behind him before she held out her hand for the flowers which he was too bewildered to offer.

"Are those beautiful flowers for me, M'sieu' Amédé?" she asked.

"If you will deign to accept them, Mam'zelle Fluerette?" he replied.

She was eighteen and he was just twenty. Neither of them had ever been away more than a few hours from their remote little village of Dauphine where they were born--she in the little house with the green shutters, and he in the Rue Haute above the shop where his father, Hector Colombe, had sold tallow-candles and sugar, flour and salt, and lard and eggs to the neighbors, ever since he had been old enough to help his father in the business. And when Amédé was four, and Fluerette two, they had made mud pies together in the village street with water from the fountain, and Amédé had warded Fluerette against the many powerful enemies that sometimes threatened her and caused her to scream with terror, such as M'sieu' Duflos, the butcher's, dog, or Achille the garde-champetre with his ferocious scowl, or Ma'ame Amelie's geese.

They had sat together--not side by side, you understand, but the boys on the right side of the room and the girls on the left--in the little class-room where M. le Curé taught them their alphabet and subsequently the catechism; and also that two and two make four. They had knelt side by side in the little primitive church at Laragne, their little souls overburdened with emotion and religious fervor, when they made their first communion: Fluerette in a beautiful white dress, with a wealth of white roses on her fair hair, and a long tulle veil that descended right down to her feet; and Amédé in an exquisite cloth coat with brass buttons, a silk waistcoat, buckled shoes and a white ribbon sash on his left arm.

And when Amédé had been old enough to be entrusted with his father's errands over at Serres, a couple of leagues away, Fluerette had climbed behind him on the saddle, and with her arms round his waist, so as to keep herself steady, they had ridden together along the winding road white with dust, Ginette, the good old mare, ambling very leisurely as if she knew that her riders were in no hurry to get anywhere that day.

And now Fluerette was eighteen and Amédé twenty, and her hair was like ripe corn, and her eyes as blue as the sky on a midsummer morn, whilst her mouth was dewy and fragrant as a rose in June. No wonder that poor Amédé felt as if his feet were of lead and his neck too big for his cravat, and when presently she asked him to fill a vase with water out of the carafe so that she could place the beautiful flowers in it, is it a wonder that he spilt the water all over the floor, seeing that his clumsy hands met her dainty fingers around the neck of the carafe?

The good Hector pretended to be very angry with his son for his clumsiness.

"Voyez-moi cet imbecile!" he said in that gruff voice of his which had become a habit with him, because he had to use it all day in order to ward off the naughty village urchins who tried to steal the apples out of his shop.

"Mam'zelle Fluerette, why don't you box his ears?"

Which, of course, was a very funny proposition that caused Fleurette and Amédé to laugh immoderately first and then to whisper and to chaff whilst they mopped the water off the tiled floor. And the good Hector turned once more to Bibi, and shaking his powerful first at nothing in particular, he brought it down with a crash upon the table.

"And now those gredins, those limbs of Satan are taking him away for cannon-fodder! Ah! the devils! the pigs! the pig-devils!"

Bibi looked up inquiringly.

"Taking him away, are they?" he asked dryly. Then he added with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders: "Amédé is twenty, isn't he?"

"What's that to do with their dragging him away from me, when I want him to help in the shop?" Hector retorted with what he felt was unanswerable logic.

"What would be the good of keeping shop, my good Hector," Bibi rejoined simply, "if France was invaded by foreigners as she is already ruined by traitors?"

"Well! And isn't she ruined now by all those devils up in Paris who can think of nothing better than war or murder?" growled Hector Colombe, heedless of the quick gesture of warning which Bibi had given him.

Adèle, the girl from the village who gave old Louise a hand about the house when Bibi was at home, had just come in from the kitchen with a pile of plates and dishes which she proceeded to range upon the dresser. Hector shrugged his big shoulders. Whoever would think of taking notice of Adèle? A wench who got five souls a day for scrubbing floors! An undersized, plain-faced creature with flat feet and red elbows. Bah!

But Bibi still put up a warning finger:

"Little pitchers have long ears," he said in a whisper.

"Oh! I know, I know," Hector rejoined gruffly. "It is the fashion these days for us all to spy upon one another. A pretty pass they have brought us to," he added, "your friends in Paris."

To this Bibi made no reply. No doubt he knew that it was impossible to argue with Hector, once the worthy epicier was in one of his moods. Adèle had finished her task and glided out of the room, silent, noiseless, furtive as a little rat, which she vaguely resembled with small, keen eyes, and pointed nose and chin. In a corner of the room, by the window, still busy with those flowers which seemingly would not set primly in the vase, Fluerette and Amédé were talking under their breath.

"I'm going away, Mam'zelle Fluerette," said he.

"Going away, M'sieu' Amédé? Whither? When?"

"They want me in the army."

"What for?" she asked naively.

"To fight against the English."

"But you won't go, will you, M'sieu' Amédé?"

"I must, Mam'zelle Fluerette."

"Oh, but what shall I--I mean, what will M'sieu' Colombe do? You must remain here, to help him in the shop." And fight against it as she would, there was an uncomfortable little lump in her throat when she pictured how terribly lost M'sieu' Colombe would be without his son.

"Father is very angry," Amédé said rather hoarsely, because he too had an uncomfortable lump in his throat now. "But it seems there's nothing to be done. I have to go."

"When?" Fluerette murmured, so softly, so softly, that only a lover's ears could possibly have caught the whisper.

"I have to present myself tomorrow," Amédé replied, "before M'sieu' le Commissaire de Police at Serres."

"Tomorrow? And I have been so happy today!"

The cry came from an overburdened little heart, brought face to face with its first sorrow. Fluerette no longer attempted to keep back her tears, and Amédé, not quite sure whether he should cry because he was going away or dance with joy because it was his going away that was making Fluerette cry, but in time by wiping his face which was streaming with perspiration and tears.

"I wish I could at least have seen those children wedded," the worthy epicier muttered in the interval of blowing his nose with an noise like a cloudburst. "At least," he added with the good round oath which he reserved for occasions such as these, "before they take my Amédé away."

Bibi on the other hand appeared to be more philosophical.

"We must wait for better times," he said, "and anyhow Fluerette is too young to marry."

Chapter 5

Parting is not such sweet sorrow as the greatest of all poets would have us believe. At any rate Fleurette did not find it at all sweet, on this her eighteenth birthday, which should have been a very happy one.

It was bad enough saying "adieu" to Bibi. But Fleurette was accustomed to that. Of late Bibi had been so often and so long absent from home: sometimes weeks--nay! months---would elapse, and there would be no Bibi to fondle Fleurette and bring life and animation within those white-washed walls that held all that was dearest to her in the world. It was undoubtedly heart-rending to bid Bibi adieu: but in a way, one knew that the darling would come back to Lou Mas as soon as he was able, come for one of those surprise visits that made Fleurette as gay as a linnet all the while they lasted. But to say goodbye to Amédé was a different matter. He was going into the army. He was going to fight the English. Le Bon Dieu alone knew if Amédé would ever come back. Perhaps he would be killed. Perhaps--oh! perhaps-—

Never in her life had Fleurette been so sad.

And now the last of the goodbyes had been said. Bibi, accompanied by M'sieu' Colombe and Amédé, had walked away in the direction of the village, where he would pick up his horse, and start along the main road that led to Serres and thence to Paris.

Fleurette remained on the bridge for some time, shading her eyes against the sun, because they ached so from all the tears which she had shed. The three men had become mere specks, 'way down the road: old Louise had gone back to her kitchen with Adèle, only Fleurette remained standing on the bridge alone. Tears were still running down her cheeks, whilst with aching eyes she strove to catch a last sight of Bibi as he and his two companions disappeared round the bend of the road. Or was it Amédé she was trying to see?

The afternoon sun had spread a mantle of gold over the snowy crests of Pelvoux: on the sapphire sky myriads of tiny clouds seemed to hold hearts of living flame in their fleecy bosoms. The wavy ribbon of the Bueche was like a giant mirror that reflected a whole gamut of glowing tints, blue and gold, and purple, whilst on the winding road, the infinitesimal atoms of dust seemed like low-lying clouds of powdered topaz. Suddenly in the direction of Sisteron those clouds rose, more dense: something more solid than powdered topaz, animated the distance: grew gradually more tangible and then became definite. Fleurette now could easily distinguish ten or a dozen men coming this way. They all wore red caps on their heads. Ahead of them came a man on horseback. He wore a tricorne hat, adorned with a tricolour cockade, and the sun drew sparks of flame from the steel bit in his horse's mouth and from the brass bosses and buckles on the harness.

Now Fleurette could hear the dull stamping of hoofs on the dusty road, and the tramping of heavy, weary footsteps: and she watched, fascinated, these men coming along.

All at once the rider put his horse to a trot, and the next moment he reined in on the bridge. He put out his hand and cried a sharp: "Halte!" whereupon the other men all came to a halt. Fleurette stood there wondering what all this meant. Vaguely she guessed that these men must be soldiers, though, of a truth, with the exception of the one on horseback and who appeared to be their officer, there was very little that was soldierly about them. Their red caps were of worsted, and adorned with what had once been a tricolour cockade, but was now so covered with dust that the colours were well-nigh indistinguishable. The men's coats, too, once blue in colour and fitted with brass buttons, were torn and faded, with several buttons missing: their breeches were stained with mud, they had no stocking inside their shoes, and it would have been impossible to say definitely whether their shirts had been of a drabby grey when they were new, or whether they had become so under stress of wear and dirt. Fleurette's recollection flew back to the smart soldiers she used to see when she was a tiny tot and Bibi took her to Serres or Sisteron on fête days when the military band would march past in their beautiful clothes all glittering with brass buttons, and their boots polished up so that you could almost see yourself in them.

But there! every one knew that these were terribly hard times and that new clothes were very, very dear: So Fleurette supposed that the poor soldiers had to wear out their old ones just like everybody else. And her sensitive little heart gave an extra throb or two, for she had suddenly remembered that M'sieu' Amédé would also be a soldiers very soon, wearing a shabby coat, and perhaps no stockings inside his shoes. Still thinking of M'sieu' Amédé, she was very polite to the man on horseback, although he was unnecessarily abrupt with her, asking her gruffly whether Citizen Armand was within.

Fleurette said "No!" quite gently, and then, choosing to ignore the coarse manner in which the man uttered a very ugly oath, she went on: "Father has been gone a quarter of an hour and more, and if you--"

"Citizen Armand, I asked for," the officer broke in roughly, "not our father."

"Father's name is Armand," Fleurette said, still speaking very politely. "I thought you were asking for him."

The horseman, she thought, realizing his mistake, should have excused himself for speaking so rudely: but he did nothing of the sort. He just shrugged his soldiers and said in a very curious way, which sounded almost like a sneer:

"Oh! is that how it is? You are Citizen Armand's daughter, are you?"

"Yes! M'sieu' l'officier."

"Call me citizen lieutenant," the man retorted roughly. "Hasn't your father taught you to speak like a good patriot?"

Fleurette would not have admitted for the world that she was half- afraid of this unkempt, unshaved officer with the gruff voice, but she felt intimidated, shy, ill at ease. She would have given worlds to have some one friendly beside her, old Louise, or even Adèle.

"Shall I call Ma'ame Louise," she suggested, "to speak with her?"

"No," the man replied curtly, "what's the use if your father isn't there? Which way did he go?"

"To the village first, M'sieu'--I mean citizen, to pick up his horse which he always leaves at M'sieu' Colombe's stables. He is going to Paris afterwards."

"How far is it to the village?"

"Less than a quarter of a league--er--citizen."

"And the house," the officer asked again, "where the ci-devant Frontenacs live, is that far?"

"About half a league by the road from here," Fleurette replied, "the other side of the village. There is a short cut behind this house, past the mill, but--"

The man, however, was no longer listening to what she said. He muttered something that sounded very like an oath, and then turned to the soldiers: "Allons! Marche!" he commanded sharply. The men appeared terribly dusty and tired and hardly made a movement to obey: at the first call of "Halte", some of them had thrown themselves down by the edge of the road and stretched out full length on the heaps of hard stones pile up there; others had wandered down the slope by the bridge, and lying flat on the ground were slaking their thirst in the cool, clear water of the stream. Fleurette was very sorry for them.

"May they wait a moment, M'sieu' le--I mean, citizen lieutenant," she pleaded. "I'll get them something to drink. We haven't much, but I know Louise won't--"

But the officer took no further notice either of her or of the men. Having given his order to march, he had readjusted the reins in his hands, and struck his spurs somewhat viciously into his horse's flanks. The horse reared and plunged for a moment, then started off at a sharp trot, clouds of dust flying out from under its hoofs.

The men made an effort to rise. Fleurette put up a finger and smiled at them all.

"Wait one minute," she said, and ran quickly back into the house.

There was the best part of a bottle left of that good red wine: Bibi had not touched it again after he broke the stem of his glass. Fleurette had picked up the bottle and taken a tin mug from the dresser and was about to start out again before Louise thought of asking her what she was up to.

"There are some poor, tired soldiers outside on the bridge," Fleurette replied, "I want to take them something to drink. There's not much of it, and twelve of them to share it, but it will be better than nothing, and perhaps le bon Dieu will make a miracle and make it be enough. They seemed so thirsty, poor dears."

"Let Adèle go," Louise said curtly. "I don't like you speaking with those vagabonds."

And while Adèle ran out, as she was bid, with mug and bottle, Louise continued to mutter half under her breath:

"I can't abide these sans-culottes. Brigands the lot of them. What are they doing in the neighbourhood, I'd like to know. Up to no good you may depend. Let Adèle talk to them. It is not fit for a well-brought- up wench like you to be seen in such company."

Fleurette did not pay much attention to old Louise's mutterings. There was plenty to do in the house with washing up and tidying things away. And it was Louise's habit to grumble at anything that was in any way unusual: a wet day in August, or a mild one in December, a caleche on the road, a horseman, a soldier, or a letter for Bibi. She was always called "old Louise" although, in truth, she had scarce reached middle age; but her skin was dry and rough like the soil of her native Dauphiné, her face and hands were prematurely wrinkled, and her voice had become harsh of late, probably for want of use, like a piece of mechanism that has stood still and begun to grind for want of a lubricant. In Armand's house, when he was absent, she ruled supreme. Fleurette never dreamed of disobeying, and Armand's only peremptory orders to Louise were never to mention politics or current events to the child.

Louise had nursed Fleurette at her breast when Fleurette's mother died in child-bed, and she had left her own baby in the care of her sister, already a widow and childless. Considerations of money had prompted her at the time, for Monsieur Armand, as he was then, had made her liberal offers: afterwards, it was too late to regret. Her own daughter, Adèle, born of an unknown father who loved and rode away, had been brought up to a life of drudgery by her aunt, who sent the girl out to earn her own living as soon as she could toddle, whilst Fleurette was brought up to have everything she wanted; petted and idolized by a father plentifully supplied with money. Fleurette and Adèle were foster-sisters, but with destinies as wide apart as the peaks of Pelvoux.

But Louise never spoke one bitter word when she saw Adèle with toil- worn hands scrubbing the kitchen floor on which Fleurette trod with dainty, high-heeled shoes. Perhaps she loved her foster-child more than she did her own; perhaps it was only the same considerations of money that had already guided her conduct before, that prompted her later to indulgence towards the rich mans' daughter, whilst reserving her pent-up acrimony for the household drudge. No one knew what Louise's feelings were toward Adèle--Adèle herself least of all. The girl was silent, reserved, self-contained, very conscientious in her work, but not very responsive to the many kindnesses shown her by M'sieu' Armand or Mam'zelle Fleurette. She still lived with her aunt who had brought her up, and she appeared to lay no claim to her mother's affection: she had earned her own living ever since she was ten years of age, and now, at eighteen, she looked more like a woman than a girl: her little face was all pinched up, the lips thin, the eyes either sharp as needless or expressionless like those of a rodent. She hardly ever spoke and no one had ever seen her smile.

Old Louise's mutterings presently turned toward Adèle's prolonged absence:

"What is the girl about now, I should like to know? She is not a gossip as a rule."

She went on with her washing up for a moment or two longer, and then said sharply:

"Run along, Fleurette, and see what the wench is doing. Lazy baggage, with all the work there's still to do."

Fleurette ran out at once. She too wondered why Adèle was such a long time. And there, sure enough, standing on the bridge, was Adèle talking to the soldiers. The officer was already out of sight. Adèle talking! and Fleurette even thought that she heard her giggle. Incredible! The soldiers were all laughing, and one of them was in the act of drinking the last drop out of the tin mug.

Fleurette stood for a moment on the doorstep, vaguely wondering what in the world had come over Adèle, when a rather curious incident occurred: the soldiers were all laughing, jesting apparently with the girl, and one of them, with head tilted back, was draining the last drop out of the tin mug. Fleurette was on the point of calling to Adèle when her attention was arrested by the appearance of an old man carrying what looked like a load of faggots tied up in coarse sacking. He seemed to have climbed the slopes on the opposite side of the road; at any rate there he was, all of a sudden, immediately behind the group of soldiers.

He appeared to be drunk, for he staggered as he walked and leaned heavily on a stout gnarled stick. Fleurette could not have told you exactly how it all happened, but all of a sudden Adèle's giggling and the soldiers' jests were interrupted by the old faggot-carrier tumbling down clumsily, right between them all.

Adèle screamed. The soldiers swore, and one of them went to the length of giving the old man a savage kick, whilst two others incontinently picked him up between them and flung him over the parapet of the bridge. Fleurette gave a cry of dismay and ran to the poor man's assistance. She felt hot with indignation at such wanton brutality. How right, she thought as she ran, had old Louise's estimate been of these soldiers---little better than brigands they were, and cruel to boot. The poor faggot-carrier, for such he seemed to be, was lying half in and half out of the stream: the grass and sloping ground had somewhat broken his fall, but nevertheless there he lay, motionless and groaning piteously. Fleurette called peremptorily to Adèle to come and help her hoist up the poor man on his legs again. He was very dirty, dressed in nothing but rags, his feet swathed in coarse bass matting; he was stockingless, shirtless and hatless; but he appeared to be powerfully built and Fleurette marveled how he could have allowed himself to be thus maltreated without a struggle. No doubt he was drunk or crippled with rheumatism.

Up on the bridge the soldiers were preparing to start once more on their way. They took no more notice of their unfortunate victim nor of Adèle; but Fleurette looking up felt that their last glance was for her; some of them were regarding her with a leer, others with more pronounced malevolence. She distinctly saw one man nudge his neighbour and point a finger at her: whereat both of them gave a mocking laugh.

She felt hurt and indignant: in her sheltered life she had never met with malevolence before. However, for the moment, her first care was for the poor faggot-carrier. Adèle had come to her assistance, and together the two girls succeeded in getting the old man on his legs again. He appeared more scared than hurt, and with his big, toil- stained hands, he felt himself all over to see, perhaps, if any bones were broken; and all the while he kept on murmuring rather pathetically: "Nom de nom, de nom de Dieu!" as if surprised that such a tragic adventure should have happened to him.

Fleurette asked him if he were hurt, and he replied: "No, Mam'zelle..that is citizeness," and he added: "Ah, I shall never get used to these new ways. I am too old."

"Can you get on your way now?" Fleurette asked.

"Yes! yes, Mam'zelle, that is citizeness. But," he went on piteously, "I am so hungry. I come from over Mison way and I have not had a bite since seven o'clock this morning."

This naturally stirred Fleurette's kind, compassionate heart. She told Adèle to run into the house and ask Louise for a hunk of bread. Adèle, silent and self-contained once more, obeyed without comment. The incident was closed as far as Fleurette was concerned. Her thoughts flew back to Amédé and to his last day and evening which he would be spending in his cozy home. She wished she had been bold enough to ask him to come and bid her a last adieu tomorrow morning before he went away to fight the English.

And while she stood there gazing out over the valley where the metal cross on the church steeple of Laragne glistened like gold in the sunlight, a strange voice--soft yet firm--suddenly struck her ear from somewhere close behind her.

"Papers and valuables are behind the panel in Madame's room."

She swung round terrified, so terrified that the cry she was about to utter died away in her throat. She looked about her, scared, shivering with that nameless dread which assails every mortal in face of the supernatural. And yet everything seemed as peaceful as before: the little mill stream splashed and gurgled with its soft, persistent sound; in the old walnut tree a thrush was calling to its mate and the old faggot-carrier was busy tying up his faggots into the sacking again. Fleurette's eyes rested for an instant anxiously upon him. She expected to see him raise his head, to look about him, to appear scared as she was herself; but he gave no sign of having heard anything of that mysterious voice, fresh and compelling like a command from heaven. Oh no! Fleurette could not have screamed. She was too panic-stricken just at first to utter a sound. And yet nothing had really happened to alarm the most timorous. Only those few words spoken by an unseen tongue. What did they mean? What could they mean? They were simple and commonplace enough: Fleurette repeated them to herself mechanically:

"Papers and valuables are behind the panel in Madame's room."

What did it mean? What papers? what valuables? and why should the mysterious speaker have wished her to know that they were behind the panel in Madame's room? Madame was, of course, Madame de Frontenacs over at the château, and all of a sudden Fleurette remembered that the mounted soldier had asked her the way to the château. Gradually she was feeling less scared. Less scared but more excited. She looked round at the statue of St. Antoine, at whose feet she had this morning placed a fresh bunch of forget-me-nots. Somehow she associated the mysterious voice with St. Antoine. Perhaps Madame had lost some valuable papers, and the kind saint had chosen this means of letting her know where her treasure was. Fleurette made the sign of the cross on her bosom; she remembered the story of Jeanne d'Arc which M. le Curé had used to tell her, of how the humble shepherdess of Domrémy had been compelled by heavenly voices to go forth and deliver France from her enemies and never rest until she had seen the King crowned in his cathedral of Rheims.

Fleurette felt something of that same fervour which had animated Jeanne d'Arc. She felt that she must go forth and tell Madame about the valuables and the papers. The evening was warm and she would not need her shawl. She could go just as she was as far as the château and be back before the twilight had faded into night. Adèle in the meanwhile appeared at the front door, she had her shawl over her head, and a hunk of bread in her hand. Then only did Fleurette remember the old faggot-carrier. She turned in order to bid him "Godspeed." He stood there quite motionless, leaning upon his stick, bending under the weight of his load of faggots which he had hoisted upon his back. His lank hair hung over his wrinkled forehead and half concealed his eyes. But suddenly through the veil of lank grey hair Fleurette met the mans' glance fixed upon her; and her heart gave a queer jump. Those were not the eyes of a decrepit old man; they were young and clear and bright: of a luminous grey-blue, with heavy lids that could not wholly conceal the humorous twinkle in the eyes, nor yet the kindly, searching glance which was fixed on Fleurette.

This was the moment when she really would have screamed. The sense of something ununderstandable and unreal was more than she could bear, she would have screamed, but those twinkly, searching eyes held her, and at the same time seemed to reassure her, to tell her not to be afraid. She felt as if she were in a dream: unable to do anything, only to stare and stare at the old faggot-carrier, while gradually all her terrors seemed to fall away from her, and she was filled with a sense of courage and of determination. The whole incident, the voice, the glance, her terror and reassurance had lasted less than five seconds. Already Adèle was close by. She was bringing the bread for the poor, half-starved man, and Fleurette now watched him, fascinated, as he took the bread with a humble: "Merci, Mam'zelle," and started at once on it, like a man who has not tasted food all day. He was just a decrepit old man, bent with rheumatism, dirty, unkempt, insecure on his tottering limbs. He even raised his eyes once, and once more looked at her; but the glance was dim like that of an old man; there was no twinkle in the eyes, only the weariness of poverty and old age.

And Fleurette felt that she had dreamed it all: the voice, the glance, the message from St. Antoine, just as her terrors had faded from her, so now her excitement vanished too. It must all have been a dream. It was a dream! Perhaps old Louise, who was versed in all kinds of dreamlore, would know of an explanation for the whole mysterious occurrence. Feeling very tired all of a sudden--for she felt the reaction after the tenseness of the last few moments, she went back into the house. In the doorway she turned to have a last look at the old faggot-carrier; leaning heavily on his stick, he was making his way along the bank of the stream. The last she saw of him was his big bundle done up in sacking and his legs bending beneath the weight.

Adèle wrapped in her shawl had gone the other way. She was already up on the bridge. With a little sigh of disappointment Fleurette went into the house. It had been such an exciting dream!

But she did not speak about it to old Louise; she just went quietly about the house, doing one or two little bits of work that Adèle had left undone.

The slowly sinking sun had turned the gold on Pelvoux's snowy crest to a brilliant rose, when Fleurette suddenly announced to Louise that she was going over to the château. She often went there, and at all hours of the day.

"So long as you are home before dark," was Louise's only remark. "I don't like those down-at-heel soldiers being about."

Fleurette promised that she would not be late. She picked up her beautiful new shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders. The château was not far; over by the mountain track, it was not more than a quarter of a league at most. Swiftly Fleurette ran out of the house and then along the edge of the stream--the same way that the old faggot-carrier had gone an hour so ago.

And now the mantle of twilight was falling over the valley; the jade- coloured sky held myriads of tiny, fleecy clouds of a brilliant, glowing crimson, which one by one faded into grey along the snow of Pelvoux reflected the glory of the sinking sun, and in the old walnut- tree the thrush's song was stilled.

Chapter 6

The place was always called le château for want of a more appropriate name. As a matter of fact it was just a large, rumbling roomy farmhouse with stables and stable-yards and sheds and outbuildings, all built in a mass and at different times as necessity demanded, in the midst of a really fine park, shady with century old trees and fragrant with accacias and roses. Here for many generations the de Frontenacs, father and son, had lived, toiled, and died, farming their land, honouring their King and otherwise not troubling their heads over much with politics or with art or literature. They were good, kindly, honest folk, all of them, and if the light of their intellect burned somewhat dim, that of their charity was always kept fed and bright.

They belonged to that sturdy stock which had given France one of her most valiant sons in Louis de Frontenac, the man who had made Eastern Canada a jewel worthy of the crown of France. The jewel had been lost since then, irretrievably lost to the English, and the crown of France been dragged in the mire of a bloody revolution, its glory forever overshadowed by the unforgivable crime of a purposeless regicide: but the present holder of the ancient name and owner of the lands had kept himself aloof from the awful dissension that raged in the big cities; he had remained in his heart loyal to his martyred King, and though shorn of most of his wealth, deprived of a great deal of his inheritance, perpetually threatened with confiscation or attainder, he continued to lead the simple life, hoping for better things, detached as far as he was able from the turmoil that was ruining his country and shaming her in the eyes of the world.

At all seasons of the year, and in all weathers, he could be seen out on his farm, directing the work in fields or stables, clad in rough boots and breeches, abrupt of speech, but kindly in deeds, beloved by some, envied by others, hated only by those few who see in every noble life a reproach to their own.

His wife was the daughter of an Admirable in the late King's navy, who had thought it prudent to serve the Republic, as he had served his King, with commendable detachment from his country's politics. Though brought up in the midst of the gaieties and luxuries of Paris, Anne de Grandville had been quite content to follow the husband of her choice to the lonely house in the Dauphiné, and to fall in with his bucolic ways: she donned a cotton kirtle and linen apron as readily as she had donned silken panniers in the past, and took as much pride in her cooking now as she had done once in her proficiency in the dance.

At one time Charles de Frontenac had sorely grieved because he had no son to whom he could bequeath his glorious name and fine inheritance, but now he was glad. With France handed over to the control of assassins, bandits, and regicides, the name of Frontenac might, he opined, just as well die out. What was the use of toiling to improve land which tomorrow might be wrested from its rightful owners: what was the use of saving money which would probably on the morrow fall into the hands of brigands? "Lay not up for yourselves treasures on this earth where rust and moth doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal!" had never been so wise an admonition as it was today.. All that Charles de Frontenac hoped to do was to put by a sufficient competence to keep his wife and invalid daughter in comfort once he was under the ground. That daughter was the apple of his eye. Bereft of position and most of his wealth, all his thoughts and hopes were centered on this delicate being who seemed like the one ray of sunshine amidst thunder-clouds of disappointment and treachery.

Rose de Frontenac had been a cripple from birth, and it was her delicacy and her helplessness that had so endeared her to her father. He was a man resplendent with vigor and of herculean strength: one of those bull-necked men who could have taken his place in an ox-team and not proved a weakling. His hands were rough, his fist as hard as a hammer. His clothes smelt of damp earth and of manure; the descendent of a long line of aristocrats, Charles de Frontenac, was above all a son of the soil. To him his pale-faced, fragile daughter seemed like a being from another world; he hardly dared touch her cheek with his thick, clumsy fingers, nor dared he approach her save after copious ablutions and sprays of scent. His heart was as big as his body. He adored his daughter, he loved his wife, he beamed with fondness for Fleurette: Fleurette who was as gay as a linnet, who could always bring a smile to the pale lips of his wan, white Rose: Fleurette, who could sing like a lark, prattle like a young sparrow and whose corn- coloured hair smelt of wild thyme and of youth.

Chapter 7

Fleurette had walked very fast. She was still tremendously excited and would have ran all the way, only that the road for the most part led sharply uphill and that her heart was beating and pumping wildly with agitation.

Strangely enough the gates of the park were wide open, which was very unusual, as they were always kept closed for fear of the foot-pads and vagabonds. Old Pierre, who was in charge of the gate, was nowhere to be seen. Fleurette ran along the sanded avenue which, bordered by bosquets of acacia and elder, led in sharp curves up to the house. Twilight was slowly fading into evening, but even through the gathering darkness Fleurette noticed that the avenue, usually so beautifully raked and tidy, was all trampled and knocked about as if by the weight of many heavy feet. A minute later the main block of the château stood out before her, like a solid mass silhouetted against a jade-coloured sky. Just above the pointed roof of the turret at the furthest angle above the façade, a star shone with a cold, silvery radiance.

The entrance into the main building was under a broad archway which intersected the façade and led into the great farmyard and to the sheds and farm buildings. Fleurette felt vaguely conscious that something unusual had occurred at the château; though the place looked peaceful enough, it appeared strangely deserted at this hour, when usually men and maids were still about their work. She slipped quickly under the archway, and turning sharply to the left, she came to the great paved hall where servants and farm hands sat at meals.

She found the place in a strange state of confusion: the men--they were all old men these days, as all the young ones had had to go and join the army and fight the English--the men were standing about in groups, talking and gesticulating with their arms, after the manner of the people of Dauphiné, who are glib of speech and free with their gestures; the maids were gathered together in the dark corner of the room, holding their aprons to their eyes. The oil lamp which hung from the whitewashed ceiling had not yet been lit: only one or two tallow- candles on the table guttered in their pewter scones.

Old Mathieu, who was the acknowledged father of the staff and who was affectionately called Papa by the maids, was the first to spy Fleurette, who stood disconcerted in the doorway.

"Ah! Mam'zelle Fleurette! Mam'zelle Fleurette!" he exclaimed and lifted his hands and cast up his eyes with an expression of woe: "Quel malheur! Mon Dieu, quel malheur!"

He had on his bottle-green coat, his buckled shoes, and the white cotton gloves which he wore when he served the family at meals upstairs. They had just finished dinner, it seems, when the awful calamity occurred.

"But what is it, papa?" Fleurette asked, feeling quite ready to cry in sympathy. "What has happened?"

"The soldiers, Mam'zelle!" Papa replied, and a fresh groan went the round of men and women alike, and one or two of the girls sobbed aloud.

Now as far as Fleurette was concerned, as recently as this very morning, the inner meaning of these words "the soldiers!" would not perhaps have had much significance. In her own little home, by Bibi's strict orders, politics and social questions were never discussed. Fleurette was not supposed to know anything of the conflicts that were raging in the great cities, in the name of liberty and of fraternity. The horrors of summary arrests, of perquisitions, of sentences without trial, of wholesale executions, of hatred and revenge and lust were supposed to be beyond her ken; and knowing Bibi's abhorrence of those subjects being broached, she kept her counsels and her knowledge to herself. But Fleurette was not brainless, and she had a large heart. With her brain she had noted many things which were willfully kept away from her, and her kind heart had often been filled with pity at many of the tales which she had heard in the village, tales of suffering under this new kind of tyranny wielded, it seems, in the name of liberty and of the brotherhood of man. She had heard many things and had forgotten nothing; but somehow until this morning these things had seemed remote, like the tales of ogres and demons which are told to frighten children. She had not disbelieved them, but vaguely she felt that nothing of the sort could possibly happen to people whom she knew and loved.

But since this morning many things had occurred which had widened her range of vision. Amédé, who did not want to go away, was being dragged from his home in order to be made into a soldier and to fight the English. She had actually seen some of those soldiers, ragged, uncouth and unkempt, with their officer, like a great bully, speaking to her, as if she were a mere slut out of the streets. He had jeered when she told him that she was Citizen Armand's daughter, and the soldiers had nudged one another and seemed to mock her when she met their glance. Then again she had heard the mysterious voices and seen something in the person of a decrepit old faggot-carrier that had thrilled and puzzled her. All these things had worked a subtle change in Fleurette. The tales of ogres and demons no longer appeared quite so remote. The fact that there were evil and sorrow in the world had in a vague kind of way been brought home to her, and also that the spectre of death and misery of which she had only heard was actually lurking in this peaceful corner of Dauphiné and had already knocked at this very door.

"The soldiers!" meant something to her now.

"What happened?" she asked, and a dozen tongues were ready to embark on the telling of the tragic event. It was just after dinner. Madame and Mademoiselle had retired to the boudoir, as usual, and monsieur was sipping his wine in the dining room, when the great bell at the gate clanged loudly. Pierre, who was still at work in the stables, ran to open the gate: he was almost knocked down by two men on horseback who, without a word or question, rode past him along the avenue up to the house followed by a dozen men or more in tattered uniforms and wearing dirty read caps on their heads. The sound of horses and of men stamping the ground brought some of the maids and farmhands out into the yard. The soldiers had come to a halt under the archway, the two riders then dismounted and ordered André to take their horses round to the stables. André, of course, did not dare disobey. Then, as the entrance door was closed, one of the soldiers knocked loudly against it with the butt-end of his musket, whilst one of those who had been on horseback and who appeared to be in authority called out summarily:

"Open in the name of the Republic!"

Old Mathieu, who was upstairs clearing away the dinner things, terribly scared, ran down to open the door. Again without a word or question, the soldiers pushed past him until they came to the vestibule where they demanded to know where were the ci-devant Frontenacs. Old Mathieu here paused in his narrative and once more threw up his hands and cast up his eyes in horror.

"Ci-devant, mam'zelle!" he exclaimed. "I ask you! Just as those devils up in Paris talked of our poor martyred King and Queen!"

Of course he tried to stop the brigands from going up to see Madame like that, in their dusty shoes and dirty clothes. But what could he do alone among so many? Ah! if only Baptiste and Jean, Achille and Henri had been there, as in the good old days, fine sturdy fellows of the Dauphiné: they would soon have got the better of these down-at- heel bandits, and if it was a case of protecting Madame and Mademoiselle, why! there would have been some broken heads, and the soldiers of the Republic would have sung another song than they were singing now, the muckworms! But there! Henri and André and the lot of the young ones had all been taken for cannon-fodder, to fight against the English, and there were only a few fogies left now like he-- Mathieu--and the women.

Anyway, poor old papa was helpless. All he could do was to precede those hell-hounds upstairs, so that he might at least warn Monsieur of what was coming. But even this they would not let him do; as soon as he had reached the upstairs landing, the same man who had ordered him to open the front door in the name of the Republic, and who wore a tricolour sash around his middle, this same man grabbed him by the shoulder and thrust him aside as if he were a bundle of faggots. And without more ado, he just walked into the dining room where Monsieur was still quietly sipping his last glass of wine.

From seeing Monsieur sitting there, the beautiful long-stemmed wine glass in his hand, his face quite serene, you would have thought that he had heard nothing of the turmoil on the stairs. But he had heard everything, the tramping of feet, the rough voices, the curt command to open in the name of the Republic. He knew what was coming. Perhaps he had expected it long ago. It was well to be prepared for anything these days. Anyway, there he sat, glass in hand, his elbow resting on the table, where Mathieu had but a few minutes ago been engaged in clearing away the dessert. At the rude entry made by all those ragamuffins into his beautifully ordered dining room, he just turned his head and looked at the men.

"In the name of the Republic," the man with the sash said curtly.

Monsieur put his glass down and rose slowly to his feet.

"What is it you want?" he asked quietly.

"The rest of the family, first of all," the man with the sash replied. "I want you all here together."

"Madame de Frontenac and my daughter Rose are not at home," said Monsieur, still speaking very quietly.

"That's a lie," the other retorted. "They were at meal here with you."

And with careless finger he pointed to the serviettes and plates which still littered the table. Monsieur did not wince under the insult; nor was the saying of such a brigand an insult to so high-minded a gentleman as Monsieur. All he said was:

"That is so. Madame and Mlle. de Frontenac were at dinner with me, until half an hour ago when they left the house together."

"Whither did they go?"

"That I do not know."

"Which is another lie."

"If I did know," Monsieur rejoined imperturbably, "I would not tell you."

"We'll soon see about that," the man with the sash said grimly. He then turned to the soldier who appeared to be in command over the others: "Allons! citizen lieutenant," he said curtly, "the rest is your business. The two women have got to be found. Thats the first thing, after that we shall see."

The officer then ordered two of his men to stand on guard over Monsieur, and since then the tramp, tramp of the soldiers' feet had resounded throughout the château. Upstairs they went, and downstairs; in Madame's room and in Mademoiselle's, in the kitchen, the stables, the offices. They interrogated the men, they bullied the women; they turned everything topsy-turvy; they raked about in the hay and the straw of the stables, they scoured the park, they glued their ugly, dirty noses to the sanded paths, trying to find the imprint of footsteps. But neither of Madame or Mademoiselle had they yet found a trace. They were still at it, raking and scouring and searching. In the intervals they tried to browbeat Monsieur, threatening him with summary shooting one moment, which only made him laugh and shrug his shoulders, and promising immunity for his women-folk if he would say where they could be found. But these promises only made Monsieur laugh and again shrug his shoulders.

"Immunity?" he said. "They have that already, thank God! for they are beyond your reach now. If they were not, do you think I would trust to your promises?"

Old Mathieu paused. The story had neared its end:--this tale of woe and anxiety and horror, such as the worthy old man had never thought to see. The others had not much to say; the maids were still crying, with excitement rather than grief, and the old men stared open- mouthed, or sagely nodded their heads. "Then," Fleurette put in at last, "Madame and Mademoiselle have gone. Really--really gone?"

Mathieu nodded with another sigh, half of perplexity, half of woe.

"But whither?" Fleurette insisted. "How? Why?"

"God alone knows, Mam'zelle," papa averred. "He has spirited Madame and Mademoiselle away to save them from these brigands."

"Did anybody see them go?"

Men and maids shook their heads. No one had seen Madame or Mademoiselle go. Old Mathieu was the last to have seen the ladies. He had just begun to clear the table, when they rose, and, as was their custom, went through to the boudoir. Mathieu had opened the door for them. And now he came to think of it, the ladies had each kissed Monsieur very tenderly before they went out of the room. Yes! the kiss had seemed like a farewell. Mathieu shook his head dolefully: he remembered it now, but hadn't thought anything about it at the moment. Monsieur certainly appeared more thoughtful. Usually, while he drank his last glass of wine and Mathieu was engaged in washing the silver in the large copper bowl which he always brought into the room for that purpose, Monsieur would chat with him, talk over the gossip of the day. But tonight he had been unusually silent. Yes! Mathieu now remembered quite distinctly about the kiss, and about Monsieur being so silent. But he certainly had noticed nothing else unusual, until the moment when those brigands banged at the door and demanded admittance in the name of their godless Republic.

Mathieu was on the stairs at that moment, so he did not know how Monsieur had looked when he heard all the tramping and the noise. But Madame and Mademoiselle were gone, of that there could be no doubt. The brigands had searched for them, like so many dogs digging for a bone, and not a trace was there of the two ladies, for the bon Dieu, no doubt, had made them invisible.

Of old Mathieu and the staff, the officer in command took no notice, after he had summarily ordered them to muster up in the hall; he had counted up the indoor servants and the farmhands; those who had their homes outside the precincts of the château, he ordered roughly out of the place.

"Get back to your homes!" he had said to them, after he had inspected and questioned them; "and stay there quietly, if you value your lives."

So there were only half a dozen old men, the four girls and the staff's cook left in the château. All of them were scared, and as Mam'zelle Fleurette could see, they just stood about and talked and talked while the girls did nothing but cry. He--Mathieu--could do nothing with any of them. The work of the house ought to be carried on; none of them had had any supper yet. But there! young and old, they were, all of them, too much upset to work or to eat; and the tramp-tramp, upstairs and downstairs was nerve-shattering to everybody.

Fleurette listened to the amazing story until the end. As Mathieu said, there was the ceaseless tramping of feet still going on. They-- those horrible soldiers of the Republic, unworthy to be called Frenchmen--were still searching for Madame and Mademoiselle in order to drag them to Orange where the awful guillotine had been at work these months past; or perhaps even to Paris--that den of horrors beside which the stories of demons and ogres were but trivial tales.

Madame and Mademoiselle! who never in their lives had done harm to anyone: but rather spent every hour of the day planning and executing kind deeds! And Mademoiselle! so delicate and frail that even her father, who idolized her, hardly dared touch her. And now these men, these rough and uncouth soldiers, with their harsh voices and bullying ways, to think of their approaching Mademoiselle, pushing her, dragging her, it made Fleurette's blood boil even to think of such a possibility. No wonder that the bon Dieu made them invisible to the eyes of all those bandits.

Tramp! tramp! tramp! and now a loud banging as if pieces of furniture, chairs, tables were being overturned, and then a crash, as of broken china!

"Holy Virgin!" Papa Mathieu exclaimed with a loud groan; "to think of Madame's beautiful things! Those brigands are furious at not finding Madame and Mademoiselle, and are venting their wrath on inanimate things."

It was these words of old Mathieu that sent Fleurette's thoughts flying in another direction--back to the early afternoon of this memorable day--back to the first visit of these awful soldiers, and to the faggot-carrier with his bundle tied up in sacking. From thence to the voice! The mysterious voice that had told her where valuables and papers were to be found. It was such a flash of recollection that her whole face became transfigured; anxiety and superstitious awe gave place to that same fervour which had animated her when she met the eyes of the faggot-carrier: eyes that conveyed a message, which at last she was beginning to understand.

"Papa!" she cried impulsively.

"Yes, Mam'zelle?" Mathieu asked with another sigh.

"Did anything else happen--I mean anything unusual?--did Madame--or Monsieur--receive a letter? a message? or--or did any other stranger come to the château this afternoon?"

"Oh, think, Papa Mathieu, think," she implored with tears of agitation choking her voice. "I cannot tell you how important it is. Try to remember--was there anything?--anybody?--"

Papa persistently shook his head, until Pierre, who was the gate keeper, reminded him that Monsieur had gone down the avenue as far as the gate, just ten minutes before dinner was served.

"There's nothing very unusual in that," Mathieu retorted. "Monsieur is often out just before dinner is served."

"Yes!" Pierre insisted. "But what did he do this evening? He walked straight to the gate, which I had closed half an hour before. I saw him. He walked straight to the gate, he did, and you know the old acacia tree just the other side? Well! Monsieur put his foot on a bar of the gate and reached over to the forked branch of the old tree. I saw him quite plainly, I tell you. And when he walked back to the house he had a piece of paper in his hand with some writing on it, which he was reading. And I think, papa," Pierre concluded triumphantly, "you'll have to admit that there was something unusual in that ."

But Mathieu, with the obstinacy of old age and long service, would not admit it, even now.

"Monsieur," he said, "met the mail-carrier at the gate, he often comes at this hour. He gave Monsieur a letter. Monsieur often gets letters-- "

But here André interposed. Old André--they were all of them old-- worked in the stables, and it was he who had taken the two horses from the soldiers when ordered to do so, and walked them around to the stables. It was then that he noticed two beggars hanging about in the yard: a man and a woman. He had peremptorily ordered them off the premises.

"Beggars!" Fleurette exclaimed eagerly. "What were they like?"

André said that as the sun was in his eyes he couldn't see them very well. There was a man and a woman. He was busy with the horses and upset by the arrival of all these brigands. The woman he couldn't see at all because of the shawl which covered her head, but he recollected that the man was a big fellow, bent nearly double under a huge bundle tied up in sacking.

"When I spoke to him," André went on, "he mumbled something or other, but I just told him to clear out, he and his woman; we'd enough of vagabonds, I said, in the place with all these soldiers."

"And did he go?" Fleurette asked.

"Yes! I must admit he went off quite quietly after that. I did not think he meant any evil, because when he first caught sight of me he did not attempt to hide or to run away."

"If he had," André went on after a moment or two, "I would have been after him pretty quickly, and wanted to know what was in that big bundle."

He paused, a look of perplexity and of shamefacedness came over his wrinkled old face while he thoughtfully scratched his head: "Now I think of it," he said, "I ought to have inspected that bundle. It looked mighty heavy for faggots or for rags. Perhaps he had been up to no good after all--and directly after I lost sight of him and his woman I saw a whole lot of faggots lying in a heap close by the stable door."

The other old men and the maids had gathered closer round André and Fleurette. His was the first they had heard of the old vagabond and his woman, and the bundle which appeared so heavy.

"You certainly ought to have inspected that bundle, André," Mathieu said sententiously. He felt that there was a chance of recapturing his dignity which seemed to have been slightly impaired through his argument with Pierre. He could reassert his authority at any rate by rebuking André. "It looks," he went on, "as if the old vagabond had brought a lot of faggots with him, then turned them out of the sacking and replaced them by God knows what valuables he may have stolen."

"I was so upset, you understand, papa!" André murmured ruefully.

"We were all of us upset, as you call it, André," papa rebuked sternly, "but that is no excuse for neglect of duty."

"Don't scold André, papa," Fleurette broke in excitedly. "My belief is that the old vagabond, as you call him, was a messenger from the Holy Virgin, sent on purpose to get Madame and Mademoiselle safely out of the way."

"Oh, Mam'zelle!"

"From the Holy Virgin!"

"Sainte Marie, mère de Dieu, priez pour nous!" came in chorus from the maids. Even the cook, an elderly woman, jealous of her own dignity, was unable to conceal her excitement. The old men shook their heads, looked wise and skeptical.

"What makes you say that, Mam'zelle Fleurette?" Mathieu asked in an awed whisper.

But Fleurette was silent now. Already she had repented of having said so much. Discretion would have been so much wiser. That was the worst of her: she always allowed her tongue to run away with her. She looked eagerly from one anxious face to the other: well she knew that the little she had said would be talked over and commented on and be made the subject of gossip until it reached the village and possibly even Serres and Sisteron; and God only knew what harm this might do to Madame and Mademoiselle. She bit the tip of her tongue hard just to punish it for having wagged too freely, and seized with a sudden impulse, which she found irresistible, she snatched up a candle from the table and incontinently turned and fled out of the hall, leaving the others to gape and stare after her, to scratch their heads, and to conjecture.

Aye! and to gossip, too.

Chapter 8

Perquisitions in those days of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality were perhaps among the minor horrors that befell innocent and guilty alike, at the behest of tyrants more implacable than the Inquisitors of Mediaeval Spain, more cruel than the Borgias: but they were terrible nonetheless. A perquisition meant, in most cases, the destruction of every household treasure, every family relic cherished through the generations, it meant the wanton smashing of furniture and mirrors, the ripping up of valuable tapestries and of mattresses, the defacement of priceless pictures, it meant prying, hostile eyes thrust into receptacles, however secret, into private papers and even letters. Nothing was sacred to men deputed to insult and to offend, just as much as to search.

When Fleurette reached that part of the house which was occupied by the family, she was confronted by the wildest, the most heart-stirring confusion. The carpets had been torn off the floors, the furniture for the most part lay in broken heaps about the room, mirrors and pictures had been dragged off the walls, broken crockery and glass were scattered everywhere, intermingled with horsehair and other stuffing out of chairs and mattresses, whilst all the walls, the doors, the window-frames bore traces of rude handling with bayonet or the heel of a boot. Fleurette, wide-eyed and appalled, ran from room to room; the uttering tallow-candle which she held threw flickering lights and grotesque shadows on the scattered objects about her, made them seem more weird, like the appurtenances of an abode of ghosts. Here in the pretty boudoir Mademoiselle's embroidery frame lay smashed to tinder wood with threads of the work still hanging to it, bits of rags, pathetic in their look of abandonment and desolation. There in the withdrawing room, the beautiful satin-wood spinet with its painted panels and exquisite marqueterie was lying on its side, its body gaping like a gigantic wound, the strings emitting a final vibration like the last song of a dying swan.

From the direction of the dining room came the incessant murmur of voices, but throughout the rest of the apartments, in the midst of all the wreckage, a silence reigned as of the grave. The place now was completely deserted. It seemed almost as if some terrible tornado had swept through these living-rooms; some implacable forces of nature rather than the hatred and cupidity of men. An earthquake could not have been more devastating, a fire more destructive.

And now in the midst of it all Fleurette came to a standstill, candle in hand: her breath came and went in quick short gasps, and her heart was beating furiously. The silence in this semi-darkness with those long, ghost-like shadows seemed to oppress her-; the broken bits of beautiful things which she had known and loved ever since she remembered anything, gave her an awful feeling of desolation and a kind of foreboding of things, still worse, to come. It was instinct which had brought her to a halt here in this one room amongst the others. It was always known as Madame's room, for here Madame would always sit when she gave her orders to various members of the household, here that she would look through the household accounts whilst Fleurette and Rose, when they were still children, would sit in a corner of the sofa by the huge hearth, hand in hand, with a picture book on their knees, silent like a pair of tiny white mice, waiting until Madame had finished her, because then they would all go into the garden to gather flowers for the rooms, and fruit for desert, or perhaps go down into the kitchen and learn how to dress a chicken for the table, or how best to mix a salad.

And Fleurette stood for a moment or two quite still, holding the candle high above her head, contemplating this wreckage. Then, having found a safe place in which to deposit the candle, she carefully closed the door which gave, like several others, on a long corridor that led to the main staircase at one end and to the service stairs at the other. The time had come to cease contemplation, to drive away superstitious fears and to act. Closing her eyes, Fleurette strove first of all to recapture pictures of long ago, to recreate the scenes enacted in this room, before this awful calamity had fallen on these people whom she loved so dearly. Memory was not rebellious. She could see the whole picture just as it had impressed itself on the tablets of her mind when she used to sit here as a child. There by the window Madame's desk used to stand. It was lying on its side now, the drawers wrenched open, the handles broken, papers, pen and sand scattered about; the ink had run out and stained the beautiful old Aubusson carpet. But there Madame used to sit. Fleurette could almost see her now, at the desk. Her big household books were open before her. Writing, calculating, and putting her money by in a leather bag. And presently she would rise, pick up her bag and books and carry them across the room to a spot close to the wall, the other side of the hearth. Here she would come to a standstill, and putting her beautiful hand somewhere against the wall, she would turn to the girls--they were mere children then--and smile at them in a mysterious way; and they would say solemnly "Open Sesame!" just as they had heard in the tale of Ali Baba and the forty robbers, which Monsieur de Frontenac had often told them. As soon as they had said the magic words the wall would open like the entrance of the robbers' cave in the tale of Ali Baba, disclosing a recess into which Madame would put her books and her bag of money. Then she would once more turn and give a sign to the children and they would say: "Close Sesame!" and the mysterious door would swing to again and no trace be left of the recess which lay hidden somewhere behind the paneled wall.

The whole picture stood out before Fleurette's mental vision in every detail; the exact spot where Madame used to stand, the way she put out her hand and touched the paneled wall. Carefully picking her way through the maze of broken furniture, Fleurette came to a halt on the very spot where she had so often seen Madame standing, with her books and money-bag in her arms. She put out her hand and touched the panel as Madame had done: all over the carved panels she put her hand, touching and pressing each bit of carving in its turn. Her heart was still beating wildly, but not in any way with fear. In fact she was surprised at herself for not being afraid. It was just the excitement of this wonderful adventure! She, Fleurette, who had seen nothing of the world beyond her own village of Laragne and an occasional glimpse at Sisteron, suddenly found herself guiding the destinies of people whom she loved--the messenger sent by the bon Dieu to help them in their need. There is no young human creature living who would not respond, heart and soul, to such a call, and Fleurette was of the South, a child of that romantic land of Dauphiné which had given so many of her heroic sons to strive and work for France.

And suddenly, as Fleurette pressed her finger on every piece of carved relief, one by one, she felt the centre of a dog-rose yield to the pressure. Softly, noiselessly, the panel swung outwards, and there in the recess were the familiar household books and the money-bag. Beside them lay a leather wallet and a small casket fitted with a brass lock. Without any hesitation Fleurette took the bag, the wallet and the casket, leaving the books where they were. Never for a moment did the thought occur to her that she might be discovered in what would be a highly compromising position. She was too simple-minded, too innately honest to think that she might be suspected of theft.

Having stowed the wallet and the bag in the wide pockets of her kirtle and hidden the casket beneath her shawl, Fleurette picked her way back across the room. She left the mysterious recess open because she did not know how to close it, and did not want to waste any time trying to find out. She found her way to the door and opened it, then she blew out the candle and finally peeped out into the corridor.

It was deserted. The lingering evening light, pale and ghostlike, came creeping in through the row of tall arched windows facing her. As everywhere else in the château, the corridor bore the melancholy traces of the soldiers' passage. It was the same devastation. The same wanton destruction was only too apparent in the torn carpet and the fragments of glass and broken sconces that littered the floor. Fleurette, turning her back on the direction of the main staircase, made her way to the back stairs which wound in a close spiral down to the service door.

Fleurette descended with quick, furtive steps, until, past the first curve of the spiral, the stairs were in total darkness. But she would have found her way all about the château blindfold, so well did she know its every nook and cranny. She came to the door and fumbled for the bolts. She had drawn one and taken off the chain, when she heard a measured tramp on the other side of the door. Steps were coming this way along the flagged path; a moment or two later they came to a halt close to the door. Fleurette hardly daring to breathe, listened. A voice said: "Did you go in there?"

"No, citizen," replied another, "not by this door. The bolts are fastened on the inside."

Something else was said which Fleurette did not catch, and the steps receded in the direction of the front of the house. She waited a minute or two longer, breathless and motionless, until she heard what she thought was the tramp of feet in the corridor above her. The soldiers had apparently been ordered to come round again, perhaps they would be coming down those stairs. To hesitate now might prove fatal. Fumbling once more in the gloom, Fleurette found the last bolt and drew it, and the next moment was out in the open. The back door gave on the yard. On the right were the stables, and facing the door, the riding school and one or two sheds; on the left the kitchens and the servants' quarters. In this direction too was the great archway and the main entrance into the house. Past the archway was the park and the avenue leading to the big gates.

After a moment's reflection Fleurette decided to avoid these main approaches: there was another way across the park, past the stable gate. Hugging the casket closely under her shawl, Fleurette set out in the direction of the stables. There was no one about and she felt comparatively safe. Night was now rapidly drawing in, and she fortunately had on a dark kirtle and dark worsted stockings. The air was very still and the waning moon not yet risen in the east. From far away came the sound of the bell of Laragne church. It struck eight. Fleurette felt a pang of anxiety. She had promised to be home before dark and Louise would be anxious and cross: and there was still something she wanted to do before she went home. Now she was past the stable door where, in a heap, just as old André had said, there lay a pile of faggots. The sight of them gave Fleurette a happy thrill. Was she not obeying the dictates of the mysterious voice which had spoken to her through the medium of the old faggot-carrier?

The next moment, a firm step resounded on the flagstones of the stables, and a second later a man appeared under the lintel of the door.

"Fleurette! what in God's name are you doing here?"

Smothering a startled cry, Fleurette turned and found herself face to face with her father. He was standing at the stable door; his hands were clasped behind his back, and he had a tricolour sash round his waist. Now women, young girls, especially, those born and bred in outlying country districts, are credited with being stupid, silly in their fears, timorous like hens; and so no doubt would Fleurette have been in ordinary circumstances. She may not have been either clever or brave originally; she would perhaps have behaved in a silly, timorous fashion but for this one fact, that she knew something terrible was happening to the Frontenacs whom she loved, and that she had been deputed by the bon Dieu, or merely by a human friend, to do something important for them. In order to do this she must keep her head; and trust any woman to keep her head if one she loves is in peril.

"What are you doing here, Fleurette?" Bibi reiterated rather sternly.

And Fleurette, with a well-simulated nervous little laugh, retorted lightly:

"Why, Bibi chéri, I might retaliate! What are you doing here? I thought you were on your way to Paris."

"What are you doing here, Fleurette?" Bibi said once more, and Fleurette thought that his voice had never sounded so harsh before.

"But, Bibi," Fleurette said simply, "I often come to see Madame and Mademoiselle. And after you left this afternoon I felt so lonely and sad, I thought I might seek Mademoiselle Rose for company."

"And have you seen her?"

"No. They told me Madame and Mademoiselle had gone."

"Who told you?"

"Papa Mathieu."

"What else did he tell you?"

"Only that there were soldiers come to the château, and that I'd better go home again--and so I'm going."

"He didn't tell you anything else?"

"No," Fleurette replied innocently. "Was there anything else to say?"

"No--er--no," Bibi rejoined. "Of course not. But Fleurette--"

"Yes, Bibi darling?"

"How often must I tell you that you must not talk of "Madame" and "Mademoiselle"? There are no Madames and Mademoiselles now; we are, all of us equally, citizens of France."

"Yes, Bibi," Fleurette rejoined demurely. "And I really, really am very careful when strangers are about. It doesn't matter what I say before you, does it, chéri Bibi?"

"No, no," Bibi muttered, seemingly without much conviction, and Fleurette then went on quickly:

"I must run home now, chéri Bibi, or Louise will be getting anxious. You are coming too, aren't you? Louise will get you such a lovely supper and then--"

"No, my little one," Bibi said. "I can't. Not tonight. I must be in Orange tomorrow."

"But Bibi--"

"Run along, child," Bibi broke in almost fiercely. "It's a dark night, and there are always vagabonds about."

"Ah well then, good night, Bibi," Fleurette murmured meekly.

And suddenly Bibi put out his hand and grasped Fleurette by the wrist.

"Are you not going to kiss me, Fleurette?" he asked with oh! such a tone of sadness now in his voice.

It was a terrible moment. What a mercy that the darling had seized her left wrist, rather than her right, because with her right hand Fleurette was hugging the small casket under her shawl. There were also the wallet and the moneybag in the pocket of her kirtle: oh! if Bibi should knock against them! Fortunately it was dark, and he could not see the bulge under her shawl. But, of course, she could not part from Bibi chéri without giving him a farewell kiss. He seemed sad and unhappy, and there was something about his whole manner that Fleurette did not understand.

At first, when he startled her by suddenly appearing at the stable door, she had not even tried to conjecture what he was doing here; she was too deeply absorbed in her own adventure for the moment to do more than vaguely wonder what part Bibi was playing in the tragic events that had wrought such desolation at the château. Bibi chéri, who worshipped his little Fleurette, who was always so kind, so gentle, a slave to everyone of her whims; he must have been dragged into this horrible affair, was perhaps an innocent tool of those cruel people in Paris, who monopolized his time and kept him away from his home.

Indeed she had no mistrust in him whatever; but her trust in him did not go to the length of telling him about the casket, or the mysterious voice of the faggot-carrier; those were her own secrets, secrets too which concerned the Frontenacs for whom Bibi had never evinced a very great affection, and had even tried to dissuade Fleurette from having too much intercourse with them. It was in fact her love for Madame and Monsieur, and for Mademoiselle Rose, and Bibi's strange dislike of them, which had brought the only clouds in the sunshine of their affection.

But of this Fleurette was not thinking at the moment, her one thought was of her secret and how best to guard it. All the same she would not have denied Bibi chéri the kiss he asked for. She must take the risk, that was all, and once again trust to her wits. She allowed him to put his arms round her neck and held up her fresh young face for his kiss: she held the casket so carefully that he did not feel its sharp angles. All was well, for now she was free from his embrace, but still he had hold of her left hand, and drew her close to him.

"Fleurette, my little one," he said earnestly.

"Yes, Bibi."

"Do you know where the two Frontenac women have gone to?"

"No, Bibi, I do not," Fleurette was able to reply in all truthfulness, and looked her father straight in the eyes. "They were gone before I came."

"It is for their good that I ask you."

"I am sure it is, Bibi, but really, really I do not know."

Bibi gave a quick, impatient sigh.

"Ah, well! goodbye, my Fleurette."

"Good night, Bibi."

At last she was free. With her left hand she blew a last kiss to Bibi, and then quickly sped across the yard. Her heart felt heavy and there was an uncomfortable lump in her throat. For the first time she had been brought face to face with the realities of life. Hitherto she had lived in a kind of fairyland in which she was the carefully tended and guarded queen, and Bibi the acknowledged king as well as slave.

Everything in the world was perfect, and lovely, and wonderful; the men and women in it--not only Bibi, but Louise, and M. Duflos the butcher, and M. Colombe the grocer, and--and M. Amédé--they were all kind and generous and gentle. But now cruelty and spite had come within her ken. An ugly ghoul called "hatred" had passed by hand in hand with his ugly brother "mistrust" and the latter had whispered something in her ear just now, which had caused her to shrink within herself when Bibi had kissed her, and to turn from him and to run away with a strange sense of relief.

She did not look back as she sped across the yard, and when she came to the small postern gate she was thankful to find it on the latch, so that she could slip out unseen.

Chapter 9

Fleurette was too young, too ignorant for self-analysis. She could not have told you what had made her act in the way she did, nor what had caused her so to mistrust Bibi as not to share her precious secret with him. All she knew was that she had had a wild desire to get away from him.

A cart-track led from the postern gate across a couple of fields where it joined the main road; one or two isolated farm buildings belonging to M. de Frontenac, and the open fields on both sides, made the track fairly safe from foot-pads. The main road too which led through the village would be safer after dark, than the short cut over the mountains. Fleurette hastened along, hugging her treasures, hoping that she would not fall in with the soldiers on their return from the château.

The weather had not fulfilled the promise made by the beauty of the sunset: heavy clouds hung over the sky; only one or two streaks of pale lemon-coloured light, like great gashes through the leaden clouds, still lingered in the West. Through the gloom farm-sheds and isolated trees loomed out like great immobile giants, and, on the right, the dense mass of the avenue of acacias and elder and the great gates of the château.

Fleurette was already well on her way along the high-road and in sight of the first house of the village, the cottage where Adèle lived with her aunt, the widow Tronchet, when she heard the all too familiar sound behind her of the heavy tramping of feet and of horses' hoofs raising the dust of the road. The night was so still that the sounds reached her ears distinctly. She heard the lieutenant's harsh voice giving a brief word of command: the creaking of the château gates, as they swung upon their hinges. Just then Roy, Monsieur's dog, set up a dismal howl, and from one of the tall poplar-trees that bordered the road an owl gave a hoot and fluttered out into the night.

Fleurette broke out into a run. She knew that she could ask for shelter in the widow Tronchet's cottage and wait there until the soldiers had gone by. Perhaps Adèle would walk home with her after that. Fortunately she could already perceive the light glimmering in one of the tiny windows, and just at the moment Adèle came out of the front door, probably to see for herself what the unusual sounds were about.

She was mightily surprised to see Fleurette come running along.

"They are the same soldiers, Adèle," Fleurette explained breathlessly, as she followed her foster-sister into the cottage, "who were at Lou Mas this afternoon. Close the door, do, and I'll tell you all about them."

The widow Tronchet came out of her kitchen, and looked disapprovingly at Fleurette. She did not like the girl, and discouraged all intercourse between her and Adèle. She was a thrifty, hard-featured, hard-hearted peasant--older than her sister Louise by a couple of years---who had exacted every ounce of work and obedience from Adèle in payment for the shelter of her roof and for her daily bread. She had never forgiven her sister for leaving Adèle on her hands, though the girl had always worked her fingers to the bone, grudgingly no doubt, but diligently, in order to bring additional comfort into the cottage. But it was a poor, ill-furnished cottage, wherein food was none too plentiful, and beds hard, whereas Louise at Lou Mas lived in the lap of luxury; and envy had fostered dislike until it had almost become hatred.

She listened, with a frown on her hard wrinkled face, to Fleurette's breathless tale of what had happened at the château. It would be the gossip of the village by to-morrow, that the soldiers of the Republic had arrested Monsieur, and that Madame and Mademoiselle had fled no one knew whither.

"Oh,' Ma'ame Tronchet," Fleurette concluded, her fresh voice hoarse with sobs, "dear Ma'ame Tronchet, you don't think they're really going to harm Monsieur, do you?"

The widow Tronchet shrugged her shoulders and gave a short, harsh laugh.

"I'm not thinking about it at all one way or the other," she said drily. "What difference does it make to us poor people," she went on, grumbling, while she busied herself about the room, "what happens to all those aristos? They never cared what happened to us."

For the moment Fleurette could do no more than stare at the widow Tronchet, in horror. Never had she heard anyone say anything so wicked. She was quite ready to defend Monsieur and Madame against any accusation of hard-heartedness, and would have done so at risk of offending the disagreeable, ill-natured old woman, but for the moment her attention, as well as that of Adèle's, was riveted on the sounds outside. The soldiers had just come round the bend of the road; they were quite close to the cottage already, with the two horsemen walking their mounts in the van.

"They are going on to Serres," Fleurette whispered. In her heart she was wondering what Bibi was going to do. He was evidently not going to Orange, as he had said he would. Would he spend the night at Lou Mas after all? If he did, was there any danger of Fleurette's secret leaking out? Of Bibi chéri finding out something about the casket and the precious wallet? Fleurette was still hugging the casket, she could see the widow Tronchet's hard, steely eyes, gazing curiously at the bulge underneath her shawl, and then at the fullness in her kirtle where the wallet and the money-bag lay hidden in the pockets: Fleurette felt the blood rush up to her cheeks, and then had the mortification of seeing Adèle's pinched-up little face break into a smile. Of what were those two women thinking? Surely not that she, Fleurette, had been stealing. Their faces were so inscrutable: the older woman's hard and set, and Adèle's rat-like and furtive, as if determined to conceal her thoughts.

The next moment they all heard the horsemen go by. Adèle ran to the door and peered out into the night. Over her shoulder she said to Fleurette:

"There's your father riding with the soldiers. Shall I shout to him and tell him you are here?"

Instinctively Fleurette shook her head, and with that same inscrutable smile still on her face, Adèle deliberately closed the door again.

"They've got Monsieur walking between them," she commented drily.

"It would have been better," the widow said acidly to Fleurette, "for Citizen Armand to know that you are here. It won't be safe for women to be alone on the high-road this night, I am thinking."

Then, as Fleurette remained silent, debating within herself what she had best do, the old woman went on curtly: "The sooner you get home now, my girl, the better. Adèle has got to put in an hour's work at Citizen Colombe's up at the village: it is miserable pay enough," she continued muttering to herself, "and a shame that one girl should have to work so hard, whilst another lives a pampered life of luxury. But anyway," she concluded abruptly, "I can't be wasting any lamp-oil on you."

"No--no--of course not, Ma'ame Tronchet," Fleurette stammered. But the widow, still muttering under her breath, was paying no more attention to her. She had climbed on to a chair, and reaching up to the lamp that hung from the ceiling, she turned out the light. The room was now in darkness except for the light that came in through the open kitchen door. The widow with a curt: "Don't be late, Adèle," went off into the kitchen, and a moment or two later could be heard busy with her pots and pans.

Adèle had picked up her shawl, and equally unceremoniously gone as far as the door, when Fleurette called her shyly back.

"Adèle!"

The girl turned without speaking, her hand on the door which she was holding open.

"If you are going to M'sieur Colombe, could you--" Fleurette stammered, "I mean, would you tell Monsieur Amédé, that--that I am here, and perhaps--"

"Why don't you come along with me?" Adèle retorted drily, "and tell him what you want."

Of course Fleurette could not tell her that she did not want Monsieur and Madame Colombe to know that she had something important to say to M'sieu' Amédé. So all she said was: "Oh, Adèle, please!"

Adèle retorted with a shrug of the shoulders and an ugly little sneer:

"You don't want his papa and mama to know, I suppose."

Fleurette whispered: "No!"

"Very well!" was all that Adèle said in reply. "I'll tell him."

And in her usual, furtive, noiseless way she went out of the house, closing the door behind her.

Chapter 10

Fleurette remained in darkness, silent, motionless as a little mouse, listening for the well-known footstep which in a few minutes, she knew, would be at the door. It had perhaps been a rash thing thus to give herself away to Adèle, but the girl was uncommunicative and had never been known to gossip. Between two risks Fleurette had chosen the lesser one. If Bibi---as she feared---was going back to Lou Mas, there would be no chance whatever of keeping the secret of Madame's casket and valuables from him, and what Bibi's attitude would be towards them, Fleurette could not guess. It was the great Unknown. For Madame's sake and Mademoiselle's she would not risk it.

Like an inspiration the thought of M'sieur Amédé had occurred to her; of Amédé who, when she was a little girl and he a growing lad, would always take the blame on himself and know how to shield her when they had got into mischief together. She felt now, especially since this afternoon, that she could trust Amédé in a way that she had never trusted anyone else. Not even Bibi. Unfortunately Adèle had to be made a part confidant of the purpose: but after all what did Adèle know? She couldn't know anything about the casket and Madame's valuables: and if she did sneer, or even talk to her aunt about this message sent to M'sieu' Amédé through her, well! Fleurette was prepared to face the gossip---as long as her secret was safe.

She was counting the minutes---the seconds---Five minutes for Adèle to go to the Rue Haute: three and a half for Amédé to run along here--- she did not doubt that he would run. Then there would be the intervening time whilst Adèle sought for an opportunity to speak to him alone. But oh! how Time dragged on leaden-footed! Nearly fifteen minutes must have gone by since Adèle went away. The widow Tronchet was still busy in the kitchen, rattling her pots and pans: but any moment she might finish and perhaps come in here and find Fleurette still waiting. Then there would be more acrimonious remarks, questions, arguments---Had Fleurette known anything about nerves, she would have said that hers were irritated to snapping-point; but there was little talk of nerves in that year, 1794, and none in this remote corner of Dauphiné.

Fleurette found it very difficult even to sit still. Would Amédé never come! All sorts of possibilities occurred to her, bringing her to the point of screaming with impatience. Perhaps he was from home, or working in the shop under his father's eye. Perhaps the soldiers had called at the épicerie and taken him away, and Fleurette would never see him again---Oh! if only time would stand still until Amédé came!

Then at last, when she was on the point of bursting into tears with disappointment, she heard the quick, familiar step. Amédé!!! As noiselessly as possible she opened the door and slipped out. There, sure enough, was Amédé coming along. Though it was very dark now, Fleurette knew it was he because of the sound of his footsteps. Hearing hers, he came to a halt, and she ran up to him, breathless with excitement. All at once the enormity of what she had done struck terror in her heart. She, Fleurette, whose reputation had stood hitherto above all gossip, who for three years in succession had been crowned Queen of the month of May, an honour only accorded to girls of spotless character, she had actually given an assignation to a young man---at night---far from her home and his!

And with the horror of what she had done came an intense shyness. What would M'seur Amédé himself think of her? Indeed, she had to evoke all her fondness for Madame and all her fears for Mademoiselle before she could summon enough courage to approach him, and to place a timid little hand upon his arm. She felt it trembling at her touch, and through the silence of the night came an answering timid sigh and whisper:

"Mam'zelle Fleurette! What can I do in your service?"

His timidity gave her courage. Gently she led him to the edge of the road where the tall poplar-trees cast long, impenetrable shadows.

"M'sieur Amédé," Fleurette began, whispering low so that chance eavesdroppers might not hear: "I don't know what you'll think of me. I know I have done something which every one in the village would call reprehensible. I sent for you in secret because---because, M'sieur Amédé, there is no one in the world I can trust, as I do trust you."

This time there came no sigh on the part of the young peasant, only a quick intaking of the breath, as if he had suddenly been dazzled by a wonderful light. His hard, rough hand crept up shyly and fastened over the soft, quivering one that lay upon his sleeve just like a frightened bird. But he was a man of few words, and therefore said nothing: and Fleurette, encouraged by the pressure of that rough hand, went on more glibly.

"It is about Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle," she said, "up at the château. Soldiers have visited the place and they have broken the furniture and torn the beautiful carpets and the curtains: why, I know not. They have also called Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle traitors and aristos, and they have seized Monsieur and dragged him away from him home. By a miracle, M'sieur Amédé, a miracle wrought by the bon Dieu himself, Madame and Mademoiselle were able to escape out of the château before those awful soldiers came. I know that they are safe, but--"

"How do you know that, Mam'zelle Fleurette?" Amédé asked also in a whisper.

"Because, M'sieur Amédé," she replied, "there is a mysterious personage working for the safety of Madame and Mademoiselle, under the direct guidance of the good God. I feel quite sure that Monsieur will also presently be saved through him."

"A mysterious personage, Mam'zelle Fleurette?"

"Yes, a direct messenger from Heaven. He has come down to earth in the guise of an old faggot-carrier. He looks old and decrepit and toil- worn, but when he speaks his voice is like that of an archangel, and if he looks at you his eyes give you the strength of giants and celestial joy."

"But, Mam'zelle Fleurette--"

"His voice spoke to me this afternoon, M'sieu' Amédé. All it said to me was that papers and valuables were behind the panel in Madame's room. At that time I knew nothing about the soldiers. I had seen them but did not know that they were going to the château to arrest Monsieur and Madame and Mademoiselle Rose. Nevertheless when that voice spoke to me, I felt I must go over to the château as quickly as may be."

"Why did you not send for me then, Mam'zelle Fleurette?"

"I seemed to be in a hurry, impelled to run along as fast as I could. So I went by the mountain track. When I arrived at the château, the soldiers had been there some time. They had turned the place topsy- turvy, scared the servants and smashed and torn up everything, leaving nothing but the walls intact. It seemed as if a great tempest had swept by and wrecked everything. Monsieur was under arrest and Madame and Mademoiselle had gone. No one knew whither. Then suddenly I remembered that mysterious voice: I found my way to Madame's room, and I found the panel, behind which Madame used to hide her household books and her money. I had often watched her doing this when I was a child. I tried to remember how to make the panel work and the good God helped me. And behind the panel I found Madame's papers and her money, and a small box which, I am sure, has precious things in it, or it would not have been there."

"Then what did you do, Mam'zelle Fleurette?" Amédé gasped under his breath, his none too sharp wits slowly taking in the details of the amazing adventure.

"I just took the wallet, M'sieu' Amédé," she replied simply, "and the money-bag, and the box. And here they are."

She tapped the pockets of her kirtle and made him feel the bulge underneath her shawl.

"Oh, mon Dieu!" he exclaimed fervently.

And then she told him about Bibi, and how frightened she was lest when she returned to Lou Mas she should find him there. Bibi's sympathies seemed to be all with the soldiers, she explained, and he would for certain make her give up Madame's papers and valuables to the lieutenant.

"That is why," she concluded with a return to her first timidity, "I wished to speak with you, dear M'sieu' Amédé."

"The Eternal Eve!" It was the first time Fleurette had used an endearing word when speaking to Amédé. Born and bred in this remote corner of Dauphiné, unsophisticated, untutored in the ways of coquetry and cajolery, she knew nevertheless, true daughter of the first mother that she was, that after this he would be mere wax in her hands.

He was!

All that he wanted to know was what he could do for her. Had she asked him to throw himself into the Buëche, he would have done it: but all that she wanted was for him to put her treasures in a safe place, until such time as Madame required them.

"If Bibi knew what I was doing, M'sieu' Amédé," she pleaded, "he would order me to give up Madame's property. But I know that the bon Dieu meant me to take charge of it, or why," she argued naïvely, "should He have sent His messenger to me?"

Of course Amédé was only too ready to share the burden of this wonderful secret with Fleurette.

It was wonderful to share anything with this loveliest being in all the world; and the thought that she trusted him more even than her father, was sending him wellnigh crazy with joy.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Mam'zelle Fleurette," he said: "There's an old tool-shed at the back of our house where all sorts of rubbish are kept. It is an absolute litter now, and the back of it has not been cleared or interfered with for years. But I know of a convenient hole in the flooring, hidden well away in a corner. I'll put these things there. They'll be quite safe---Mam'zelle Fleurette, you'll know where to find them after I've gone away, if you want them."

"After you've gone away?"

For the moment she had forgotten. Of course he was going! How could she forget? He was going to join the army--to fight the English--! Perhaps he was never coming back--oh! How could she---how could she forget?

Amédé after the long speech which he had delivered in a whisper---his longest speech on record---had remained silent. The tone of anguish in Fleurette's voice, just now when he recalled the fact that he was going away, had given him an immense thrill of joy. Altogether poor Amédé felt so happy that he was almost ashamed. The night was so beautifully still: the wind had gone down, and slowly the great clouds that had obscured the sky since sunset were rolling away over the valley. Already overhead a patch of translucent indigo appeared, ever- widening, and revealing one by one the scintillating worlds that are beyond man's ken. Amédé did not want to speak; he wanted it less than he had ever done before. He just wanted to stand there beside this exquisite creature, wrapped in the silence of the night, feeling her nearness, hearing the gentle murmur of her breath come and go through her perfect mouth. She had extracted the casket from under her shawl and given it to him to hold, and she also gave him the wallet and the money-bag; and as she did this, her little hand, so soft and so warm, came in contact with his now and then--quite often---and poor Amédé was on the point of swooning with delight.

"I do trust you, M'sieu' Amédé," she whispered in the end: "and you'll do this for Madame's sake, will you not? and also for Mademoiselle's. And also," she added softly, "for mine."

"Oh! Mam'zelle Fleurette," Amédé sighed. What he had wished to say was: "I would die for you, beloved of my heart: at a word from you I would lay down my life, or barter my soul." But Amédé had no command of words, and was now cursing himself for being a clumsy fool. He stowed away the wallet and the bag into the pockets of his breeches, and tucked the casket underneath his blouse.

"And now I must go home, dear Monsieur Amédé," Fleurette said. "As it is, I am afraid Bibi will be anxious."

Her hand was on his arm: and with a sudden impulse he stooped and pressed his lips against that exquisite little hand. Fortunately they were still standing in the shadows cast by the poplar-trees, or Amédé must have seen the blush that rose to Fleurette's cheeks when she felt the delicious thrill of that timid kiss. A soft breeze stirred the branches above their heads, and through the quivering leaves there came a sigh that was like an echo of their own. And above the crests of Pelvoux the waning moon suddenly rent the last clouds that veiled her mystery, and flooded the snowy immensitites with a shower of gold. Slowly the shades of night yielded to the magic, and the high-road glistened like a silvery ribbon winding, snake-like, toward Laragne.

Fleurette gave a sudden start of alarm.

"What is it, Mam'zelle Fleurette," Amédé asked.

"Some one," she said. "I saw some one move there---furtively---among the shadows."

He turned to look. A small figure wrapped in a shawl had just gone past on the other side of the road.

"It is only Adèle," he said carelessly. "She is going home."

Not altogether reassured, Fleurette peered into the shadows. She did not think that it was Adèle whom she had seen, or, if it was Adèle, there was some one else lurking in the shadows, she felt sure: and though she was not altogether frightened, she felt herself trembling, and her knees giving way under her. No doubt it was in order to save herself from falling that she had leaned more heavily against Amédé's arm. Certain it is that he put that arm round her, only in order to support her; but the contact of that warm, quivering young body against his breast sent the last shred of his self-control flying away on the evening breeze.

The high-road was bathed in honey-coloured light, but these two were standing in the deep shadow cast by the poplar-trees; and the darkness wrapped them round as in a velvety, downy blanket. His arm tightened round her shoulders, pressed her closer and closer to his breast, held her there so closely that she could scarcely breathe.

It was only in order to get her breath that she raised her face to his; far be it from me to suggest that it was for any other motive; but this proved the final undoing of poor M'sieu' Amédé; for the next moment his lips were fastened hungrily on hers, and her sweet young soul went out to him, in a first, a most delicious kiss.

Chapter 11

It all seemed like a lovely dream after that: this walking together arm in arm down the high-road with the waning moon throwing great patches of silvery light to guide them on their way.

They went through the village, not caring whom they met. They belonged to each other now; that wonderful kiss was a bond between them that only death could sever. That was how they felt; supremely, marvellously happy, thrilled with his new delight, this undreamed joy: and with it all a cloud of measureless sorrow at the impending farewell. The magic words had been spoken: "You love me, Fleurette?" The eternal question to which the only answer is a sigh. No, they did not care whom they met. They could laugh at gossip now: from this night they were tokened to one another, and only M. le Curé's blessing could make their happiness more complete.

As a matter of fact they met no one, for they avoided the main street of the village and made their way to Lou Mas along narrow by-paths that meandered through orchards of almond-trees heavy with blossom. For the most part they were silent. Fleurette's little hand rested on Amédé's arm. Now and then he gave that hand a quick, excited squeeze and this relieved his feelings for the time being. Under his other arm he hugged the casket, the precious treasure that had been the mute but main spring of his happiness. It represented Fleurette's trust in him: that priceless guerdon he would not have bartered for a kingdom.

"You will not part with Madame's valuables, will you, Amédé?" she had enjoined him most solemnly. "Not to anyone?"

"Never, Fleurette," he had replied solemnly. "On my soul!"

When they were within sight of Lou Mas, they decided that it would be best for him to turn back. She, Fleurette, was quite safe now, and of course old Louise would be waiting for her--and perhaps Bibi. She was not going to make a secret of her walk home with Amédé. Indeed she wished it proclaimed from the house-tops that they were tokened to one another, and that they would be married as soon as this horrible war was over. There was to be no secret about it, and Fleurette knew well enough that neither Bibi nor M'sieu' Colombe would object; but because of Madame's valuables, she did not want Amédé to come to Lou Mas until to-morrow. And so that first wonderful kiss found its successor in another---one that was perhaps even more delicious, because it was more poignant---the precursor of the last farewell.

Fleurette found Louise anxiously waiting for her. Bibi had not returned and the old woman knew nothing, of course, of the tragic events that had occurred at the château. Fleurette told her what had happened, and while she was speaking Bibi came in. He looked tired and anxious, but Fleurette thought it prudent not to appear to notice anything unusual about him. He made no reference to the events at Frontenac, and when nine o'clock came he kissed Fleurette as tenderly, as unconcernedly as usual. Nine o'clock! What a lifetime, as far as Fleurette was concerned, had been crowded into this past hour!

She went to bed as in a dream, partly made up of sorrow and partly of great joy: even the excitement of her adventure at the château was lost in the immensity of that joy. Fleurette fell asleep with her cheek against the hand on which Amédé had planted that first timid kiss.

When she came down in the early morning Bibi had already gone.

Chapter 12

The soldiers of the Republic together with their officer had spent half the night at Laragne in the tavern kept by the Père Gramme, drinking and jesting with the drabs of the village. Each man had a tale to tell of his own prowess at the château, and how but for him, the ci-devant Frontenac would have slipped through the fingers of justice as readily as the two women had gone.

They were very proud of their prisoner, who sat lonely and silent in a corner of the low-raftered room, foul with the odour of sour wine and perspiring humanity. Monsieur de Frontenac---the ci-devant as he was curtly termed---was apparently taking his misfortune calmly; neither threats nor vain promises caused him to depart from his attitude of quiet philosophy. The soldiers had, of course, made up their minds that he knew well enough where his wife and daughter were in hiding, but they had also realized by now that it was not in their power to force him to divulge what he knew.

The lieutenant---a man who had begun life as a notary's clerk, and therefore had some education---was content to shrug his shoulders and to declare that the citizens of the nearest Committee of Public Safety had plenty of means at their disposal for making an obdurate prisoner speak. He recalled that at the trial of the Widow Capet she had been forced into admissions which, before that, she would sooner have died than make. Mocking glances, jeers and insults were thereupon cast on the prisoner who remained as unconcerned, as serene as before.

The lieutenant had commandeered billets for his men in the better houses of the village, and just before midnight the party broke up. The prisoner was then conducted to the small, local poste de gendarmerie and there incarcerated in the cell usually occupied by vagabonds and cattle-thieves. Two or three of the soldiers remained at the poste to reinforce the local gendarmes, in case some hot-heads in the village meditated a coup to wrest the traitor Frontenac from the clutches of justice. The lieutenant himself had selected the house of Citizen Colombe the grocer of the Rue Haute for his night-quarters. To say that the worthy épicier did not accord this representative of his country's army a warm welcome, would be to put it mildly. He was furious, and showed it as plainly as he dared; but there is in every French peasant a sound vein of common sense, and he knows---none better---when submission to the ruling powers is not only the best policy, but at the same time the most conducive to the preservation of his own dignity.

Ma'ame Colombe--or rather the citizeness---made the lieutenant comfortable and that was all; but at the bottom of her heart she felt that she must do unto him as she would wish her own son to be done by presently, when he too was a soldier in that army which she detested. She fell asleep thinking of Amédé tramping the high-road as these men had done, stockingless, hatless, with unwashed shirt and a dirty worsted cap on his head; and she dreamed all night of him, deprived even of his weekly bath in the big tub, over in the wash-house. That is what she objected to mostly in these men: the dirt. It was wonderful, of course, their fighting for their country, now that all the other countries in the world were attacking France, but Ma'ame Colombe argued to herself that patriotism might just as well be allied to cleanliness. Even the lieutenant, who was after all an officer, and should be setting a good example to his men, would have looked much more imposing if he had washed his face and taken the dust of the road out of his hair.

Great, therefore, was Ma'ame Colombe's astonishment the next morning when she, along with several of her friends, being at the market, saw another detachment of soldiers marching into Larange from the direction of Sisteron. Only eight of them there were, with one officer and a wagon drawn by two splendid horses; but nom du ciel! what a different set of men and horses these were. The men clean as new pins, magnificently dressed in blue coats with white facings and belts, white breeches---all spotless---and black gaiters that reached midway up their thighs. Beneath their elegant chapeau-bras, each adorned with a silk tricolour cockade, they wore their own hair, down to their shoulders, unfettered by the old, ridiculous queue, and each man had successfully cultivated a fierce and magnificent moustache. Everything about them glistened with cleanliness, their boots, their buckles, their muskets; as for the officer, never in all their lives had the good ladies of Larange seen anyone so magnificent: tall, blond, with a moustache that he could easily have tucked behind his ears, and a little tuft of blond beard at the tip of his chin, he walked with drawn sword at the head of his squad, a superb tricolour sash further enhancing the glory of his attire.

Potatoes and eggs and butter were forgotten, while market-women and customers stood gaping, open mouthed. Never had such beautiful specimens of manhood been seen in Larange. By the time they reached the Rue Haute all the village had turned out to have a look at them, and heads appeared at every cottage window. The village urchins followed the little squad, intoning the "Marseillaise" and giving vent to their excitement by performing miracles of acrobatic evolutions. Even Ma'ame Colombe, who was at the moment selecting a piece of meat for Sunday's dinner, could not help but say to herself that she would not mind Amédé being in the army if he was going to look like that!

At that very moment one of the urchins paused in the midst of a magnificently sketched somersault in order to run down the street and back to the market-place, shouting excitedly:

"Ma'ame Colombe! Ma'ame Colombe! the soldiers are at the épicerie."

And so they were! Ma'ame Colombe hastily straightened her cap and snatching up her market basket, ran to the corner of the Rue Haute just in time to see the soldiers with their officer and wagon come to a halt outside her front door. The worthy Hector with his son Amédé, and the old man who helped in the shop, were busy taking down the shutters and displaying the sacks of various kinds of haricots and lentils in tempting array all along the shop front. Ma'ame Colombe heard the magnificent officer give a quick order: "Halte!" and "Attention!" and the next moment she saw him enter the shop followed by his men, the wagon remaining drawn up a little further down the street. The urchins and gaffers crowded round the doorstep open- mouthed, and Ma'ame Colombe had some difficulty in pushing her way through into her own house.

The officer began by asking Hector Colombe how many soldiers of the Republic were still sleeping under his roof.

"Only the lieutenant and two men, M'sieu' l'officier," Hector replied. Whereupon the officer broke in curtly:

"Call me citizen captain. This is the army of the Revolution and its soldiers are not aristos meseems."

Which remark boded no good to Ma'ame Colombe's ears. Clean or dirty they all appeared to be the same type of brigands; overbearing, exacting and merciless! Ah that poor dear Amédé!

The officer then demanded to see the lieutenant and the two soldiers. Amédé offered to call them, but was stopped by a brief command from the captain:

"No, not you," he said curtly, "I want you here, the citizeness can go."

Ma'ame Colombe, obedient and vaguely frightened, put down her basket and went upstairs to fetch the lieutenant and the two men, who were still in bed. But although she had only been gone a couple of minutes, her sense of fear took on a more tangible form when she came down again, for she found all the drawers of the counter open, and much of their contents scattered about the floor. Some of the soldiers were busy ferreting about, behind and under the counter. The officer stood in the middle of the shop talking with Hector, who looked both choleric and sullen; in the doorway, the crowd of gaffers were being kept back by two of the soldiers, who were using the butts of their muskets when some venturesome urchin tried to cross the threshold. But what filled poor Ma'ame Colombe's heart with dismay was the sight of Amédé sitting in the parlour behind the shop, with two other soldiers obviously on guard over him.

Her instinct prompted her to run first of all to her husband with a quick whispered: "Hector, what does this mean?"

But the magnificent officer brusquely thrust himself between her and Hector and said gruffly: "It means, citizeness, that not only treason, but also theft has been traced to this house, and that it is lucky for you that news of it reached the Committee of Sisteron in time, else," he added grimly, "it had been worse for you and your family."

"Treason and theft?" Ma'ame Colombe exclaimed in hot indignation. "You must take it from me, young man, citizen, captain, or whatever you may be, that I'll allow no one to--"

"Hold your tongue, woman," the officer broke in curtly; "you do yourself no good by these protests. Obedience is your wisest course."

"Good or no good," Ma'ame Colombe persisted heatedly, "I won't have the word theft used in connection with this house, and if--"

"Make your wife hold her tongue, citizen," the officer, now addressing Hector once more, broke in curtly, "or I shall have to send her to the poste for interfering with a soldier of the Republic in the execution of his duty."

Poor Hector Colombe, whose choler was shrinking in inverse ratio to that of his wife, did his best to pacify the worthy dame.

"It is all a mistake, Angélique," he said gently. "M'sieu' le Capitaine---pardon! the citizen captain thinks that Amédé has some papers and valuables belong to Madame--I mean, to the Citizeness Frotenac--"

"Are they calling my Amédé a thief, then?" Ma'ame Colombe demanded hotly.

"No! No!" Hector replied, trying to be patient and conciliatory. "Have I not told you that it is all a mistake? Every one knows there are no thieves in this house; but it seems the authorities think that Amédé may have hidden those valuables pour le bon motif."

"If he had," the mother retorted obstinately, "he would say so. Let me just ask him--"

Hector had hold of her hand, but she wrenched it free, and before any of the soldiers could bar the way, she had run into the back parlour, shouting:

"Amédé, my little one, have you told those soldiers that you know nothing of Madame's valuables? Why, nom de Dieu!" she went on, hands on hips, defiant and aggressive like the true female defending its young, "look at the innocent. Is that the face of a thief?"

She pointed at Amédé, who, however, remained strangely silent.

"Voyons, mon petit, tell them!" Angélique Colombe went on with perhaps a shade less assurance than she had displayed at first. The next moment, however, the captain had seized her unceremoniously by the arm, and dragged her back into the front shop. Here he gave her arm a good shake.

"Did I not order you to hold your tongue?" he demanded roughly.

Cowed, in spite of herself, not so much by the officer's tone of command as by Amédé's silence, Ma'ame Colombe did, in effect, hold her tongue. A sense of disaster as well as of shame had suddenly descended upon her. Her ample bosom heaving, she sank into a chair, and threw her apron over her head. She was not crying, but she felt the need of shutting out from her vision the picture of Amédé looking so confused and sullen, of Hector looking as perplexed as she was herself, as well as of that magnificent officer with his fine clothes and his tricolour sash. But chiefly she wanted for the moment to lose sight of that crowd of gaffers and urchins and neighbours, all staring at her, with that unexplainable feeling, not exactly of contentment for her misfortune, but which can only be expressed by that untranslatable word Schadenfreude. Thus shut out from the rest of her little world, the poor woman slowly rocked herself backwards and forwards, murmuring inaudible words under cover of her apron, until she heard the captain's voice saying abruptly:

"Were you the officer in charge of detachment number ninety-seven?"

Curiosity got the better of sorrow, and Ma'ame Colombe peeped round the edge of her apron. The picture which she saw made her drop her apron altogether. The lieutenant who, the night before, had been so overbearing and so hilarious, stood before his superior officer now, a humble, dejected figure, dreading reprimand, like a schoolboy fearing the cane.

"I am in charge of the detachment ninety-seven---yes, citizen captain," he replied haltingly.

What a contrast these two! Ma'ame Colombe, in spite of her anxiety, her indignation and what not, could not help but compare. Woman-like, she had an eye for the handsome male, and what more gorgeous than this captain of the Republican, or revolutionary army, as he apparently liked to style his men, with his braided jacket and superb tricolour sash, with his blond hair and fierce moustachios? He poked his tufted chin out at the bedraggled-looking lieutenant before him, looked down with obvious contempt at the latter's ragged coat and mud-stained breeches. But he made no remark on the want of cleanliness and decency, as Ma'ame Colombe expected him to do.

"Where do you come from?" he demanded.

"From Orange, citizen captain."

"What is your objective?"

"After this, Serres, citizen captain, and then Valence."

"And your orders are to arrest on the way every person suspected of treason against the Republic?

"Yes, citizen."

"And how have you obeyed these orders, citizen lieutenant?" the captain demanded sternly.

"I have done my best, citizen captain," the other replied with an attempt at bluster; "at Vaison--"

"I am not talking of Vaison, which you know quite well, citizen lieutenant. I wish to know how you obeyed the orders given to you to arrest the ci-devant Frontenac, his wife and daughter?"

"Citizen--"

"Have you done it, citizen lieutenant?" the officer thundered, and all of the bluster went out of the subaltern as he stammered meekly:

"When we reached the house of the ci-devant Frontenac, the two women had gone."

"Gone?" and the captain's voice boomed through the low-raftered room like a distant roll of cannon. "Gone? Whither?"

"Gone, citizen captain," the lieutenant murmured under his breath: "spirited away. The devil alone knows how."

"Which means that there is a traitor among you."

"Citizen captain--" the other protested.

"A traitor I say. You had secret orders, and yet the women were warned!" And once more the officer's glance flashed down with scorn on his unfortunate subordinate. His blond hair seemed to bristle with wrath; his moustachios stood out like spikes: he looked a veritable god of vengeance and of wrath.

"Whence," he thundered, "is the ci-devant Frontenac?"

"At the commissariat, citizen captain, guarded by our men," the lieutenant replied.

"And the rest of your detachment?"

"In billets in the village."

"And did you search this house when you entered it?"

"No--that is--no---I did not---that is--" stammered the wretched man.

"Or the other houses where you billeted your men?"

But this time the lieutenant only shook his head in dejected silence.

"Which means that you allowed soldiers of the Republic to sleep under strange roofs without ascertaining whether they were safe. Why, citizen lieutenant, this place might have been swarming with traitors."

"The people here, citizen, are--"

"Enough. You are relieved of your command, and you will proceed now with us to Sisteron where you will render an account of your conduct before the Committee of Public Safety."

Ma'ame Colombe, who had watched the two men closely during this exciting colloquy, saw an ashen hue spread over the lieutenant's face, beneath the thick coating of grime. Though they did not know much in this tucked-away corner of Dauphiné, of what went on in the great cities, they had vaguely heard how great officers of the army had been deprived of their rank and sent to the guillotine for not doing their duty by the army of the Republic. The crowd at the door had also listened in silence; many a cheek turned pale at sound of that thundering voice which held in its arrogant tone a menace of death.

And now the captain turned to the other two down-at-heels soldiers who stood skulking behind their lieutenant.

"Go," he commanded, "round the billets where your comrades are. Bring them hither. And one of you to the commissariat, and bring the ci- devant here too. And no delay, remember. No gossip on the way as you value your lives. I give you five minutes to have all the men and the prisoner here."

The men went immediately to execute the peremptory order, while the lieutenant remained in the shop looking the picture of humility and dejection. Ma'ame Colombe who had a kindly heart inside her ample bosom, felt almost sorry for the man, so miserable did he look. Indeed, it seemed as if this squad of elegantly clad soldiers sowed anguish and terror in their path.

But the worst was yet to come. Ma'ame Colombe thought that she had probed the last depths of humiliation when she heard that gorgeous officer call her Amédé a thief. To such a pass had this so-called revolution brought the respectable children of France, that they saw themselves bullied and insulted, and held up to shame before their neighbours. What was all that in comparison with the shame of seeing Amédé confronted with the proof that in very truth he was in possession of papers and valuables which were the property of Madame de Frontenac?

It all happened so quickly. Poor Ma'ame Colombe could scarce believe her eyes. All that she saw was two soldiers guided by their sumptuous captain go straight through the back parlour and out by the back door into the yard. What happened out there she did not know, but a minute or two later the three men were standing once more in the parlour, and the captain had in his hand a small box, a thick leather wallet and a bag which obviously contained money.

At sight of these Amédé---her Amédé---had jumped to his feet as if he had been stung; all the blood rushed to his face, and made it crimson with choler, and it looked for the moment as if he would hurl himself on the officer of the Republican army--which would have meant instant death for him, as the soldiers had already shouldered their muskets. Ma'ame Colombe gave a terrified shriek, whereat Amédé suddenly seemed to realize his position, the flush died out of his poor face, and with eyes downcast he resumed his former silent, constrained attitude.

The captain shrugged his shoulders and with a note of dry sarcasm in his voice he said:

"I see you make no attempt at denial. You are wise, citizen. Try and induce your mother not to shriek and you'll find that everything will turn out for the best."

He did not say this unkindly, and poor Ma'ame Colombe even thought that she detected an indulgent tone in his voice. She rose to her feet and put her podgy hands together, and when the captain re-entered the shop she looked up at him with tearful, entreating eyes.

"He did it with a good motive, M'sieu' le--I mean citizen captain. Look at the innocent. He is no thief. I swear he is no thief. I'd like," she went on, turning fiercely round and darting defiant glances on the crowd of gaffers on the doorstep, "I'd like to see the man who dared to say that my Amédé is a thief."

The officer had handed the pièces de conviction to one of his men, with orders to put them in the wagon. Then he commanded Amédé to stand up before him.

"Thief or no thief," he said drily, "you are guilty of having acted contrary to the interests of the Republic. You know what that means?"

Amédé made no reply, only hung his head, and twiddled his hot fingers together.

"It means," the officer continued, "that but for one thing, your life would have had to answer for this act of treason."

A groan went round the crowd on whose ears those words had fallen like the toll of a passing bell. But Ma'ame Colombe did not utter a sound. She clung to her Hector and the two old people stood there hand in hand, striving by this loving contact to conquer the icy fear that had gripped their hearts.

"The one thing that will probably save you," the officer resumed after a dramatic pause, "is that the Republic has need of you in her revolutionary army. The enemy is at the gates of France, you are young, healthy, vigorous; it is for you to show your mettle by defending your country. Thus you will redeem the past. For the moment it is my duty to take you before the Committee of Public Safety, whose final word will dispose of your fate."

He spoke loudly so that all the listeners might hear. Gaffers and urchins and market-women hardly dared to breathe. They felt awed, and could only gaze at one another, as if trying to read each other's thoughts. And while awed whispers still went the round, the down-at- heels soldiers, who had spent the night in the village, came skulking back in groups of two or threes. They pushed their way through the crowd into the shop. One of the last to arrive was M. de Frontenac, closely guarded by two of the men.

And there they all stood now in the shop, a dozen or so of them, beside the sacks of haricots and button-onions and split peas; all of them with the exception of the prisoner, looking dirty and bedraggled, with their worsted caps covered in dust, bits of hay and straw clinging to their coats and to their hair, bare-legged and grimy- faced, the steel of their bayonets dull with sludge, their breeches mud-stained. Such a contrast to their superb officer and his splendidly attired squad. And they could hear the women drawing humiliating comparisons, tittering and pointing fingers of scorn at them, whilst even the drabs, with whom they had drunk and jested the night before, turned contemptuous shoulders upon them now.

And thus they were mustered before the magnificent captain; all soldiers together, shoulder to shoulder, the down-at-heel and the grandees---aristos one would have called them, only that they were of the revolutionary army, which set out to exterminate the very last of the aristocracy, the hated tyrants and dissolute brood. And while they stood there, under the eye of the officer, the crowd outside watched them, and instinctively something of the spirit that animated the rest of France, swept like a poisonous sirocco over these worthy villagers of Laragne; the same spirit that in the great cities sent old women knitting and gossiping at the foot of the guillotine and that prompted young girls to dip their kerchiefs in the blood of its victims. A poisonous wind like the breath of demons! Some of the men and women had been to Sisteron and heard the hymn of hate, the Carmagnole! "Ça ira! Ça ira! Les aristos à la lanterne!" One or two of them began to hum it, stamping their feet to its rhythm.

Gradually the song swelled, one after another they took up the tune, these village men and maids who, unbeknown even to themselves had absorbed some of the insidious poison of hatred and black envy.

"Right! Turn!" the captain commanded, and marking time with their feet, the little squad now over twenty strong, started on its way. Ma'ame Colombe, now loudly moaning, still clung to her boy. He was very brave and tried to reassure and to comfort her. Anyway, he would have had to go to-day, he argued, his orders were to report himself at Serres, to be drafted into the army. From the officer's attitude it certainly seemed as if nothing more terrifying was to happen to him. The boy was brave enough too not to let his mother know how doubly his heart ached, because he was saying good-bye to his home, and could not say good-bye to Fleurette. His heart was filled with the image of Fleurette, but he would not add to his mother's sorrow by speaking to her of his own. He was just an unsophisticated village lad, knowing little, understanding less. His own life and comfort were nothing to him, beside the sorrow which his mother felt and which, he knew, would bring such countless tears in Fleurette's lovely blue eyes. The father too tried to be brave; the effort to keep back his tears brought the perspiration streaming down his round, kindly face. When the crowd--- his friends and neighbours some of them---intoned the revolutionary song, his powerful fist was clenched, but he did not shake it at the singers. His sound common sense had come again to his rescue, and whispered to him that for Amédé's sake, quiet submission was the soundest policy.

While mother and son clung to one another in a last farewell, Hector contrived to approach M. de Frontenac who, alone in the midst of such excitement and such conflicting emotions, had remained perfectly calm. The casual observer, not knowing him, might have thought that the fate of his wife and daughter, his separation from them, and the blow that destiny had dealt to these worthy folk here, whom he had known all his life, had left him completely indifferent. He had spent the night in a prison cell, under the eye of men--the local gendarmes---whose welfare and whose families had been his care for years; but seemingly he had slept peacefully. At any rate his face showed no sign of fatigue, or his eyes of sleeplessness. He had dressed with scrupulous care; his well-worn clothes, the ones he was wearing at dinner when the soldiers made irruption into the château, were clean and tidily put on; his cravat neatly tied, his hair smooth. When Hector Colombe approached him, he gripped the worthy épicier warmly by the hand.

And now the crowd parted to allow the soldiers to pass. Some of the girls tried to ogle the handsome ones and to leer at the others, but no one attempted to do more than stare in awe and admiration at the magnificent officer. The two prisoners were ordered to mount into the wagon; one of the soldiers took the reins and the next moment the order, "Quick March!" was given.

The crowd broke into an excited "Hurrah!" and the little squad slowly moved off, officer en tête, and the wagon in the rear, in the direction of Sisteron. Then one of the villagers once more struck up the Carmagnole, and the crowd took it up. "Ça ira! ça ira!" they sang gaily, and the men took the girls by the waist and twirled them round in a gay rigadoon. Old men and young girls; for there were no young men in the villages of France these days, when the army claimed them all, they danced and twirled in the wake of the retreating squad, and around them bare-footed urchins somersaulted along in the cloud of dust raised by the horses and wagon.

And that was the picture that Amédé Colombe and Charles de Frontenac, sitting side by side in the wagon, saw gradually receding before their eyes as they were driven away, prisoners from their homes.

Chapter 13

But in Lou Mas nothing was known of the tragic events that were occurring at Laragne. Old Louise and Fleurette were busy with housework, and if Fleurette went about the house, silent and wistful, it was because presently she would have to say the inevitable farewell to Amédé.

It was Adèle who brought the news. Young Colombe had been arrested by soldiers of the revolutionary army, she said, and he and M'sieu' de Frontenac had been taken to Sisteron. A superior officer of the army had come in this morning and relieved the lieutenant of his command. There had been great excitement in Laragne owing to the arrival of this new detachment of soldiers who were as splendid as those of last night had been travel-stained and bedraggled. The whole of the squad, headed by that magnificent officer, had marched away in the direction of Sisteron, the two prisoners sitting in the wagon in the rear.

It was only bit by bit that old Louise succeeded in dragging all this news out of Adèle. The girl's habitual reticence was put to a severe test by all the questions and cross-questions, whilst Fleurette stood by wide-eyed, distraught with the idea of these horrible complications in which her poor Amédé was being involved. But she would not show any emotion before Adèle, she felt vaguely that her foster-sister, never very expansive towards her, had suddenly become almost inimical. So she waited until Louise had extracted all the news she could out of the taciturn girl, and curtly ordered her back into the kitchen; then as the old woman was about to follow, Fleurette caught her by the hand.

"Louise," she said in a tone of almost desperate entreaty, "dear, kind Louise, I must go to Sisteron---at once."

"To Sisteron?" old Louise exclaimed, frowning. "Heavens alive, what is the child thinking of now?"

"Of M'sieu' Amédé, dear Louise," Fleurette replied. "You heard what Adèle said. They have taken him to Sisteron."

"And what of it?" Louise asked--but she asked for form's sake only, she knew quite well what was going on in Fleurette's head.

"Only this, dear Louise," the girl said with a little note of defiance piercing through her shyness. "We---that is Amédé and I---are tokened to one another."

"Tokened?" the old woman exclaimed with a gasp. "Since when?"

"Since last night."

"And without your father's consent? Well! of all the--"

"Chéri Bibi would approve," Fleurette asserted, "if he knew."

Old Louise shrugged her shoulders. She would not trust herself to speak because the child looked so sweet and so innocent, and her pretty blue eyes were so full of tears, that Louise felt an almost unconquerable desire to take hold of her and hug her to her breast. Which act of weakness would have seriously impaired her authority at this critical juncture. She was wondering what to say next---for in truth she more than suspected that the child was right, and that Citizen Armand would not object to those two young things being tokened to one another, when Fleurette broke in gently:

"So you see, dear, kind Louise, that I must go to Sisteron--now---at once."

"But Holy Virgin, what to do?"

"To see Amédé and comfort him."

"They won't let you see him, child."

"Then I will find chéri Bibi," Fleurette retorted calmly. "He has a great deal more authority than you and I credit him with, Louise. He can order whom he likes not only to let me see Amédé, but even to set him free."

"He would be very angry," Louise argued, "to see you wandering about the high-roads alone, while all those soldiers and riff-raff are about."

Fleurette gave a quaint little smile.

"Bibi's anger against me never lasts very long," she said. "Anyway, I will risk it. Louise dear, will you come with me?"

"I?"

"Of course, you said that Bibi would be angry if I roamed about the high-roads alone."

Louise stood squarely in front of Fleurette, looked straight into those blue eyes, which never before had held such a determined glance. Fleurette could not help smiling at the old woman's look of perplexity; she was the typical hen seeing her brood of ducklings take their first plunge in the pond.

"If you won't come with me, Louise dear," the girl said simply, "I shall have to go alone."

"Get along with ye, for an obstinate wench," Louise retorted gruffly. But the next moment she had already changed her tone. "Get on your thick woollen stockings, child," she said, "and your buckled shoes, and your brown cloak, while I put a few things in a basket for our dinner. If we don't hurry, we shan't be in Sisteron before nightfall."

"M'sieu' Duflos will lend us his cart or a horse," Fleurette rejoined gleefully, "but I won't be long, dear, kind Louise."

And swift as a young hare she ran out and then up the outside staircase to her room under the overhanging climbing rose.

A few minutes later the two women started on their way. Fleurette had on her dark kirtle, her thick stockings and buckled shoes; her fair hair was tucked away underneath her frilled mob-cap. She carried her own cloak and Louise's on her arm, whilst Louise tramped beside her, carrying a basket in which she had hastily packed a piece of bread, some cheese, and two hard-boiled eggs. If M'sieu' Duflos, the butcher, would lend them his cart, they would be in Sisteron by mid-day; but in any case they would be there before dark.

Chapter 14

But M'sieu Duflos had no cart to lend them--that is he had no horse. Didn't Mam'zelle Fleurette and Ma'ame Louise remember? Some of those brigands had been round the week before and requisitioned every horse they could lay their hands on all over the country-side; old nags, mares with foals, butchers' cobs, nothing came amiss to them, nothing was sacred. Oh those soldiers! Were they not the curse of the country? And what difference there was between the so-called revolutionary army and a pillaging band of pirates, M'sieu' Duflos, the butcher, really couldn't say.

All this he told the two women, to the accompaniment of wide gestures of his powerful arms and much shrugging of his broad shoulders. It was Fleurette who had put the question breathlessly to him, as soon as she had caught sight of him standing on the door of his shop, blocking it with his massive bulk.

"A horse? A cart? Alas! it was impossible! Ah! those brigands! those brigands!"

Fleurette could not conceal her disappointment at first; but she was so brave, so resolute; she was for making an immediate start so as to get to Sisteron before dark. Perhaps they would meet horse and cart belonging to some neighbour luckier than poor M'sieu' Duflos. But Louise, more prudent, saw an opportunity for putting the mad adventure off until the next day. A start in the early morning could then be made, she argued, and horse or no horse, Sisteron might be reached before the sun was low. A good project forsooth. Let Fleurette return with her quietly now to Lou Mas and sleep on it. That was it! sleep on it! If only Fleurette would do that she, Louise, felt quite sure that counsels of prudence would prevail.

M. Duflos sagely nodded his head. Sisteron? He could not conjecture why Mam'zelle Fleurette should wish to go to Sisteron. Without an escort! And on foot! What would Citizen Armand say to it, if he knew?

Up to this point, you perceive, not a word about the exciting events that had convulsed Laragne a little over two hours ago. M'sieu' Duflos, watching Fleurette, marvelled how much the girl knew. She on the other hand was longing to ask questions, whilst dreading to lose time in unnecessary gossip. She looked about her at the familiar objects: the pump, the shop fronts, the poste de gendarmerie, on the other side of the square, and in the corner of this Rue Haute where the soldiers must have stood this morning with Amédé, a prisoner amongst them.

Everything for the moment in Laragne appeared calm, not to say commonplace. The women had all gone home to cook the midday dinner; the men were at their work. Every moment she thought that she must see Amédé coming round the corner with his slow swinging steps, looking for her! M'sieu' Duflos and Louise were talking together, not exactly in whispers, but under their breath; the way people talk when the subject is exciting and perhaps awe-inspiring. And suddenly M. Duflos exclaimed with a great, big sigh of compassion:

"If it is not a misery! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! those poor Colombes!"

His kindly glance turned to Fleurette, and he saw her big blue eyes fixed on him. And as he was a very worthy fellow this M. Duflos, with a daughter of his own, he could not somehow return that glance; there was something in it that reminded him of a young animal in pain. He guessed that she had heard the news about young Colombe, and he knew, as every one did in Laragne, that Fleurette, over at Lou Mas, and Amédé Colombe were fond of one another, and that they would be tokened as soon as the girl had turned eighteen. This love-romance had been part of the village life ever since the two children had made mud pies together in the market square with the dust of the road and the water from the fountain, and though Armand, over at Lou Mas had become very queer of late, and no one knew anything about the mysterious business which, of recent years, kept him away from home for months on end, every one remembered the pretty Marseillaise whom nineteen years ago he had brought to Lou Mas as a blushing bride, and no one had forgotten the terrible tragedy of her death when she gave birth to Fleurette. With the kindliness, one might say the indifference, peculiar to the peasant, the neighbours put down Armand's growing moroseness after that terrible event, and his secretive ways, to grief over the death of his young wife; and then after a while, they ceased to trouble about him at all, and almost forgot him as it were. But Fleurette had grown up among them all, a true child of sunny Dauphiné, in spite of her fair hair and blue eyes. They all loved her because she was so pretty, and though M'sieu' Colombe, the prosperous grocer of the Rue Haute, might at one time have had more ambitious views for his son, he and Ma'ame Colombe soon fell victims to Fleurette's charm, her dainty ways, her quaint little airs, as if she were a lady strayed into this remote village from some great city, and, above all, being natives of the South, and children of France, they succumbed to the fascination of her wealth; for there was no doubt that Armand was rich, and no doubt that he had made a declaration both privately to his friend Colombe and officially before the notary at Sisteron, that he would give his only child a dowry of ten thousand livres tournois, the day she married with his consent.

And here was this child now, whom every one knew and whom every one loved, turning great, pleading eyes on M'sieu' Duflos until the worthy fellow felt so uncomfortable that he had to clear his throat very noisily and to expectorate on the sanded floor of his shop with a sound like the falling of a shower of hailstones on a tiled roof. He thought that Fleurette knew all the details of this morning's dramatic story.

"Voyons, Mam'zelle Fleurette," he said with a rough attempt at consolation. "They won't do anything to Amédé. Really. The boy meant no harm."

All then would have been well if that fool Aristide Sicard, who was M'sieu' Duflos' errand-man, had not put in a word.

"No one," he said, "is going to believe that Amédé Colombe is a thief."

"A thief?" and Fleurette gave a funny little gasp. "Why should they think that Amédé is a thief?"

M'sieu Duflos, the butcher, had given his errand-man a vigorous kick, but the correction came too late. And now Fleurette wanted to know more.

"What is your meaning, M'sieu' Aristide?" she insisted with that funny little air of determination of hers, whilst a frown appeared between her brows.

As M'sieu' Duflos explained to the neighbours afterwards, Fleurette looked as if she might be capable of anything at the moment. He was quite frightened at the expression in her blue eyes. It was too late to undo the mischief that that fool Aristide had done, so the butcher took the matter into his own hands. He had a sound knowledge of human nature, had M'sieu' Duflos, and he prided himself on his tact.

"You see, Mam'zelle Fleurette," he began, "it's this way. Those scurvy knaves--I mean the soldiers of the Republic--were full of choler because they had not found enough to steal at the château when they arrested poor M'sieu' de Frontenac. At first, it seems, they thought that Madame and Mademoiselle had taken their valuables away with them when they ran away; but later on something must have aroused their suspicions, or else the same kind of fool as Aristide here must have got talking. Anyway, they seem to have got the idea that Amédé Colombe had hidden Madame's valuables away somewhere and--"

"Madame's valuables!" Fleurette exclaimed, trying to hide something of the excitement which was causing her heart to thump furiously. "They thought that Amédé--?"

"Why, yes!" M'sieu' Duflos replied to her half-formulated query. "And unfortunately---"

"What?"

"Well! They found Madame's valuables---"

But the worthy butcher got no further with his story. Without another word and swift as lightning, Fleurette had turned on her heel, and the next moment she was speeding across the market-place in the direction of the Rue Haute, whilst M'sieu' Duflos was left gazing in ludicrous perplexity at old Louise.

"What's the matter with the child?" he queried, and thoughtfully passed his hand through his harsh, bristly hair. "I thought she knew."

Old Louise shrugged her shoulders.

"She only knew that the lad ahd been arrested," she said, "but she had not heard about Madame's valuables being found in the Colombes' cart- shed. I was just able to stop Adèle telling her. She is so fond of M'sieu' Amédé." Louise added with a sigh: "Oh! how I wish her father were here."

M'sieu' Duflos was watching Fleurette's trim little figure speeding across the square and then disappearing round the corner of the Rue Haute.

"She's run over to the épicerie," he commented drily. "The Colombes are fond of her. They'll be able to comfort one another. Come in and have a petit verre, Louise. The child will be back soon."

But Louise would not come in, she did not want to lose sight of Fleurette, so after thanking the kind butcher for his hospitality, she too turned to go in the direction of the Rue Haute. But at the last M'sieu' Duflos had one more word to say to her.

"There's one thing more, Ma'ame Louise," he said, with unwonted earnestness in his round, prominent eyes. "If I were you I would look after that wench of yours, Adèle, a bit sharper. No offence, you know, but people have been talking in the village. She was rather too familiar with all those draggled-tailed soldiers last night."

Old Louise, with all a peasant's philosophy, shrugged her fat shoulders.

"You may be right, M'sieu' Duflos," she said drily, "but the girl, you know, is no care of mine. My sister Amèlie looks after her."

After which she gave a friendly nod to the amiable butcher and made her way up to the Rue Haute as fast as she could, though this was not really so fast as Fleurette's nimble little feet had carried her.

Chapter 15

There had been no need for words. As soon as Fleurette had entered the shop Ma'ame Colombe had stretched out her arms, and Fleurette ran to her at once to be enfolded in a great maternal embrace. With her fair hair resting on Ma'ame Colombe's ample bosom, the child began by having a good cry. She had had none since she heard the fatal news, for excitement had kept every other emotion in check. But now with those motherly arms round her, she felt free to let her sorrow and anxiety have free rein. Ma'ame Colombe's ample bosom heaving against hers, and the older woman's tears wetting the top of her fair head, Fleurette looked up, swiftly drying her eyes, and put on a reassuring smile.

It was difficult to speak at first with all those sobs choking one's voice; nevertheless, whilst mopping her eyes with her pocket- handkerchief, Fleurette contrived to say:

"You know, Ma'ame Colombe, that it is all right, don't you? About Amédé, I mean."

"All right, my dear? All right?" the poor woman reiterated, and shook her head with pathetic dubiousness. "How can it be all right, when my Amédé is accused of being a thief? And before the neighbours too!" she added, whilst a deeper tone of crimson than her kitchen-fire had lent to her kind old face, spread over her cheeks.

"That's just it, Ma'ame Colombe," Fleurette continued eagerly. "Presently--to-night I hope--every one will know that it was not Amédé who took those things."

"Of course he didn't take them. But you know what village gossip is. If Amédé did not take Madame's valuables, they keep on saying, how came they to be in our cart-shed? Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" she moaned, "to think that my Hector and I should live to see such disgrace."

"But, Ma'ame Colombe," Fleurette put in, somewhat impatient with the older woman's lamentations, "I am going to Sisteron to-night to tell the gendarme how Madame's valuables came to be in your cart-shed, and who it was that stole them."

"You, child? How should you know?"

"Because it was I who took the valuables out of the secret place in Madame's room," Fleurette said glibly, "and I gave them to Amédé to take care of, and because it was I who gave them to him he hid them in a corner of the cart-shed."

"Holy Virgin!" was all that Ma'ame Colombe was able to say in response to this amazing story, "the child has taken leave of her senses."

"No, no, Ma'ame Colombe," Fleurette insisted earnestly; "it is just as I have told you. I took the valuables out of Madame's room while the soldiers were at the château, and I gave them to Amédé to take care of."

"But why?" the poor mother exclaimed, in an agony of bewilderment. "In Heaven's name why?"

"Because---"

And suddenly Fleurette hesitated. A hot flush rose to her cheeks and tears gathered in her eyes. She had felt Ma'ame Colombe's perplexed glance on her, and for the time a stinging doubt gripped her heart and made her physically almost sick. What views would other people-- strangers or even friends--take of her amazing story? of the heavenly voice and the mysterious faggot-carrier with the wonderful twinkling eyes? Would they believe her? or would they deride the whole tale? or again, like dear, kind Ma'ame Colombe, would they just feel anxious, perplexed, not wishing to condemn, and yet vaguely wondering what could have induced a girl like Fleurette to go rummaging about among Madame's things, and inducing young Amédé to help her to conceal them.

An overpowering impulse prompted her to keep her beloved secret to herself. The sight of Ma'ame Colombe's grief-stricken face almost shook her resolution, but in the end it was that first impulse which conquered. After all it was only a matter of a few days, hours perhaps, and everything would become crystal-clear. Fleurette's little handkerchief was now like a wet ball in her hot hands; she breathed on it and dabbed her eyes; she straightened her cap and smoothed down her kirtle.

"And so, dear Ma'ame Colombe," she said calmly, "I am just going to Sisteron. Probably I shall find Bibi there; but even if I don't, I shall go up to the Committee of Public Safety, and I shall tell them the whole truth, so that there'll be no question of Amédé going to fight the English with the stain of theft upon his name."

It was impossible to say anything more just then, because Louise had arrived at the epicerie, breathless, but happy to catch sight of Fleurette looking quite calm and reasonable.

"I hope you gave the child a good scolding, Ma'ame Colombe," she said. "The idea of her wanting to trapeze the high-road to-day when all these ruffianly soldiers are still about."

But Fleurette only smiled. "Neither Ma'ame Colombe, nor anyone else," she said, "could dissuade me from going to see Bibi now."

"Why!" Louise exclaimed pettishly, "this morning it was M'sieu' Amédé you wanted to see."

"I do want to see Amédé," Fleurette rejoined simply, "but I must see Bibi first."

And Louise saw her exchange an understanding glance with Ma'ame Colombe. It was all very bewildering and very terrible. Of course she was terribly sorry for the Colombes, but, just for the moment, she wished them all at the bottom of the sea. A little feeling of jealousy had crept into her heart when she saw Fleurette clinging to Ma'ame Colombe and whispering words into her ears which she, Louise, could not hear, and this uncomfortable feeling added to her discomfort. What could Ma'ame Colombe be thinking about to encourage Fleurette in her obstinacy? Louise could only suppose that all common sense had been drowned in an ocean of grief for the beloved only son.

Ah! if only Monsieur Armand were here!

And with a last sigh and a none too cordial farewell to Ma'ame Colombe, Louise, dolefully shaking her head, followed Fleurette out of the shop.

Chapter 16

It was long past sunset by the time the two women reached Sisteron. Louise was dog-tired, for the day had been hot and the roads heavy with dust. They had started from Lou Mas one hour before noon, and as they left the first outlying houses of the city behind them, the clock of the tower of Notre Dame was striking eight.

The road between Laragne and Sisteron goes uphill most of the way, but withal, it is a beautiful road, winding through the wide valley of the Buëche, past orchards of grey-green olives and almond-trees laden with blossoms. Once past the confluence of the Méouge with the Buëche, it rises in a gentle gradient and gradually reveals to the eye with magnificent panorama of the Basses Alpes with their rocky crests and wide flanks draped in the sombre cloaks of pinewoods: Mont de la Baume, St. Géniez, Signal de Lure; as beautiful a picture as Nature has to offer for the delectation of travellers, but possessing no powers of fascination over the two women, who tramped along in weariness and with anxious hearts.

The road was lonely. Scarce anyone did they meet on the way; no one, at any rate, to inspire old Louise with alarm. Now and then, perhaps, a group of labourers toiling homewards would cast a bold glance on the pretty wench stepping it resolutely beside her old duenna. But after a ribald word or two, or at worst a coarse jest, they would pass on and the two women continued their way unmolested.

But the events of the day, subsequently those of the evening, were but one long string of disappointments. As soon as the first outlying houses of the city came in sight, Fleurette began inquiring pluckily and determinedly.

"Citizen Armand," she would ask, "from Lou Mas, over beyond Laragne?"

"What about him?"

"He is an important personage in Sisteron, how could I find him?"

And because she was gentle and had pretty blue eyes, and because she looked weary and anxious, people would do their best to help her. Some suggested one place, some another; the posting-inn--he might be known there, if he sometimes posted to Paris--or else the commissariat. This latter place proved a danger spot. A ferocious-looking commissaire very nearly detained the two women on a charge of vagabondage. His ugly leers and unveiled threats nearly sent Louise off her head with terror; Fleurette, however, kept up her courage nobly. The thought of Amédé drove every other terror out of her heart. She had vaguely heard that her father had something to do with a certain Committee of Public Safety. When she told this to the commissaire his manner immediately underwent a complete change; he became almost obsequious, placed himself entirely at the disposal of the citizeness for any inquiries she might wish to make about her illustrious father. Unfortunately, he said, the hour was late; the officers of the Committee of Public Safety situated in the Town Hall were now closed for the night. Citizen Armand had probably found shelter under the roof of a friend. Until to-morrow morning nothing could be done.

One thing, however, appeared clear; the soldier who had created so much stir in Laragne this morning had not come to Sisteron nor was anything known of them. There was, the now servile commissary explained, a detachment of the 87th regiment of the line in garrison in the city and two days ago a squad of the revolutionary army lately formed for the purpose of scouring the country for traitors and aristos had passed through Sisteron and gone on in the direction of Laragne. The commissary had heard something about a family named Frontenac against whom there was a black mark for treason against the Republic, but he did not know anything about the arrest of Monsieur or the escape of Madame and Mademoiselle--whome he persistently referred to as the ci-devants--nor did he know anything about the arrest of Amédé Colombe, citizen of Laragne.

It was all very disappointing. Fleurette, trying to be brave, nevertheless felt at times an overwhelming inclination to cry. For one thing she was very tired, and being young and healthy she was also hungry. She and Louise had consumed the contents of their provision basket when the day was still young. Now it was getting near bed-time and the goal of her efforts not even within sight. The sullenness and mistrust that seemed to hang over the whole city had the effect of further damping her spirits. The echo of the terrible doings in Orange, in Toulon, and Lyons had penetrated as far as this hitherto peaceful little town. Tales of summary arrests, of death-sentences without trial, of wholesale massacres were on everybody's lips. Accusations of treason, it seems, were more frequent than daily bread. The women looked harassed, hugged their children to their sides, as they slunk down the ill-lit streets, whilst throwing furtive glances over their shoulders. The men stood about in groups of three or four in the dark angles of the streets of beneath the ill-lit doorways until roughly ordered to go their way by men dressed in nothing but rags, who wore a tricolour sash round their waist and a cockade on their worsted cap.

And so ultimately to Les Amandiers, a quiet little inn off the main streets of the town, that Louise knew of through the drovers from Laragne who frequented the place when they were in Sisteron on market- day. Baptiste Portal, the landlord, suspicious at first, not liking the look of the two unprotected women seeking for lodgings at this hour of the night, was mollified by seeing the colour of Louise's money and the blue of Fleurette's eyes. His temper, it seems, had not yet recovered from the assaults made upon it a couple of days ago by a set of ragamuffins who called themselves soldiers of the Republic, and by their loud-spoken and arrogant lieutenant; but he was willing enough to make the two women welcome, and to give them supper and a bed. Then only did they tell him who they were and what the purpose of their journey: to seek Citizen Armand of Lou Mas, whose daughter Fleurette had matters of the utmost importance to communicate to him.

"Qu'à ça ne tienne!" Baptiste Portal exclaimed. "Armand was here but a couple of hours after noon. He was on his way to Orange."

"To Orange!" A cry of terror from Louise; one of excitement from Fleurette. Orange, the tiger's den! How could two unprotected women hope to enter it without being devoured? Orange where the guillotine was at work night and day! where men and women and even children were massacred in droves, where innocent people hardly dared to speak or smile or pray, lest they be seized and thrown into prison, only to be dragged out again to a horrible death.

Orange!

But Fleurette only smiled. What had they to fear seeing Bibi chéri would be there? Was not Bibi far, far more powerful than the whole of the revolutionary army? Fleurette had seen him at the château, with a great tricolour sash round his waist, giving orders, that the officer in command of the soldiers dared not disobey.

Orange! She was not afraid of Orange! Even if the great Robespierre was in Oragne she would not be afraid to go.

After all, what did it mean? Two or three days' journey in the old coche which, it seems, left the Place d'Armes two days of the week, at nine o'clock in the morning, and lumbering along through Peipin, and Saint Etienne-les-Orgues, gave one the chance of getting a good bed for the night at Sault, and again at Carpentras, if one was too tired to continue one's journey then.

Orange indeed? Why should one fear Orange, when chance was all in one's favour. As luck would have it, it was the very next day that the coche would be starting from the Place d'Armes. All one needed was a few things, a clean pair of stockings, a handkerchief or two, a bit of soap and a towel, which dear, kind Ma'ame Portal was only too ready to lend; these were tied in a bundle and formed the only indispensable luggage which Fleurette and Louise would take with them. Fortunately Louise had plenty of money in her pocket, being always well supplied by Bibi, and then, of course, in Orange, Bibi would be there and he would provide further as necessity arose.

And thus it came to pass that among the passenger who took their places in the lumbering old vehicle that morning were two females, one of whom had corn-coloured hair and eyes bluer than forget-me-nots.

Chapter 17

The Hôtel de Ville at Orange still stands, as it did then, in the newly-named Place de la République; and if the tourist of to-day mounts its steps, enters the building through its central portal, crosses the wide vestibule and finally turns down a long corridor on his right, he will, almost at the end of this, come to a door which bears the legend: "Travaux Publics."

Should he be bold enough to push open the door, he will find himself in a perfectly banal room, with white-washed walls covered with maps and plans that are of no interest to him, a large desk at one end, and a few wooden chairs. There is a thin carpet in the middle of the red- tiled floor and faded green rep curtains temper the glaring ligh of the afternoon sun. But on this day of May, 1794, there were no curtains to the window, and not even a strip of carpet on the floor. There was no desk either, only a long trestle table covered with a tattered green cloth, behind which, on wooden chairs, sat three men, dressed alike in dark blue coats tightly buttoned across the chest, drab breeches and high topped boots, and wearing tricolour sashes around their waist.

The one who sat in the centre and who appeared to be in supreme authority rested his elbow on the table, and his chin was supported in his hand. He was gazing intently on a man who stood before him, in the centre of the room, the other side of the table; a man who looked foot-sore and weary and who wore a military uniform all tattered and covered with slime and dust.

The two others also kept their eyes fixed on this man. They were listening with rapt interest to the story which he was relating. Early this morning he and a dozen others also attired in tattered uniforms had come into Orange in a state bordering on collapse. They had made their way to the barracks where the officer in command had mercifully given them food and drink. As soon as they had eaten and drunk, they tried to tell their story; but this was so amazing, not to say incredible, that the officer in command had thought it prudent to send for the superintendent of gendarmerie, who in turn had the men conveyed to the Hôtel de Ville, there to be brought before the Representative of the Convention on special mission who sat with the Committee of Public Safety. And now Lieutenant Godet stood alone to face the Committee; the others had been handed back to the gendarmerie to be dealt with later on. The representative on special mission who sat with the two other Members of the Committee at the table covered with the tattered green cloth, had questioned Godet, and he thereupon embarked upon the story of this amazing adventure. He began by relating the events which three days ago had set the quiet little commune of Laragne seething with excitement. He told of the arrival of the squad of soldiers in magnificent uniforms, under the command of an officer more superb than anything that had ever been seen in the countryside before. He told of the perquisition in the house of Citizen Colombe the grocer, by those magnificent soldiers, of the finding there by them of certain valuables belonging to the ci-devant Frontenacs, valuables which he himself had vainly searched for in the château, the evening before. He told of the arrest of young Colombe: of the high-handed manner in which the superb officer had relieved him, Godet, of his command, and ordered him and his men, together with the ci-devant Frontenac, to join his squad, and to march with him out of Laragne. He had told it all with a wealth of detail, and the members of the Committee had listened in silence and with rapt interest.

But now the man at the table who was the representative on special mission, and who appeared chief in authority, broke in with an exclamation that was almost one of rage.

"And do you mean to tell me, citizen lieutenant," he said in a harsh, rasping voice, "that you could mistake a lot of English spies--for that is what they were, you may take it from me--that you could mistake them, I say, for soldiers of our army. Where wer eyour eyes?"

Lieutenant Godet gave a shrug which he hoped would pass for unconcern. In reality he felt physically sick; a prey to overwhelming terror. At first, when he and his men had come in sigh of the city, they had felt nothing but relief to see the end of what had been almost martyrdom. It was only afterwards, when he found himself in this narrow room, with its white-washed walls and its silence, and face to face with those three men, that fear had entered his heart. He felt like an animal in a cage--a mouse looking into the pale, piercing eyes of a cat. He passed his tongue once or twice over his parched lips before he gave reply.

"I was not the only one, citizen," he said sullenly, "who was deceived. The whole commune of Laragne was at the heels of those soldiers. My own men were mustered before the pseudo-captain and heard him give words of command."

"But Englishmen, citizen lieutenant," the man at the table argued; "Englishmen! Their appearance! Their speech!"

"They spoke as you and I would, Citizen Chauvelin," Godet retorted, still sullenly. "As for appearance, one man is like another. I could not be expected to know every officer of our army by sight!"

"But you said they were splendidly dressed!"

"They were. I knew the uniform well enough. Had there been a doubtful button or a galloon wanting I should have spotted it."

"But so clean!" one of the others at the table remarked with a sigh, that might have been of envy, "so magnificent!"

"I knew that there were some compagnies d'élite," the lieutenant rejoined, "attached to certain regiments. How could I guess?"

"It might have been better for you if you had," the man in the centre remarked drily.

Godet's wan face took on a more ashen hue; again he passed his tongue over his parched lips.

"Haven't we had enough of this?" one of the others at the table now put in impatiently. "We are satisfied that those English spies, or whatever they were, acted with amazing effrontery, which makes me think that perhaps they are a part of that gang that we all know of, and of which Citizen Chauvelin spoke just now. We are also satisfied that Citizen Lieutenant Godet did not show that acumen which an officer in his responsible position should have done. What we want to know now is, what happened after the pseudo-captain of the so-called 33rd division had arrested that young Colombe and marched out of Laragne?"

"And in your interest, citizen lieutenant," the man in the centre rejoined sternly, "I advise you to make a statement that is truthful in every detail."

"Had I wished to tell lies," the soldier retorted sullenly, "I shouldn't be here now. I should have---"

"No matter," the other broke in curtly, "what you would have done. The State desires to know what you did."

"Well!" Lieutenant Godet began after a moment or two during which he appeared to collect his thoughts. "We marched out of Laragne in the direction of Serres. The captain--I still, of course, looked upon his as a captain--had so disposed us that I and my own men were between two squads of his. We were footsore, all of us, because we had had three days' tramping in the dust, one day battling against hard wind, another with long hours spent in scouring the château of those traitors Frontenacs; we were also very hungry. Remember that we had been dragged out of our beds in the early morning, and not given a chance of getting a bite or drink before starting on the march. But they, the others, were fresh as if they had just come out of barracks with their bellies full…They marched along at a swinging pace, and it was as much as we could do to keep step with them."

The man's voice became somewhat more steady as he talked. The note of terror which had been so conspicuous in it at first had given place to one of dull resentment. Encouraged by the obvious interest which his story had evoked in his hearers, he resumed more glibly:

"About half a league north of Laragne, a bridle-path branches off the high-road; into this the captain ordered his company to turn, and we continued to plod along through the dust and in the midday heat, till we came to a tumble-down cottage by the roadside; a cottage flanked by a dilapidated shed, and a bit of garden all overgrown with weeds. Here a halt was called, and the prisoners were ordered out of the wagon. A moment or two later a woman appeared at the cottage door, some words were exchanged between her and the captain, and subsequently, when order to march was given, the prisoners marched along with us; the wagon and horses having been left behind at the cottage."

"Didn't you think this very strange, citizen lieutenant?" one of the men at the table asked; "a wagon and horses which you would naturally presume belonged to the State, being thus left at a tumble-down roadside cottage?"

"Whatever I may have thought," the lieutenant replied, "it was not my place to make observations to my superior officer."

"Superior officer!" the man in the centre remarked, with a gesture of contemptuous wrath.

"I think, Citizen Chauvelin," the accused now put in a little more firmly, "that you are unnecessarily hard on me. There was really nothing to indicate---"

But the other broke in with a vicious snarl:

"Nothing to indicate--? Nothing? The eyes of a patriot should be sharp enough to detect a spy or a traitor through any disguise--"

He paused abruptly, and cast a quick, inquisitorial glance at his two colleagues first, then at the soldier before him. Had he detected a trace, a sign, a flicker of the eyelid that betrayed knowledge of his own past? of the times--numberless now---that he too had been hoodwinked by those bold adventurers who called themselves the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and by their chief whose prowess in the art of disguise had marked some of the most humiliating hours in Chauvelin's career? Calais, Boulogne, Nantes, Paris; each of those great cities had a record of the Terrorist's discomfiture when brought face to face with that mysterious and elusive Scarlet Pimpernel. Even now, crushed in the hot palm of his hand, he held a scrap of paper which had revealed the author of the plot to which that fool Lieutenant Godet had fallen a victim--just as he, himself, Chauvelin, had done---just like that--and so many times---The penalty for him had always been more humiliation, a further fall from the original high place which he had once occupied in Paris: and with it the knowledge that one day the masters of France would tire of his failures. Ah! he knew that well enough, he knew that they would tire, and then they would crush him as they had crushed others, whose only crime, like his, had been failure.

His only claim to immunity, so far, had been the fact that he alone, of all the members of the National Assembly, of all the members of the Committees, or of the Executive, knew who the Scarlet Pimpernel really was; he had seen him without disguise; he knew him by name, not only him but some of his more important followers; and when some of the ferocious tyrants, who for the time being were the masters of France, did at times loudly demand the suppression of Citizen Chauvelin, for incompetence that amounted to treason, there were always others who pleaded for him because of that knowledge. Many felt that with the death of Chauvelin, the last hope of capturing that band of English spies would have to be abandoned; and so they pleaded for his retention and their fellow-tyrants allowed him another few months' grace so that he might accomplish that which they knew was the great purpose of his life. And whenever in the opinion of those bloodthirsty tigers, who held France under their domination, some outlying provincial districts had need of what they called "purging from the pestilence of traitors," whenever wholesale arrests, perquisitions, wholesale death-sentences or brutal massacres were the order of the day, Citizen Chauvelin was sent down with special powers, always in the vain hope that the Scarlet Pimpernel, emboldened by success, would fall into the trap perpetually set for him. The English spy's predilection for aristos, his sympathies so quickly aroused when traitors happened to be women or young children, was sure to draw his activities to any region where prisons were full and the guillotine kept busy.

Thus it was that Citizen Chauvelin had been sent to Orange. The Southern provinces of France had been left far too long to welter in a morass of treason; there were veritable nests of traitors in the châteaux and farms of Provence and Dauphiné. The country had to be purged: the traitors extirpated; the magnificent Law of the Suspect be set in motion to do this cleansing process. Any man who ventured to criticize the government, who complained of taxation or restrictions was a traitor; any man or woman who owned more than they needed for bare subsistence, who refused to pour of their surplus into the lap of patriots, was a traitor, and the country must be purged of them, until the dictatorship of the proletariat was firmly established, until every man, woman and child in the whole of France had been dragged down to the same level of mental and physical wreckage.

There had been a dramatic pause after Chauvelin's outburst of contemptuous wrath; for a minute or two, while the old clock up on the wall ticked away with slow monotony, a strange silence remained hanging over the scene. Whatever the other three men may have known or remembered of the noted Terrorist's past history, they thought it wiser to say nothing. In these days of universal brotherhood and Liberty, every man in France was frightened of his neighbour. The time had come when the lustful tigers, satiated with the blood of those whom they deemed their enemies, had turned, thirsting, for that of their whilom friends. The makers of the Terror had started digging their fangs into each other's throats. The victory now was to the most ferocious. After the Girondins, Danton, he, who had ordered the September massacres, two and a half years ago, had had to yeild to a more vengeful, more merciless power than his own.

Chauvelin knew that. The victory to-day was to the most ferocious. He who would sacrifice friends, brother, sister, child, was the true patriot; the man who stayed his hand in face of a revolting crime that would put a wild beast to the blush, was unworthy the name of citizen of France. Therefore death to him. Death to the weakling. To the Moderate. This was the era of the Universal Brotherhood of Death.

What chance then had this unfortunate Lieutenant Godet now? brought to justice---save the mark!--before a man who knew that to show weakness was to court death. No wonder that all the swagger and the arrogance which made him but a day or two ago the terror of a lot of peasants at Sisteron or Laragne, was knocked out of him, by a mere glance from those pale, piercing eyes. And he--a mere notary's clerk born and bred in the depth of Dauphiné, and thrust into the army, as a mule is thrust into harness--knew nothing of Paris save from hearsay, and nothing of the men whose word had even sent a king and queen to the scaffold. He knew nothing of Citizen Chauvelin, save that he was a man of power, before whose piercing glance and tricolour sash every man instinctively cringed and trembled. He knew nothing of Chauvelin's tussles with those same English spies who had so effectually led him, Godet, by the nose; nothing of Citizen Chauvelin's past life, very little of the present. He was just a mouse in the power of a cat; allowed a little freedom just now, while he told his tale of failure.

"Continue, citizen lieutenant," Chauvelin now said more calmly. "We are listening."

"Let me see," Godet rejoined vaguely, "where was I?"

"On the bridle-path off the main road," Chauvelin responded with a sneer; "half a league north of Laragne. The wagon and horses presumably belonging to the State left in a tumble-down cottage by the roadside. A thrilling situation forsooth. An ordinary situation you would have us believe. Pray continue. What happened after that?"

"We marched and we marched and we marched," the lieutenant resumed sullenly. "We marched until we were ready to drop. We had had three days of marching and had started in the morning without a bite, hungry! Nom d'un nome! how hungry we were! and weak and faint! The hours sped on; we could see the sun mounting the heavens and then start on its descent. The heat was intense, the dust terrible. It filled our eyes, our nostrils, our mouths. The soles of our feet were bleeding, sweat poured down our faces and obscured our vision. We marched and we marched, through two villages, the names of which I do not know; then over mountain passes, across rocky gorges, stepping over streams, climbing the sides of hills, the banks of rivers. I am a stranger in these parts. And I was tired. Tired! I knew not where we were, whither we were going. March! March! March! Ceaselessly. Even had I dared, I would no longer have ahd the strength to ask questions or to beg for mercy."

And at the recollection of those hours of agony, Lieutenant Godet wiped the perspiration from his streaming brow.

"Well?" Chauvelin queried drily, "and the others, the Englishmen?"

"They marched along at a swinging pace," Godet replied, smothering a savage oath. "Without turning a hair. They kicked up no dust. They did not sweat. They just marched. No doubt their bellies were well filled."

"And the prisoners?"

"They set to with a will. And I make no doubt but they had fed and drunk while they sat in the wagon. At any rate they showed no fatigue."

"How long did you continue on the march?"

"Till one by one we--my comrades and I--fell out by the roadside."

"And those who fell out were left, while the others went on?"

"Yes! We had gone through the second village, and were marching along the edge of a stream, when the first lot of us dropped out. Three of my men. They just rolled down the bank of the stream; and there lay on their stomachs trying to drink. The captain--or whatever he was, curse him!--called "Halt!" and one of his men ran down the bank and had a look at those three poor fellows who lay there striving to slake their hunger as well as their thirst in the cool mountain stream. But, nom de nom! They--the miscreants!--had no bowels of compassion. I believe--for in truth I was too tired to see anything clearly--that one of them did leave a hunk of bread by the side of the stream: perhaps he was afraid that those poor fellows would die of inanition and then their death would be upon his conscience."

"Well! And did all the men fall out that way?"

"Yes! We were marching three abreast: and three by three we all fell out. Always beside the stream, for we suffered from thirst as much as from hunger. The stream seemed to draw us, and three of us, as if by common understanding, would just roll down the bank and lie on our stomachs and try to drink. The captain no longer called a halt when that happened. One of his own men would just throw pieces of bread down to the edge of the stream, just as they would to a dog."

"And you were the last to fall out?"

"The very last. I verily believe, when I rolled down the bank and felt the cool stream against my face, that I had died and reached the Elsyian fields. A piece of bread was thrown to me, and I fell on it like a starved beast."

"And then what happened?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean? Nothing?"

"Nothing as far as we were concerned. The bank of the stream, for a length of two kilometres or more, was strewn with our dead--that is not dead, you understand, but fatigued, and only half-conscious with hunger: while those miscreants, those limbs of Satan, marched off without as much as a last look at us! Gaily they marched away singing. Yes, singing, some awful gibberish, in a tongue I did not understand. That is," poor Godet went on ruefully, "when first I had an inkling of the awful truth. That strange tongue gave it away. You understand?"

The others nodded.

"And then, by chance, I put my hand in the back pocket of my tunic, and felt that piece of paper."

With finger that quivered slightly, he pointed to Chauvelin's hand; between the clenched claw-like fingers there protruded the corner of a scrap of paper. Chauvelin failed to suppress the exclamation of rage which rose to his lips.

"Nom de nom!" he muttered savagely through his teeth, and with his handkerchief he wiped the beads of moisture that had risen to the roots of his hair.

"And so they marched away," one of the others remarked drily. "In which direction?"

"Straight on," the soldier replied laconically.

"On the way to Nyons, I suppose, and Walreas?"

"I suppose so. I don't know the neighbourhood."

"You do not seem to have known much, Lieutenant Godet," Chauvelin put in with a sneer.

"I come from the other side of the Drac," Godet retorted. "I could not---"

But Chauvelin broke in with an oath:

"Wherever you come from, citizen," he said sternly, "it was your duty to become acquainted with the country through which you were ordered to march your men."

"I had no orders to take them through mountain passes," Godet remarked sullenly. "We came through here a month ago and have kept to the high- road. At Sisteron I had my orders to arrest the ci-devant Frontenacs. You, Citizen Chauvelin, must know how conscientiously I did my duty. All the orders you gave me I fulfilled. After Sisteron you ordered me to go to Laragne, and thence to Serres. It was you ordered me to a halt at Laragne for the night."

"All this is beside the point," one of the others broke in roughly. "All we can gather from this confused tale is that all traces of the English spies have completely vanished."

"For the moment," Chauvelin assented drily. "It is for Lieutenant Godet to find those traces again."

He spoke now with extreme bitterness, and the glances which he levelled at Godet were both hostile and threatening. It would be curious to try and follow the mental processes which had given rise to this hostility. Godet, after all said and done, had only failed in the same manner as he himself, Chauvelin, had so often done. He had been hoodwinked by a particularly astute and daring adventurer who was an avowed enemy of France: and if being thus hoodwinked was a crime against the State, then the powerful member of the Committee of Public Safety and the humble lieutenant of infantry were fellow-criminals. This, of course, Godet did not know. Not yet: or he would not have been in such dread of this man with the pale eyes and the talon-like hands. The others he did not fear nearly so much. No doubt they too were cruel and vengeful these days. Strike or the blow will fall on you, was the rule of every man's conduct. Pochart and Danou took their cue from Chauvelin; his was the master-mind, his the more ruthless nature, all they did was to try and show their zeal by saying Amen to every suggestion, every sarcasm, every accusation put forth by their colleague.

In fact the proceedings by now had developed into a kind of duel between the accused and the principal judge; it was a duel made up of acrimonious accusations on the one hand, and of defence that weakened perceptibly as the accused became more and more confused through ever- increasing terror. The other two only put in a word here and there. They wished to know how the adventure had finally come to an end.

"In a long, weary tramp to Orange," Godet replied; "weary beyond what words can describe, footsore, hungry and thirsty we tramped."

They had to cover three leagues. How they lived through it, they none of them knew. At one or two villages which they encountered, they obtained a little food, and some drink. For the space of a league and a half, he, Godet, and two others got a lift in a farmer's wagon. On the way they asked news of the English spies. They had been seen marching merrily; but soon all traces of them had vanished.

"Had I been the traitor you say I am, Citizen Chauvelin," Godet said in the end, "would I have come into Orange with my tale? I would have tried to run away and to hide. Made my way to Toulons, what? and joined the army there. You would not have found me then; months would have gone by before you heard of my adventure."

"You underestimate the power which is in my hands, citizen lieutenant," was Chauvelin's curt comment. "Only one thing could save you from the consequences of your treachery, and that was to speak the truth and to redeem your crime."

He paused a moment, and then addressing his two colleagues, he said with slow deliberation:

"We all agree, I think, that Citizen Lieutenant Godet has been guilty of gross negligence, which to-day, when France is threatened by traitors within as well as by her enemies on her frontier, amounts to treason against the State. Silence!" he went on, throwing a stern glance on Godet who had uttered a violent word of protest. "Listen to what hope of indulgence it is in my power to give you. The State against whom you have sinned well grant you the chance of retrieving your crime. We will grant you full powers under the new Law of the Suspect. You shall go into the highways and the byways with full power to seize any man, woman or child, whom you as much as vaguely suspect of complicity in this affair. Do you understand?"

"I think I do," Godet replied dully.

"The State," Pochart put in sagely, "would rather have the English spies than your head, citizen lieutenant."

"The State will have Citizen Godet's head," Chauvelin rejoined drily, "or the English spies. The choice rests with Citizen Godet himself."

There was a moment's pause. The eyes of the soldier were fixed upon the pale, determined face of his ruthless judge. He knew that his life hung upon the decision uttered by those thin, bloodless lips. He was in the grip of a white terror; his teeth were clenched and his tongue clove, hard and dry, against the roof of his mouth. He was terrified, and in his wildly beating heart there was an immense hatred for the man who thus terrorized him. He longed to get at him, to grip him by the throat, to scream out insults into that pale, stern, colourless face. He longed to see that same fear of death which was paralysing him, dim the light of those pale eyes. His own impotence made that hatred more intense. It shone out of his eyes, and Chauvelin meeting them caught the glance like that of an enraged cur, ready to spring. Indifferent, he shrugged his shoulders and the ghost of a sneer curled round his thin lips. He was accustomed to hatred and desire for revenge.

"Citizen lieutenant," he said at last, "you have heard the decision of the committee. It has been found expedient to withhold punishment from you, because it is in your power to serve the State in a way that no other man could do at this moment. You have seen the English spies face to face; you know something of their appearance, something of their mode of speech. Go then into the highways and byways, the men who with you were guilty of negligence shall go with you. It is for you to use the full powers which the Law of the Suspect has placed in your hands. Go scour the country. Yours is the power to seize any man, woman or child whom you suspect of treason to the State, make use of that power in order to track down to their lair the English foxes who have outwitted you. Only let me add a word of warning in your ear. Do not be led by the nose a second time. If you are, no power on earth will save you. The State may forgive incompetence once: the second time it will bear the ugly name of treason."

He had risen to his feet, and just for a moment the muscles of his hand relaxed, and the scrap of paper which he had crushed into a ball rolled upon the table.

His colleague Pochart picked it up and idly opened and smoothed it out: he studied for a moment or two the close writing upon it, then looking inquiringly up at Chauvelin.

"Can you tell us what is written on this paper, citizen?" he asked.

And while he spoke he tossed the paper across to his colleague Danou.

"Is it English?" Danou asked, puzzled.

"Yes," Chauvelin replied curtly.

"It looks like poetry," Pochart remarked.

"Doggerel verses," commented Chauvelin.

"And you can't read it?"

"No!"

"I thought you knew English."

"Not I."

"Strange why a bit of doggerel verse should have been slipped into the pocket of Citizen Godet's tunic," Pochart remarked drily. "And there's your name, Citizen Chauvelin," he added, pointing to the words "À mon ami Chauvelin," which preceded the four lines of poetry written in English, a language which, apparently, no one here understood.

But Chauvelin was at the end of his patience. He seized the scrap of paper and tore it savagely into innumberable little pieces.

"Enough of this futility," he said, and brought his clenched fist down with a crash on the table. "The English spies have been facetious, that is all. We do them too much honour by attaching importance to this senseless, childish verse. Lieutenant Godet," he went on, once more addressing the accused, "you are dismissed, under the conditions I told you of just now. When next we meet face to face, you will either be the lucky man who has helped to lay these impudent English adventurers by the heel, or you will stand before me arraigned for treason and preparing for death. Now you can go."

Without another word Godet turned on his heel and went out of the room. Past the guard at the door, he went with head erect, and with a firm step he walked the whole length of the corridor. But there was one moment when in the vestibule he found himself alone. Unwatched. At any rate he thought so. So he paused and looked over his shoulder in the direction of the room where he had just spent an uncomfortable two hours. He paused and raising his fist, he shook it at the unseen presence of the man who had so terrorized him, and whom he hated because of the terror which he inspired.

"With a bit of luck," he muttered through his teeth, "we shall be even yet, you and I, mon ami Chauvelin."

Then once more with a firm step he walked out of the Town Hall.

Chapter 18

It was on the following day that the coche from Sisteron was due to arrive at Orange, and Lieutenant Godet, his mind set on the one purpose, to find a clue to his mysterious adventure with the English spies, hied him to the posting-inn which is situated in the Rue de la République.

At noon the coche, covered with dust, unloaded its wearied passengers; a farmer and his son come to negotiate a sale of stock; the wife of Citizen Henriot, the lawyer, home from her annual visit to her mother; two or three skilled artisans from the country, come to seek their fortune in town, and so on; and finally there descended from the coche two women, one of whom carried a small bundle, while the other--well! at sight of the other Citizen Lieutenant Godet uttered such a cry of surprise and of excitement that the crowd around him thought that here was a poor soldier who had taken leave of his senses.

The woman who had caused Lieutenant Godet thus to lose his self- control, was a perfectly self-possessed young woman wrapped in a cloak and hood from beneath which peeped strands of golden curls that vied in colour with the ripe corn of the Dauphiné, and eyes bluer than the sky that spread over Orange on this exquisite midday in May. The older woman who accompanied her appeared travel-stained, weary and cross; not so this beautiful girl, who tripped lightly from the coche towards the parlour of the posting-inn and with a little air of triumph and encouragement called gaily to her companion:

"The end of our journey, my Louise! And now to find Bibi!"

Even in these days of advanced democracy which in Orange had of late reached its apogee, the shattering of ancient manners and customs had not got to the stage where a beautiful woman would not command the attention and services of impressionable males, to the exclusion of others less favoured. And thus it came to pass that while the other weary and travel-stained passengers were left to look after themselves and their bits of luggage, and to wait their turn until such time as the servants of the inn were pleased to get them refreshments, the landlord himself, a florid man in shirt sleeves and baize apron, bustled obsequiously around Fleurette and Louise, offering wine bread and advice, polishing the chairs on which they were invited to sit, and generally placing himself and his house at the disposal of this attractive customer.

Fleurette took all these attentions as a matter of course. She was accustomed to being the centre of attraction at Lou Mas or in the house of M'sieu' and Ma'ame Colombe, and although her trust in the good-will of men had received one or two somewhat rude shocks of late, she still retained that self-possession and gentle air of mingled modesty and graciousness which is the attribute of every pretty, unspoilt woman. She asked for a room where she and her companion might tidy their kerchiefs and caps, and use their precious piece of scented soap, and she felt so triumphant and so elated that when she found herself in the privacy of that room she took poor old Louise by the waist and twirled her round and around in a mad dance.

"We are in Orange, Louise darling!" she cried. "We are here! here! here! and in less than an hour we shall have found Bibi will have commanded Amédé to be set free! Just think of it, Louise," she went on more seriously, "four whole days since he was arrested! Poor, poor Amédé, under a horrible accusation of a sin which he never committed! What he must have suffered! What he must have thought of me who knew the truth and did not at once set to work to obtain his freedom…"

Gradually her tone became more and more dull, all the excitement died out of it. She saw Amédé in prison, with irons round his wrists and ankles, or else standing before stern judges who condemned him to a terrible punishment, because he held his tongue, and would not accuse the real delinquent, who was none other than she, Fleurette. She sighed, and her eyes now were full of tears, while old Louise, stolidly, and with much grumbling, got some water and proceeded to wash her face and hands and to tidy her dress.

"Come, child," she said drily after a while, "we'll go down now and get something to eat."

She had never ceased to protest against the madness of this adventure, prophesying every kind of calamity for them both: but Fleurette with the quiet obstinacy of the habitually meek had persisted. She had begun by wheedling the money out of Louise, then obtained the passes for places in the coche. Once on the way, it would of course have been ridiculous to turn tail and go back, and Louise, led unconsciously by a force of will stronger than her own, had found herself meekly acquiescing in all the arrangements which Fleurette made on the way. As a matter of fact she had not ceased to marvel at the child. Here was this young thing, who had never travelled in a coche before, who had never in her life been further than Serres and Sisteron, calmly undertaking a three days' journey, sleeping and eating in strange inns, and arriving at her destination unscathed. There certainly was a miracle in all this good luck, for old Louise had heard many a tale of what terrible adventures usually befell unprotected females upon the high-roads. What she did not realize was that the miracle merely consisted in the fact that in these outlying corners of beautiful France, in Dauphiné and in Provence, there was still plenty of the good old kindly stock left, some of the chivalry, the warmth of heart, the bonhomie, which all the tyranny and the cruelty perpetrated in the great cities had not contrived to kill; and that there was something in Fleurette's beauty, her simplicity as well as her determination, which brought forth that chivalry and bonhomie and helped her to win through.

When the two women returned to the parlour, where hot milk and country bread awaited them, they were met by a young soldier, who very politely and deferentially claimed acquaintance with them.

"You would not remember me, citizeness," he said, more particularly addressing Fleurette, "but I and some very weary soldiers under my command are deeply indebted to you for your kindness to us, when, like a good Samaritan, you gave us food and drink, on the bridge near your home. Do you remember?"

He looked very bedraggled and out-at-elbows, but frank and kind. Fleurette raised shy, blue eyes up at his, and gave a little gasp of recognition. She well remembered the soldier. She remembered how sorry she had been for them all, in their shabby clothes and stockingless feet, weary and thirsty, and how she had sent Adèle out to them with food and drink. She also remembered, though she would not remind him of that, that he had been very curt and uncivil with her, had made a sneering remark when she told him that she was Citizen Armand's daughter, and also that the men under his command had been positively cruel to a poor inoffensive old man whom she afterwards befriended.

However, for the moment, she was perhaps conscious of a slight feeling of relief at sight of a familiar face; she had seen nothing but strangers ever since she left Laragne four days ago. So when the soldier, still speaking quite deferentially, reiterated his: "Do you remember?" she replied simply: "Of course I do, citizen lieutenant." Which goes to prove that Fleurette had learned a great deal in the past three days, and the word "citizen" now came quite glibly to her tongue.

Lieutenant Godet had told her his name, told her that he was a native of Orange and was home on leave for a few days.

"A real piece of luck," he went on lightly, "seeing that perhaps I might be of service to you."

The two women sat down at the table and he helped to wait on them, brought them bread and cheese and a jug of hot milk, and bustled the maid of the inn if the latter appeared to Louise, talked of his own journey, and inquired after her adventures. Louise, despite her innate suspicion of soldiers, gradually unbent to him. The warm food further put her into a good temper, and presently the three of them were conversing in the most amicable manner.

When the meal had been duly paid for, the soldier once more offered his services. Could he pilot the citizenesses through the town?

"Well yes, you can," Louise said resolutely, "we want to find M'sieu' Armand."

"Citizen Armand," Fleurette broke in, "my father. I think you know him, citizen lieutenant."

"Know him?" he exclaimed, "of course I know Armand. Who does not know Citizen Armand in Orange?"

"Then he is here now?" Fleurette cried eagerly.

"Of a surety he is."

"You know where he lodges?"

"Every one in Orange knows where Citizen Armand lodges."

"Then you can take me to him?"

"At your service, citizeness."

"Now?"

"When you wish."

With a little cry of delight Fleurette gathered up her cloak.

"Let us go," she said simply.

Louise sighing, but stolid, followed meekly. The thought that she would soon relinquish her wayward charge into the keeping of M'sieu' Armand was a comforting one; Fleurette was tripping it gaily beside the soldier, but the latter's dirty clothes and bedraggled appearance still filled old Louise with mistrust.

They crossed the river by the old bridge and then trudged along the dusty streets to a great open place, now called Place de la République. The soldier led the way across the square to a tall stone building, flanked by a square tower, to which a flight of steps gave access. He seemed to know his way about. At the top of the steps a couple of soldiers in somewhat tidier uniforms than his own, were on guard. They stood in what Louise, who had old-fashioned notions as to the behaviour of soldiers on duty, put down as a slouchy and disrespectful attitude. When Lieutenant Godet walked past them they did not salute. This want of respect of the soldier for his officer was another manifestation, it seems, of Equality and Fraternity. Louise, with her nose in the air, sailed past in the wake of Godet and Fleurette.

After crossing a wide vestibule and turning on the right into a long paved corridor, Lieutenant Godet came to a halt before a door which bore the legend: "Committee of Public Safety, Section III." Beside the door another soldier, also in very shabby uniform, stood leaning upon his bayonet. Fleurette, overawed by the vastness and silence of the place, gazed with vague terror at this man who without uttering a word had put his bayonet athwart the door and held it there, barring the way, motionless as a statue. Lieutenant Godet then spoke to him:

"The citizeness," he said, "is the daughter of Citizen Chauvelin. She desires to speak with him!"

The daughter of Citizen Chauvelin? What did the man mean? Fleurette, puzzled and frowning, pulled him by the sleeve. She was the daughter of Citizen Armand: she'd never heard the name of Chauvelin before. Nevertheless the soldier on guard lowered his bayonet. Godet pushed open the door and the next moment Fleurette found herself facing a large desk which was covered with papers, and behind which Bibi was sitting, writing. A voice said loudly:

"Citizen Chauvelin, here's your daughter come to see you."

Whereupon Bibi raised his head and looked at her, staring as if he had seen a ghost.

Forgetting everything save the joy of seeing chéri Bibi at last, Fleurette gave a glad little cry, ran round the table, and came to halt on her knees beside Bibi's chair, with her arms round his neck.

She felt so glad, so glad that she was ready to cry.

"Bibi," she said softly, whispering in his ear, "chéri Bibi, are you not glad to see me?"

Chapter 19

At sight of Fleurette, Chauvelin had stared as if he had seen a ghost. He did not trust his eyes: they were obviously playing him a trick. It was only a second or two later that he realized it was indeed the child, come, Heaven only knew why or how, but here in this awful city where treachery, hatred and cruelty were holding sway under his own command.

Half-dazed, he yielded to the caresses of this one being the whole wide world whom his tigerish heart had ever loved. His arms closed round her beloved form, whose sweet breath as of thyme and violets filled his soul with joy. Then, looking up, he saw Louise standing there: silent, stolid, mutely accusing, and he asked roughly:

"How the hell did you both get here?"

Louise shrugged her shoulders.

"By the coche," she said, "from Sisteron."

"I know," he rejoined. "But why did you come?"

"Ask her," Louise replied curtly. "She would come. I could not let her travel alone."

Bibi's two hands were clasped round Fleurette's head, his fingers were buried in her hair: he pressed that dearly-beloved head closer and closer to his breast; joy at sight of her had already given place to terror. What was the child doing here? How and why had she come? He had kept her so completely aloof from real life, that it seemed to him that some awful cataclysm must have occurred over in that peaceful home in Dauphiné, else she were not here.

His pale, restless eyes searched Louise's impassive face:

"Who brought you here?" he reiterated roughly.

"An officer in a draggle-tailed uniform," Louise replied, still speaking curtly, whilst with a glance that was distinctly hostile her eyes swept round the room. "I thought," she added, "that he followed us into the room."

"What was he like?"

She described him as closely as she could, and then added: "I don't remember his name."

She too had heard the name "Chauvelin" spoken by the soldier and for a moment had pondered. Marvelled. In her downright peasant mind vague doubts, doubts that were eighteen years old now, turned to more definite suspicions. She knew well enough that some kind of mystery hung around the personality of Fleurette's father; she knew for instance that he was really a wealthy and high-born gentleman; but eighteen years ago, in the days of the old régime, the fact that a high-born gentleman chose to hide a love-romance from the eyes of his equally high-born friends was not an infrequent occurrence. If at any time during the past eighteen years she had learned that M'sieu' Armand was really a great Duke or Prince or Ambassador, she would have been neither surprised nor suspicious. But Chauvelin!!! For the past three years whenever rumours of cruelty or ruthless persecution of innocent men and women had penetrated to these distant corners of Dauphiné or Provence, the name of Armand Chauvelin had stood out as the protagonist of these terrible tragedies; people spoke of Danton the lion of the revolution, and also of Marat its tiger, of Robespierre and of Chauvelin.

Chauvelin!!!

And he, meeting her glance, understood what went on in her mind. As to this he was indifferent. What Louise thought of him was less than nothing. It was the child that mattered now: the child who clung to him quivering with excitement. The terror in his heart grew in intensity: it gripped him till he felt physically sick. The mad dogs of hatred and cruelty, which he himself had helped to unchain, seemed to be snarling at him and threatening his Fleurette. With a hand that trembled visibly, he stroked the pretty golden hair.

"Now, little one," he said, steadying his voice as much as he could, "are you going to tell me why you've come?"

Fleurette struggled to her feet. Self-possessed she stood before her father and said firmly:

"Chéri Bibi, I came in order to right a great wrong. I believe that you are strong and powerful and that you will help me to see justice done. That is why I came to you."

He frowned, more puzzled than before, angered with himself for being so dull-witted, for not making a guess at what had brought the child along. His mind just before she came had been so completely absorbed in the latest adventure of his arch-enemy the Scarlet Pimpernel, that the presence of Fleurette, here and now, had been for him like a sudden stunning blow on the head. He felt dazed and stupid: unable to turn his thoughts into this fresh channel.

"Fleurette, my darling," he pleaded, "try and tell me more clearly. I don't understand. What do you mean by righting a wrong? What wrong?"

"Why," she replied simply, "the arrest of M'sieu' Amédé for a crime which he did not commit.

"You knew M'sieu' Amédé had been arrested?" she insisted.

Yes, he knew that. The mock arrest of young Colombe was one of the tricks played on that fool Godet by those impuden English spies. But what had Fleurette's presence here to do with that?

She was trying to explain.

"Then you know, chéri Bibi," she was saying in that sweet, eager way of hers, "that some valuables belonging to Madame over at the château were found in the shed behind M'sieu' Colombe's shop?"

Yes, he knew that too. But what had she…?

"And that the soldiers accused M'sieu' Amédé of having stolen them?"

A sigh of relief escaped him. He was beginning to understand. Nothing to worry about apparently. Indeed he might have guessed. The child had come to plead for that young fool Amédé, and---

"And what I had come to tell you, chéri Bibi," she went on glibly, "is that it is not Amédé who stole the things belonging to Madame."

She paused for a second or two. What she was about to say required courage: and how Bibi would take it she did not know. But Fleurette had come all the way from Lou Mas, had journeyed three days, so that Bibi might right a great wrong, as only he could do, and, once more sinking on her knees beside her father's chair, she added in a clear voice, rendered somewhat shrill with excitement:

"I stole the valuables out of Madame's room, chéri Bibi."

With a hoarse cry he clapped his hand against her mouth. My God, if some one had heard! The guard outside, or one of these innumerable spies whom he himself had set in motion, and whose ears were trained to penetrate through the most solid walls.

His pale eyes in which now lurked a kind of vague terror, wandered furtively round the room, whilst Louise, equally horrified and frightened, exclaimed almost involuntarily:

"The child is mad, M'sieu', do not listen to her."

Fleurette alone remained self-possessed: she was still on her knees, but at Bibi's rough gesture she had fallen back, steadying herself with one hand against the floor. Slowly, noiselessly, Chauvelin had risen and tiptoed across the room, Louise, wide-eyed and scared, following his every movement. They were furtive like those of a cat on the prowl, and his face was the colour of ashes. He went to the door and abruptly pulled it open. Outside the soldier on guard was quietly chatting with Lieutenant Godet; at sight of Citizen Chauvelin they stood at attention and saluted.

"Go and tell Captain Moisson over at the barracks," Chauvelin said curtly, addressing Godet, "that I shall want to see him here at two o'clock."

"Very good, citizen."

Godet saluted again and turned on his heel. Chauvelin looked at him closely, but his face was expressionless. He watched him for a moment or two, as he, Godet, strode along the corridor. Then he closed the door and went back to his seat behind the table.

He had made an almost superhuman effort to regain his composure. He wanted to hear more, and did not want to scare the child. The sight of Godet standing outside the door talking to the man on guard, had made him physically sick, raised that same terror in his heart which his presence and his glance were wont to raise in others. The expression of his face must at one moment have been absolutely terrifying for Fleurette could hardly bear to look at him; but when he sat down again his face was just like a mask, waxen and grey. He turned to her, and rested his elbow on the table, shading his eyes with his long, thin hand. And Fleurette felt how dreadful it must be for him to think that his daughter was a thief.

So before he had time to ask her any questions she embarked on glib explanations.

"You must not think, chéri Bibi," she said, "that I stole those things for a bad motive. I did it because---"

She checked herself, and went on after a second or two:

"You remember, chéri Bibi, that evening at the château when we met, you and I, by the stable door?"

Yes, he remembered. "But speak softly, child! these walls have ears!"

"I had taken the things out of Madame's room then," Fleurette continued, speaking in an agitated whisper, "and hidden them under my shawl." She gave a nervous little laugh: "Oh! I was terrified, I can tell you," she said, "that you would notice."

He had his nerves under control by now. His mind, keen, active, was concentrated on her story, his indomitable will was slowly mastering his terror. What had he to fear? Godet was out of the way, and the child's whispers could not be heard outside these four walls. If only that fool Louise did not look so scared: the sight of her face, open- mouthed and with big, round eyes, got on his nerves. He tried not to look her way. While his glance was fixed on Fleurette he felt that he could think of her, scheme for her and above all protect her--he, so important in the councils of State. So powerful. He could shield her even against the consequences of her own folly.

Of course, he must make light of the whole affair. Oh! above all make light of it. The child was silly, wilful and ignorant, but he would know how to protect her, and how to make her hold her tongue. Louise was a fool, but she was safe and these walls were solid, there was really no cuase for this insane terror which had turned him giddy and faint, and at first paralysed his brain.

So he forced his quaking voice into tones of gentle banter, forced himself to smile, to tweak her cheek and to look gaily, almost incredulously into her eyes.

"Allons, allons," he said lightly, "what story is this? My little Fleurette taking things that belong to others? I won't believe it."

"Only pour le bon motif, chéri Bibi," she insisted; "because you see the soldiers were at the château, and they were ruining and stealing everything they could lay their hands on…And also because---"

Once more she checked herself, loath to give away that one cherished little secret: The mysterious voice at which perhaps Bibi would scoff. But she did tell Bibi how with the precious burden under her shawl she had hurried homewards until, fearing that she would be overtaken by the soldiers on the road, she had sought refuge in the widow Tronchet's cottage. She told him how she had watched him riding past, heading towards Lou Mas, and how she had become scared lest, if he spent the night at home, he would find out what it was that she was keeping so carefully hidden underneath her shawl.

And then she told him how she had thought of M'sieu' Amédé and has asked Adèle to tell him to meet her outside the widow's cottage, and how she had entrusted him with the precious treasure and he had undertaken to hide it in the shed outside his father's shop. But how it came to pass that those other soldiers, who were as magnificently dressed as anything Fleurette had seen in all her life, how they had come to suspect M'sieu' Amédé of the theft, she could not conjecture. All she knew was that M'sieu' Amédé was innocent and that he must be proclaimed innocent at once. At once.

"I stole the things, Bibi," she concluded, "not for a bad motive, I swear, but I did steal them and gave them to M'sieu' Amédé to keep. If anyone is to be punished, then it must be I, not he."

She was sitting on her heels, and looking up boldly, and with a little wiful air at her father. Her dear little hands were resting on her knees. She looked adorable. Chauvelin mutely put out his arms and she snuggled into them, pressing her cheek against his breast with a nervous little gesture, twiddling one of the buttons of his coat.

Old Louise, sitting at the far end of the room, had listened, open- mouthed, wide-eyed, to the tale. Her furrowed face was a mirror of all the different expressions with which Chauvelin regarded her from time to time. Terror and slow reassurance. "If that is all, then I can deal with it!" he seemed to be telling her now, when it was all over, and he knew the worst. He held the child very close to him, and there was a certain nervous terror still lurking in his eyes as he buried his face in the soft waves of her hair.

"Bibi chéri," Fleurette insisted, "I must find those who are going to sit in judgement on M'sieu' Amédé. And you will help me find them, won't you? I must tell them the truth. Mustn't I?"

"You shall, child, you shall," he babbled incoherently. He was trying to steady his voice, so as not to let her know how scared he had been.

"When Adèle told us the next morning about the soldiers having found Madame's valuables and arrested M'sieu' Amédé, I knew at once that you would help me to put everything right. So Louise and I just started then and there, as I thought we would find you in Sisteron."

"The child told me nothing," Louise protested in answer to a mute challenge from Chauvelin. "I only thought she wanted to see you in order to plead for young Colombe."

"There is no need," he said steadily, "for me or anyone to plead for him. Amédé Colombe is a free man at this hour."

Fleurette's little cry of rapture gave him a short, sharp pang of jealousy.

"Do you love him so much as all that, little one?" he asked almost involuntarily.

She blushed, and without replying hung her head. For a second or two he debated within himself whether he would tell her the whole truth, then came to the conclusion that on the whole it would be best that she should know. Doubtless she would hear the story, anyhow, from others and so he told it her just as he had had it the day before from Lieutenant Godet. The magnificent soldiers who had come that morning into Larange were not real soldiers of the revolutionary army, they were a band of English spies whose chief was known throughout France as the Scarlet Pimpernel: a cyncial, impudent adventurer whose business it was to incite French men and women to desert their country in the hour of her greatest need, and who doubtless would incite Amédé Colombe to treachery and desertion. It was that chief, no doubt, who had spied on Fleurette and seen her that night hand over Madame's valuables to Amédé Colombe. He had taken this means of obtaining possession of the valuables, as well as of the persons of the ci- devant Frontenac and Amédé. Both men and money he would use against France, for the English were great enemies of this glorious revolution, the friends of all the aristos and tyrants whom the people were determined to wipe off the face of the earth.

Wide-eyed and dumb, Fleurette listened to him. After the first moment of intense joy, when she heard that Amédé was safe, there had come a sense of exultation that the mysterious voice which had urged her to find Madame's valuables had spoken with a purpose and that that purpose was now accomplished. Monsieur, Madame and Mademoiselle had all been saved by what she believed was a supernatural agency-- whatever Bibi might say. No man who was a mere spy and an enemy of France could have accomplished all that this mysterious being had done, from the moment when disguised as a faggot-carrier he had commanded her to look after Madame's valuables, until the hour when clad in a magnificent uniform, daring and fearless, he had found such glorious means of saving Amédé and M'sieu de Frontenac too, from prison and perhaps death.

And after the joy and the exultation there had crept into Fleurette's heart a feeling of awe and dread for the father who apparently she had never really known until this hour. She had only known him as kind, indulgent, loving--loving in a kind of fierce way at times, snarling like a wild cat if she thwarted him--but always indulgent and always secretive. Now he seemed to lay his soul bare before her. His love of France, of that revolution which apparently he had helped to make. His hatred of those whom he called traitors and enemies of France, the aristocrats, the men who owned land and property, who had ancestors and family pride, and then the English who were the real enemies, who worked against the people, against democracy, and against liberty, who had harboured every traitor that plotted against France. Bibi hated them all and Fleurette felt awed and chilled thus to hear him speak. He, who was so gentle with her always, now spoke as if he approved of all the cruelty perpetrated against those who did not think as he did, and whom he hated with such passionate intensity.

Instinctively, and she hoped imperceptibly, she recoiled from him when he once more tried to clasp her in his arms. This man with the pale eyes and the cruel sneer was not the Bibi she loved. He was just a man whom she feared. All she wanted now was to get away, to get back to Lou Mas. Since Amédé was safe, why should she stay any more in this awful place where even Bibi seemed like a stranger?

Louise now was standing near her, and Bibi was giving Louise some peremptory orders:

"You will go back now to the Chat Noir," he said, "the inn where you were this morning. There you will wait quietly until I come to fetch you. We will get on the way as early as we can, so as to get to Vaison before dark."

"Vaison?" Louise asked, perplexed. "But the coche…"

"We are not travelling by the public coche," Bibi broke in impatiently. "My private calèche will take us as far as Lou Mas, and I'll not leave you till I've seen you safely home."

"A calèche!" Louise exclaimed. "Holy Virgin!"

"Silence, woman," Bibi cried with an oath. "There is no Holy Virgin now."

Well! of course, Bibi had said that sort of thing before now, but never in such a rough, almost savage tone. Slowly Fleurette struggled to her feet. All of a sudden she was feeling very, very tired. For four whole days excitement and anxiety had kept her up; but now excitement had died down and dull reaction had set in. A sense of unreality came over her: the voice of Bibi giving all sorts of instructions to Louise came to her muffled as if through a thick veil. All that she knew--and this was comforting--was that soon they would all be starting for home: not in a crowded, jostling old coche, but in a calèche. What a wonderful man Bibi was: so grand and powerful and rich, that he had a calèche of his own and could come and go as he pleased. She remembered how deferential the soldiers had been to him that night at the château, and even now her eyes fastened on the beautiful tricolour sash which he wore, the visible sign of his influence and power.

When Bibi finally took her in his arms and kissed her as affectionately, as tenderly as was his wont, she swayed a little when he released her and the things in the room started to go round and round before her eyes. Louise put her strong arm round her and Fleurette heard her say: "Leave her to me, she'll be all right!" She felt herself being led out of the room, past the sentry at the door, and then along a corridor.

When she felt the soft, spring air strike her in the face she felt revived, and walked steadily beside Louise as far as the inn.

Chapter 20

Bibi's orders to Louise had been to go back to the inn and there to wait until he came in his calèche to take them home to Lous Mas. And the two women, ready for the journey home, so tired that only excitement kept them from breaking down, waited for him patiently in the parlour downstairs.

The travelers who had arrived in the early morning by the old coche, had all disappeared by now, some had found accommodation at the Chat Noir, others had gone to their homes or to friends in the city; the hour for dinner was not yet, and the personnel of the inn was busy in the kitchen.

The place was deserted and silent; the room self hot and stuffy. The air was heavy with the mingled odour of dust, sale grease and boiled food. Up on the wall a large white-faced clock tricked with noisy monotony, and against the small window-pane a lazy fly kept up an intermittent buzz. Now and again from a remote part of the house came the sound of a human voice or the barking of a dog, or the rattling of pots and pans.

Louise, sitting in a large, old-fashioned armchair by the side of the great heart, had closed her eyes. The monotonous ticking of the clock, the buzzing of the fly, the heat and the silence lulled her to sleep. Fleurette, on a straight-backed chair, sat wide awake, unable to keep her eyes closed even for a few minutes, although they ached terribly and she was very, very tired. But there was so much to keep her brain busy. In the past four days more exiting events had been crowded into her life than in all the eighteen years that law behind her. And round and round they went--these events--beginning with the first sight of the squad of soldiers marching down the high road and coming to a halt on the bridge, until the happy moment when Bibi had assured her that M'sieu Amédé was safe and free, under the protection of that mysterious personage whom Bibi called an impudent spy and enemy of France but whom she, Fleurette, believed to be an agent of the bon Dieu Himself.

It seemed a part of her confused thoughts, presently, when she saw the door of the parlour slowly open and the kind soldier who had conducted her to Bibi standing in the doorway. He cast a quick glance all over the room, and as Fleurette was obviously on the point of uttering a cry of surprise, he put up a warning finger to his lips and then beckoned her to come. She rose, eager as well as mystified, and once more he made a gesture of warning, pointing to Louise and then raising a finger to his lips. A warning it was to make no noise, and not to waken Louise. Fleurette tiptoed across the room to him.

"Your father sent me round," he said in a whisper. He beckoned her to come outside. She cast a last look at Louise who was obviously peacefully asleep, and then slipped out past him into the street.

"There is something your father forgot to say to you," the soldier sad as soon as she had closed the door behind Fleurette. "But he told me not to bring the old woman along, and so as she was asleep--"

"But if she wakes and finds me gone--?" Fleurette rejoined, and turned to go back to the inn. "I must just tell her--"

Immediately he seized hold of her hand.

"Your father," he said, "told me to bring you along as quickly as I could. You know how impatient he is. It is but a step to the Hôtel de Ville. We'll be there and back before the old woman wakes."

No one knew better than Fleurette how impatient Bibi could be. If he said anything, it had to be done at once. At once. So, without further protest, she followed the kind soldier down the narrow street. A few minutes later she was back in the Hôtel de Ville, outside the door which bore the legend: "Committee of Public Safety, Section III." The same soldier in the shabby uniform was lounging, bayonet in hand, outside the door, but at sight of Lieutenant Godet he stood up at attention and made no attempt this time to bar the way. Godet pushed the door open and at a sign from him Fleurette stepped into the room. Of course she expected to see Bibi sitting as before behind the table, alone, busy writing.

Bibi certainly was there, she saw that at a glance, also that at sight of her he jumped to his feet with an expression on his face, far, far more terrible than when she had told him that it was she who had stolen Madame's valuables. But Bibi was not alone. To right and left of him two men were sitting dressed very much like he was himself and wearing the same kind of tricolour sash round their waist. There was a moment of tense silence while Fleurette, a little scared, but not really frightened, stepped further into the room. She could not take her eyes off Bibi, whose dear face had become the colour of lead. He raised his hand and passed it across his forehead. He seemed as if he wanted to speak, yet could not articulate a sound. After a second or two he looked down first at the man on his right, and then at the one on his left, then back again at her, and over her head at Lieutenant Godet.

It was Fleurette who first broke the silence.

"What is it, father?" she said. "You sent for me?"

She did not call him Bibi just then; he seemed so very, very unlike Bibi.

But all he said was:

"What--is the meaning of--of this?" and the words seemed to come through his lips with a terrible effort.

"It means, Citizen Chauvelin, that I am trying to do my duty, and redeeming my faults of negligence and incompetence, for which you passed such severe strictures on me yesterday."

The voice was that of Lieutenant Godet. Fleurette could not see him because he stood immediately behind her, but she recognized the voice, even though it was no longer amiable and almost servile as it had been earlier in the day. It had, in fact, the same tone in it which Fleurette had so deeply resented that day upon the bridge when first she had told him that she was Citizen Armand's daughter.

"You ordered me," Godet went on deliberately, "to go into the highways and the by-ways, and you gave me full power to arrest any man, woman or child whom I suspected of connivance with the enemies of France. This I have done. I have cause to suspect this woman of such connivance, and in accordance with your instructions I have brought her before you on a charge of treason."

Whereupon the man sitting on the right of Bibi nodded approvingly and said:

"If indeed you have cause to suspect this woman, citizen lieutenant, you did well to arrest her."

And the man on Bibi's left asked: "Who is this woman, citizen lieutenant?"

Then only did Bibi appear to find his voice, and it came through his lips just as if someone held him by the throat and were trying to choke him before he had time to speak.

"My daughter," was all he said.

As a matter of fact Fleurette did not understand that something terrible had occurred, she could see well enough, but for the moment the fact that she was in any way involved had not reached her inner consciousness. She did not realize that when Lieutenant Godet spoke of having arrested a woman, he was referring to her. Thinking that she was probably in the way amongst these seriously and busy men, she asked timidly:

"Shall I go, father?" whereat the man on the left gave a short, dry laugh.

"Not just yet, citizeness," he said, "we shall have to ask you one or two questions before we let you go."

"Citizen Pochart," Bibi now rejoined somewhat more steadily, "there is obviously some grave error here on the part of the citizen lieutenant and.."

"Grave error," Pochart broke in with a sneer. "We have heard nothing in the way of witnesses or details of the accusation so far, so why should you think there is an error, Citizen Chauvelin?"

Fleurette could see the struggle on Bibi's face; she could see the great drops of moisture on his face, the swollen veins upon his temples; she saw his hands clenched one against the other, and how he passed his tongue once or twice over his lips. "The citizen lieutenant," he said with a marvelous assumption of calm, "has shown too much zeal. My daughter is as good a patriot as I am myself--"

"How do you know that, Citizen Chauvelin?" the other man asked, the one on the right of Bibi.

"Because she has led a modest and a sheltered life, Citizen Danou," Bibi replied firmly. "Knowing nothing of town life, nothing of intrigues or plots against the State."

"It is impossible," Pochart put in sententiously, "for any man to know what goes on in a woman's head. The soundest patriot may have a traitor for a wife--or else a daughter."

Bibi was obviously making a superhuman effort to control himself. No one knew better than Fleurette how violent could be his temper when he was thwarted, and here were these two men, not to mention Lieutenant Godet, taunting and contradicting him, and she could see the veins swelling upon his temples and his hands clenched until the knuckles shone like polished ivory under the skin.

"My daughter is not a traitor, Citizen Pochart," he said loudly and firmly.

"Lieutenant Godet says she is," Pochart retorted dryly.

"I challenge him to prove it."

"You forget, Citizen Chauvelin," Danou put in suavely, "that it is not for the citizen lieutenant to prove this woman guilty; rather it is for her to prove her innocence."

"The Law of the Suspect," Pochart added, "has been framed expressly to meet such cases as these."

The Law of the Suspect! Ye gods! He himself, Chauvelin, had in the National Assembly voted for its adoption.

"Are we not ordered instantly to arrest all persons who by their actions, their speaking, their writing or their connections have become suspect?" This from Danou who spoke slowly, unctuously, without a trace of spite or anger in his voice. And Pochart, more rough of tone, but equally conciliatory added:

"The Law tells us that if suspect of nothing else, a man, or a woman, or even a child, may be 'suspect of being suspect'. Is that not so, Citizen Chauvelin? Methinks you yourself had something to do with the framing of that law."

"It was aimed at traitors--"

"No! No! at the suspect--"

"My daughter--"

"Ah, ça, Citizen Chauvelin," here interposed Pochart with an expressive oath, "are you by any chance on the side of the traitors? What has the State to do with the fact that this woman is your daughter? A patriot has no relatives these days. He is a son of the State, a child of France, what? Her enemies are his enemies, his hatred of traitors should override every other sentiment."

"A patriot has no sentiment," Danou echoed suavely.

Chauvelin now looked like an animal at bay. Caught in net turning round and round, wildly, impotently; seeking an egress and only succeeding in getting more and more firmly enmeshed. But he kept himself under control nevertheless. He felt the eyes of those three men probing his soul. Exulting over his misery. Hatred all around him. Cruelty. Godet openly hostile, vengeful, with a grievance for his own humiliation; ready to hit back, to demand humiliation for humiliation, and terror for terror. Revenge! My God! who but a fiend could dream of such revenge. And the other two; that fool Danou and that brute Pochart! No actual hostility about them. Only envy: a mad desire to save their own skins, to purchase notoriety, advancement at any price--even at the price of innocent blood.

And as a wild beast turning and turning in the trap will pause from time to time and glare out into the open, which means all its life has stood for until now, so did Chauvelin, with soul enmeshed in vengeance and envy, pause a moment in his mad struggle for freedom. He paused and with wildly dilated eyes gazed upon a swift, accusing vision of all the innocent blood he himself had helped to shed. Those clenched hands of his, on which his gaze for one instant rested, fascinated, how many times had they signed the decree which had deprived a father of his son, a wife of her husband, a lover of his mistress. And through the meshes that tightened round him now, Chauvelin gazing into space saw before his eyes the awful word "Retribution" written in letters of fire and blood.

And seeing the writing on the wall, he felt an immense rage against these men who dared to taunt him, who dared to hit at him, through the one vulnerable spot in his armour of callousness and cruelty. How dared they stand up to him, these miserable creatures whose existence was of less account than that of a buzzing fly? And throwing back his head he gazed upon them all, one after the other, meeting their sneering glance with a bold challenge. How dared they defy him? Him, Chauvelin? The trusted friend of Robespierre, one of the makers of this glorious revolution; one of its most firm props? Now a representative of the National Convention on special mission? There stood the child, his daughter, his little Fleurette, silent, wide- eyed, obviously not fully aware of the terrible position in which she stood: and they dared to hit at her, to accuse her, without rhyme or reason, just in order to hit at him through her. It was Godet, of course, that vile, incompetent brute: savage and cruel like the fool he was: vengeful for the bad half-hour he had been made to spend in this very room. He must have heard something of what the child had said. At one moment her sweet voice had risen to shrill tones. Oh! what a senseless, mad confession! and he had seized upon it so that he might hit back: have his revenge. But he could prove nothing. It would be one man's word against another, and he, Chauvelin, representative on special mission, with the ear of all the great men up in Paris, would see to it, that his word carried all the weight. He would deny everything, swear that Godet lied. His was the power, he was more influential, more unscrupulous than most.

If only the child held her tongue! She would if she was assured that her Amédé was in no danger. How thankful he, Chauvelin, was that he had told her the truth this morning. He couldn't bear to look at her just at this moment, she looking so innocent, so unconscious of danger, but nevertheless he tried to convey to her with eyes and lips the warning to hold her tongue. Chauvelin had been silent for quite a little while; the others thought they had cowed him. In their hearts Pochart and Danou were not a little afraid of him. A representative on special mission had unlimited power and this Chauvelin was always a crouching beast, ready to snarl and to spring, and they knew well enough how influential he was. But here was a double chance to show their zeal, and to get even with the man whom they had always feared. As for Godet, he had obviously staked everything on this throw. His life was anyhow forfeit; Chauvelin's threats yesterday had left him no loophole for hope. But here was revenge to his hand, and at worst a powerful lever wherewith to force his enemy's hand.

Chauvelin's mind had been so busily at work that for a while he lost consciousness of these men. After his rage against them he forgot their very presence. Nothing mattered--no one--except the child, and his own power to save her. Through that semi--consciousness he heard only vague words. Snatches of phrases that passed rapidly between those two men and Godet. "Proofs--" "Witnesses--" And then Danou's voice, soft and unctuous as usual:

"Of course the more solid your proofs--"

And Pochart's, rough and determined:

"Why should we not hear that witness now?"

Godet replied lightly: "I have her here. Perhaps it would be best."

It seemed as if they were determined to ignore him, Chauvelin; to shut him out of their counsels. He was so silent, so self-absorbed; they thought that he was cowed, and dared not raise his voice in defense of his daughter. They were all alike these men--these masters of France as they liked to be called--overbearing, arrogant, always menacing, until you hit back, when all the starch would go out of them, and they would cringe, or else become surly and defiant like any aristo.

"Go and fetch your witness, citizen lieutenant," Pochart said in the end.

Then Chauvelin woke, like a tiger out of his sleep.

"What?" he queried abruptly, "what is this?"

"A witness, citizen representative," came in unctuous tones from Danou. "It will be more satisfactory in this case--the Law does not demand witnesses--suspicion is enough--but--"

"Out of deference to your position, citizen," Pochart broke in with a short laugh. "Go and fetch your witness, Citizen Godet," he added dryly. Chauvelin brought his clenched fist down with a crash on the table. "I'll not allow you--" he began in thundering accents, and met Danou's sneering, inquiring gaze.

"Allow what, citizen representative?" Pochart asked roughly.

"Refuse to hear witnesses? On what grounds?" Danou put in in smooth, velvety accents.

Godet said nothing. It was not for him to speak; but he met Chauvelin's' glance just then, and almost drained his cup of revenge to its dreg.

"No one," now put in Pochart significantly, "has more respect for family ties than I have. But I am first of all a patriot, and then only a family man. I happen to be a single man, but if I were married and discovered my wife to be a traitor to the State, and an enemy of the people, I would with my own hand adjust the guillotine which would end such a worthless and miserable life."

"Now you, Citizen Chauvelin," Danou said, taking up his colleague's point, "are doing your daughter no good by trying to shield her from punishment if she be guilty."

"You would not dare--"

"Dare what, Citizen Chauvelin? Act up to the principles which you yourself have helped to promulgate in France? Indeed we dare! We dare strike at the enemies of the State whoever they may be. That woman," he added, indicating Fleurette, "is suspect; the Law of the Suspect gives our Committee power to arrest her. If she be proved innocent, she shall go free. IF she be guilty, you, by defending her, cannot save her and do but condemn yourself."

And that was true! No one knew it better than Chauvelin, who but a few weeks ago in Paris had helped Merlin and Douai to frame that abominable Law. The heavy hand of Retribution was indeed upon him. The voice of the innocent had cried out for Vengeance before the Lord and Nemesis, hourglass in hand, had stalked him now at last. All that was left him at this moment, out of all that arrogance which had imposed his personality upon the masters of France, made them forget his failures and fear him even in the hour of humiliation, was just a shred of pride, which enabled him to hide his misery and his despair behind a mask of impassiveness. He even succeeded in hiding his hatred and contempt of these three curs who were yapping at his heels. And when Pochart for the third time reiterated his order to Godet to go and fetch his witness, Chauvelin made no further protest. He rose from the table and went round to where Fleurette was standing, silent, bewildered, with great tears, like those of a frightened child, running down her cheeks. He held his hands tightly clenched behind his back, to prevent himself from seizing her in his arms and raining kisses upon her golden hair, letting those sneering men see how terribly he had been hit and how he suffered. Godet had gone out of the room to fetch the witness--what witness? and the other two were sitting at the table, whispering together. Chauvelin through compressed lips murmured in Fleurette's ears:

"Try not to be frightened, little one! Don't let them see you are frightened. They dare not do anything to you."

"I am not frightened, chéri Bibi," she replied, smiling at him through her tears.

"And you will hold your tongue, Fleurette," he urged under his breath, "about what you told me this morning. Swear to me that you will."

"If M'sieu Amédé is safe--"

"I swear to you on my soul, that we do not even know where he is."

"In that case, Bibi chéri.."

Quick footsteps outside the door. A challenge from the man on guard. The opening of the door. Then Godet's voice saying loudly:

"The witness, citizens."

Chauvelin looked up and saw beside Godet woman with a shawl wrapped round her head; she came forward boldly, then threw back her shawl. Chauvelin uttered a savage oath, whilst Fleurette gasped in amazement:

"Adèle!" she cried.

Chapter 21

It seemed almost the worst moment of this awful day to see Adèle-- Adèle!--standing there, like some sly and furtive rodent, snapping at the hand that had fed and tended it. The lessons taught by all these makers of a revolution which was going to be a millennium for the people, and inaugurate an era of brotherly love, had been well learnt by all those who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by venality, by treachery and the blackest of ingratitude. And Chauvelin himself had been head master in that school, where this wretched little bastard had learned how to hate; she was the personification of that proletariat which he had striven to exalt, of the low, mean mind that never tries to rise and only strives to drag down others to the level of its own crass ignorance. Adèle was only a product of that levelling process which was going to make of mankind one great family, full of love for one another, of pity for the weak and contempt of the strong, and which had only succeeded in arousing a universal hatred in every breast and envy of everything that was lofty and pure. The levelling process according to its early protagonists--idealists for the most part--was destined to eliminate all tyranny and to protect those who were too weak to protect themselves; but all it had succeeded in doing was to substitute one tyranny for another; it had not levelled the classes, made one man as good as another; what it had done was to hurl down from his self-imposed altitude of nobility or of virtue every man who was unwilling to step down of his own accord. It had set every beggar on horseback who was a beggar by nature, and kept him there by virtue of ruthlessness and of cruelty. None but a fellow- beggar, more ruthless perhaps, and more cruel, could unseat him. Death was the only real leveller, and this glorious revolution had become a fraternity of death. The Republic of France must march to Liberty over corpses, one of its makers had said, and another added sententiously that no traitor failed to return; except the dead. Terror reigned now everywhere, marching hand in hand with its hand-maiden the guillotine.

The time was no longer far distant when this titanic battle between all these beggars on horseback would reach its fiercest struggle ere it ended in a gigantic cataclysm, and when the gorge of all these tigers would rise at last in face of the daily hecatombs which had made a graveyard of the fair lands of France. But that time was not yet. Men like Chauvelin had seen visions of Retribution like fiery Fata Morgana pointing to the inevitable hour, but the Godets, the Danous, the Pocharts and the Adèles knew not the signs of the times. They had learnt their lesson and were applying it for their own advancement and above all for their own safety, destroying all that was destructible, taking Earth and Heaven to witness that they whose lives had been nought but misery and hunger would henceforth sweep off the face of the earth all those who had only known ease and comfort, who had practised virtue, and never known despair.

And Adèle whose hatred of Fleurette had thriven all these years as in a forcing-house, had learnt her lesson well. Fleurette to her meant tyranny, the tyranny of riches over her poverty, of good food over her empty stomach, of neat kirtle over her rags. Poverty and Hunger had enchained her to Fleurette's wheel, had forced her to wash dishes, to scrub floors, to sleep on a straw pallet. But now her turn had come. Her very misery had put it in her power to drag Fleurette down to her own level. She had imbibed the principles of this glorious revolution until she felt herself to be one of its prophets. She had spied on Fleurette and denounced her because she had seen at last a way to satisfy her hatred and to lull her envy to rest.

She had plenty to say when questioned by Pochart and Danou; proud of the fact that for over two years now she had supplied the Sisteron section of the Committee of Public Safety with information about the district. She had known the ci-devant Frontenacs and it was--she was proud to state--chiefly owing to her that they came to be suspected of treason. They used to turn one of their rooms into a chapel on Sundays and a ci-devant priest, who was not Constitutional, performed there rites and ceremonies with wafer and cup which had long since been decreed treasonable against the State. Adèle had been forced by the ci-devant Frontenac women to be present at these treasonable practices; she had even been made to scrub the floor of that temple of superstition and to remove the dust from the so-called altar. Her patriotic soul had risen in revolt and she had journeyed to Sisteron one day when she was free and placed the matter before the Committee of Public Safety who had commended her for her zeal.

"Adèle!" Fleurette exclaimed involuntarily. "How could you? Indeed le bon Dieu will punish you for this."

At which remark everybody laughed--except Chauvelin, who smothered a groan. Oh! the child! the senseless, foolish, adorable child! She seemed wilfully to run her darling head into the noose. Adèle turned a sneering glance on Fleurette.

"I'll chance a punishment from your bon Dieu," she said flippantly, "for the joy of seeing you punished by the Revolutionary Tribunal."

And strange to say Chauvelin did not strike her, though she stood quite near him, with only the width of the table between her and his avenging hand. But he did not strike her, even though his muscles ached with the desire to strike her on the mouth. It was pride that held him back. How those men would have laughed to see him lose his self-control with this wench who was only emitting principles that he indirectly had taught her. Retribution! Nemesis at every turn.

And now Adèle embarked upon her main story. Her spying on Fleurette. Long, long had she suspected her, with her airs of virtue and bunches of forget-me-nots in front of a statue representing a ci-devant saint. "Saint Antoine de Padoue priez pour nous!" every time she placed a fresh bunch of flowers before that statue. Bah! such superstition made a patriot's gorge rise with disgust. But Adèle had said nothing. Not for a long time. She knew that citizen Chauvelin--he was known as Armand over at Laragne--was a great patriot and an intimate friend of Citizen Robespierre over in Paris. So Adèle decided to bide her time, and she did. Until that evening when at last the Frontenacs were arrested and the château ransacked. That night Adèle had had her suspicions aroused by Fleurette's strange airs of mystery, her desire to meet Citizen Colombe alone on a dark night. Fleurette had always been such a Sainte Nitouche that Adèle guessed that something serious was in the wind.

Like a zealous patriot she had watched, and she had seen Fleurette hand over a casket and a wallet to the young Colombe. She had heard the two talk over the question of hiding these things in a shed behind Citizen Colombe's shop, and finally seen them locked in each other's arms, which confirmed her in the idea that Fleurette, with all her appearances of virtue, was a woman guilty of moral turpitude.

And still Chauvelin did not strike her on the mouth. He fell to wondering what crime he had committed that was heinous enough to deserve this punishment of impotence.

The others listened for the most part in silence. Only occasionally did one or the other break into a chuckle. Nom de nom, what an event! Representative Chauvelin! the man of almost arrogant integrity, sent to Orange to spy and report on the workings of the Committee of Public Safety, one of the makers of the Terror, a man whose every glance was a menace, and every word a threat of death! When Adele had finished speaking, Pochart winked across at Danou. Here was a find that would exalt them both, bring their names to the notice of the great men over in Paris. All sorts of possibilities of reward and advancement loomed largely before them. And Pochart rubbed his large, coarse hands contentedly together and Danou poured himself out a glass of water and drank it down. All these possibilities had made him thirsty.

Fleurette too was silent. For the first time in her life she had come in contact with human passions of which hitherto she had not even dreamed. Adèle, the little maid of all work, with the coarse hands, the red elbows and narrow rat-like face, who wore Fleurette's cast-off clothes and worn-out shoes, had suddenly become an un-understandable and terrifying enigma. Fleurette felt as if she could not utter a sound, that any word of protest which she might raise would choke her. The girl's words, her bitter accusations, spoken in an even monotone, gave her a feeling as of an icy-cold grip upon her heart. Surrounded from her cradle onwards with love and care, this first glimpse of spite and hatred paralysed her. Only when Adèle spoke of M'sieur Amédé and of that kiss which had tokened him to Fleurette, that delicious kiss under the almond-trees, only then did a hot blush rise to her cheeks, and tears of shame gather in her eyes.

Beyond that she felt like an automaton, while these four creatures who hated her and who hated Bibi were discussing her fate. Bibi was strangely silent and motionless although from time to time the others referred a question or two to him in which case he replied in monosyllables. There was much talk of "detention" and of "revolutionary tribunal." Of course Fleurette did not understand what these meant. Since Bibi appeared so indifferent, she supposed that nothing very serious was going to happen to her.

Presently Adèle and Godet were dismissed. Adèle swept past her with her shawl once more over her head hiding the expression of her face. Her eyes did not meet Fleurette's as she glided past like a little rat seeking its burrow. Perhaps she was ashamed. Godet was ordered to send two men along--they would be wanted to take the citoyenne to the house of detention. Godet gave the salute and followed Adèle out of the room.

Fleurette's feet were aching. She had been standing quite still for over half and hour, and was longing to sit down. Bibi's eyes were upon her now, and his long thin hands were fidgeting nervously with a paper-knife. At one time he clutched it so tightly, and half raised it, as if he meant to strike one or the other of his colleagues. Fleurette tired and a little dizzy, only caught snatches of their conversation. At one time Bibi said very quietly:

"You are very bold, Citizen Danou, to measure your influence against mine."

And the man on Bibi's left retorted very suavely:

"If I have transgressed, citizen representative, I'll answer for it."

"You will," Bibi rejoined, and his words came through his thin, compressed lips, harsh and dry like blows from a wooden mallet against a metal plate. "And with your head, probably."

"Is that a threat, Citizen Chauvelin?" the other asked with a sneer.

"You may take it so if you wish."

The man on Chauvelin's right, Citizen Pochart, had in the meanwhile been writing assiduously on a large piece of paper. Now he pushed the paper in front of Chauvelin and said curtly:

"Will you sign this, citizen representative"

"What is it?" Chauvelin asked.

"Order for the provisional arrest of one Fleur Chauvelin, suspect of treasonable connections with the enemies of France, pending her appearance before the Revolutionary Tribunal."

Chauvelin raised the paper and read it through carefully. His hand that held the paper was perfectly steady.

"Your signature," Pochart went on, and held out the quill pen invitingly toward Chauvelin, "as Representative of the National Convention on special mission is necessary on this order."

"You may take that as a threat too, Citizen Chauvelin," Danou added with a sly wink directed at his colleague Pochart, "for if you do not sign, there's others that will, and sign one too that will be even more unpleasant for you."

Chauvelin took the pen, and the two men, Pochart and Danou, sprawling over the table, had the satisfaction of seeing him sign the order for the arrest of his own child--her death probably. Not the first time either that something of the sort had occurred, that a man put his seal on the death-warrant of his kith or kin. Had not Philippe d'Orléans voted for the death of his cousin the King? Chauvelin signed with a steady hand, his lips tightly pressed one against the other. They should not see, these fiends, what torture he was enduring; they should not see that at this moment he felt just like a brute beast writhing in agony. Not that he had abandoned hope with regard to Fleurette. He felt confident that he could turn the order into a mere scrap of paper presently, and see those two snarling dogs fawning at his feet once more, kicked with the toe of his boot and howling in vain for mercy.

It was only from humiliation that, conscious of his power, he had decided that silence and outward acquiescence were his best policy. He had certain cards up his sleeve which the others wot not of, but he could only play them if he succeeded in lulling them into a sense of security by his obvious indifference. Fortunately his reputation stood him in good stead. He was known by his enemies to be so ruthless and so unscrupulous--such an ardent patriot, declared his friends--that his indifference now where his own daughter was concerned, did not even astonish Pochart and Danou. It was just like Citizen Chauvelin to send his own daughter to the guillotine. And this estimate of his character helped him to play the rôle that would mean life to Fleurette.

So there he sat for a few minutes, perfectly impassive, his face a mask, his hand perfectly steady, perusing the paper, and then deliberately drawing his pen through one of the words and substituting another.

"We'll say the house of Caristie," he said drily, "the other is already full."

Pochart shrugged his shoulders. Why not concede this point? It was so fine to have the citizen representative under one's thumb. What matter if his daughter was thrust into one prison rather than another?

"Is the guard there?" Danou asked. "We have plenty of business to see to. This one has lasted quite long enough."

"There is still that report from Avignon to look through," Pochart added. "It will need your attention, citizen representative."

"I'll be with you in one moment," Chauvelin replied calmly.

He rose and went to the door. Opened it. Yes! there was the guard sent hither by Godet, two men to escort his Fleurette to the house of Caristie the architect, now transformed into a house of detention. Chauvelin did not even wince at sight of them. He closed the door quietly and then approached Fleurette. He took hold of her hand and drew her to the furthest corner of the room, out of earshot.

"You are not frightened, little one?" he whispered to her.

"No, Bibi chéri," she replied simply. "If you tell me not to be."

"There is nothing to be frightened at, Fleurette. These brutes wish you ill; but--"

"Why should they?"

"But I can protect you."

"I know you can, chéri Bibi."

"And you won't see that wretch Adèle again."

"I wonder why she hates me! I thought we were friends."

"There are no friends these days, little one," he said almost involuntarily. "Only enemies or the indifferent---They are the least dangerous."

"There are those whom we love."

"You are thinking of Amédé?"

"And of you, chéri Bibi."

"You believed me, didn't you, little one when I told you that young Colombe is safely out of harm's way?"

"Yes," she said, "I believed you."

"Then you will hold your tongue about--about what you know?"

"I promise you, chéri Bibi. But I won't allow Amédé to suffer for what I did," she added with that determined little air of hers, which Chauvelin had learned to dread.

"He won't. He can't," he declared whilst an exclamation of impatience at her obstinacy almost escaped him. "Have I not told you--"

"We are waiting, Citizen Chauvelin," Danou's unctuous voice broke in at this point. "As you are near the door, perhaps you will call the guard."

He did. And stood silently by, while Fleurette was ordered to follow the men. She obeyed, after a last, smiling glance at Bibi. No! she was not frightened; she felt sure that he could protect her, and so long as M'sieur Amédé was safe-—

The last words she said before she finally passed through the door were:

"Poor old Louise! You'll tell her, won't you, Bibi, not to fret for me? and tell her to send me my crochet work if she can. I shall have plenty of time on my hands to get on with it."

Chapter 22

At four o'clock that afternoon the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal sitting at Orange received a summons to accompany Citizen Chauvelin, Representative of the National Convention on special mission, to Paris, there to present his last reports of the cases tried by him since the beginning of the year.

Public Prosecutor Isnard received the same summons; he hastened all in a flurry to the Hôtel de Ville to find Citizen Chauvelin.

"What does it all mean, citizen?" he asked.

Chauvelin shrugged his shoulders.

"I know not," he replied. "The summons came by courier an hour ago. I have my calèche here. We could start at daybreak to-morrow and be in Valence before dark. The next day should see us in Lyons, and the middle of next week in Paris."

"Can you not conjecture--?"

Once more Chauvelin shrugged.

"One never knows," he said. "There must have come some denunciation. You and the President have your enemies, no doubt, as every one else."

Public Prosecutor Isnard's flabby cheeks were the colour of lead.

"I have always done my duty," he stammered.

"No doubt, no doubt," Chauvelin responded lightly.

"You'll be able to justify yourself, I feel sure, citizen. But you know what these summons are. Impossible to argue--or to disobey."

"Yes, I know that. But the business here--"

"What of it?"

"Our prisons are full. A batch of twenty at least should be tried every day. I have forty or fifty indictments ready now and we can keep the guillotine busy for at least a week. All that business will be at a standstill."

"You will have to work twice as hard on your return, citizen," Chauvelin retorted drily.

The arrival of the President of the Tribunal put a temporary stop to the colloquy. He too was flurried and not a little scared. He knew about these summonses that would come from time to time from Paris without any warning. They meant reprimands of a certainty. Perhaps worse. One never knows with leaders of the Government over there. One moment they would shout: "Strike! Strike!" at the top of their voices, "let not the guillotine be idle!" They would frame laws to expedite the extermination of all the traitors and suspected traitors. The next, they would draw back, accuse you of over-zeal, over-cruelty, what not? See how Carrier had suffered! He had been sent to Nantes to purge the city of aristos and bourgeois and calotins; he had done his best; invented a new way of disposing of ninety priests all at once by the mere unmooring of a flat-bottomed craft, laden with those traitors, and on a given signal opening all the hatches and sinking the whole craft with her cargo.

Well! Carrier had done that. He had effectually purged Nantes of traitors. Nevertheless he was summoned to Paris, and his head rolled into the basket on the Place de la République, just as if he had been an aristo. Look at Danton, and at--but why recall it all? Anyhow, what a week of desperate anxiety this would be until Paris was reached. President Legrange had thoughts of flight, of taking refuge in the mountains as others had done. But Public Prosecutor Isnard dissuaded him. What was the good of running away? One always got caught, and then it would of a certainty be the guillotine. Chauvelin too was for immediate obedience.

"I too am summoned," he said. "We are all in the same boat. As for the business here, it will have to wait until our return."

Public Prosecutor Isnard could not suppress a taunt.

"There's your daughter, Citizen Chauvelin," he said. "We were going to make quick work of her. I had her indictment all ready. In fact the chief witness--a wench who looks like an anæmic rat--was in my study when your summons came."

"I know, I know," Chauvelin said with perfect indifference. "Well! all that can wait till our return."

After which he added lightly: "At daybreak, citizens, my calèche will be ready outside the Chat Noir. I await you then and advise you to eat a good breakfast. Our first stop will be at Montélimar, where we can get relays. In the meanwhile I bid you adieu. I still have much work to see to before the close of day."

For the first time this day Chauvelin heaved a genuine sigh of satisfaction when the two men had departed. His first maneuvre had succeeded admirably. With the President of the Tribunal and the Public Prosecutor out of the way, the business of the State would be at a standstill in Orange and he would have at least three weeks of freedom before him in which to act. He had planned this summons, and intended to accompany the two men as far as Lyons. There he would find some pretext for sending them on their way without him, whilst he returned in secret to Orange. That was his plan, a risky one at best; but in less than three weeks he would either have found a way of getting Fleurette out of the clutches of these fiends, or he and she would both be dead. Strangely enough at this moment he fell to wondering what his arch-enemy, the Scarlet Pimpernel, would do under the circumstances and he longed for the possession of that same imaginative brain, that marvellous resource and unbounded pluck which had foiled him, Chauvelin, at every turn.

The Scarlet Pimpernel! If that bold adventurer were to know that his bitterest foe was now probing the lowest depths of sorrow, that this cruel Nemesis had overtaken him at last, how he would exult, how jeer at his enemy. And of the many pin-pricks which Chauvelin had had to endure to-day, he felt that none could hurt him so deeply as the thought that the Scarlet Pimpernel might hear of his trouble and hold jubilee over his soul agony.

Chapter 23

That first night the party slept at Valence in the Maison de Têtes, the quaint old house with its unique façade which stands to this day in the Grand' Rue, and which in that year of grace 1794 had been requisitioned by the Drôme section of the Committee of Public Safety for its offices. A concierge with wife and family were in charge of the house and there were two or three additional rooms in it which were often placed at the disposal of any official personage who happened to be passing through Valence. Chauvelin had often stayed there on his way through to Paris and was a familiar figure to the concierge and his family; there was no difficulty whatever in finding accommodation for himself and his two friends in the Maison des Têtes for the night. Calèche and horses, together with driver and postilion, were put up in the stables at the back of the house.

Night had overtaken the party when some five kilometres outside Valence, and this last part of the way had to be done at walking pace. Thus it was nearly ten o'clock before the calèche drew up in the Grand' Rue outside the Maison des Têtes, and the concierge, hurrying to greet the unexpected and important guest, had regretfully to inform him that neither the President nor any of the officials were here to welcome him as they had already gone to their respective homes. But the rooms were there, quite ready, at the disposal of Citizen Chauvelin and his friends, and supper would be got immediately for them. The three travellers stepping out of the calèche were more than thankful to find shelter and food at this hour. Already at sunset the sky had been threatening; great banks of cloud came rolling up from the south-west, driven by tearing gusts of wind; by night-time a few heavy drops were falling, presaging the coming storm. No sooner were the travellers installed in the dining-hall in front of an excellent supper, than the storm broke in all its fury. It was accompanied by torrential rain and a tearing wind. Such wild weather during the month of May was almost unparalleled in the valley of the Rhône, so the concierge hastened to explain to the two strangers who accompanied Chauvelin. The night was very dark too, the very weather in fact for foot-pads and malefactors who, alas! infested the countryside more than ever now.

"What would you do?" the man added with a shrug, "so many are starving these days; they get their existence as best they can. Honesty is no longer the best policy."

And then he caught Citizen Chauvelin's eye, and nervously clearing his throat, began to talk of something else. It was not prudent to grumble at anything, to make any remark that might be constructed into criticism of the present tyrants of France.

Supper drew to an end, mostly in silence. Chauvelin was never of a loquacious turn of mind, and neither of the other two were in a mood to talk. After a curt good night the latter returned to the room which had been assigned to them. Chauvelin before doing the same gave orders to his driver and postilion to have the calèche at the door by seven o'clock on the following morning. Then he too went to bed, there to toss ceaselessly through the endless hours of wakefulness, his mind tortured with thoughts of his darling Fleurette, wondering how she would bear this first night in prison, the propinquity, the want of privacy, the lewd talk, perhaps, or coarse jests of some of her room- mates. It was only in the early dawn that, wearied at last in body and mind, he was able to close his eyes and snatch an hour or two's sleep.

When the concierge brought him a steaming mug of wine in the early morning, his first inquiry was after the calèche. Was it being got ready?

Yes! the concierge had seen the driver and postilion at work this hour past. Everything would doubtless be ready for a start by seven o'clock. It was now half-past six. Chauvelin drank the hot wine eagerly; his sleepless night and all his anxiety had produced a racking headache and a state of mental inertia difficult to combat. Slightly refreshed by the drink, he proceeded to dress. While he did so he heard a great clatter of horses; hoofs striking the cobblestones, a good deal of shouting and rattling of wheels. His windows gave on the Grand' Rue, and looking out he expected presently to see the calèche being driven round from the stable-yard at the back. But nothing came. He felt nervy and impatient, hoping that nothing would go wrong. Angered too with himself for feeling so flat on this very morning when he would need all his brain-power to carry his scheme successfully to the end.

He intended journeying with the two men as far as Lyons, and there to invent a pretext for separating from them, sending them on to Paris by the stagecoach, and then returning quietly and secretly to Orange alone. Already he was fully dressed and ready to go downstairs. He heard the clock in the tower of St. Apollinaire, striking seven. A minute or two later the concierge, wide-eyed and babbling incoherently, came bursting into the room.

"Citizen! Citizen! Nom de nom, quel malheur!" These ejaculations were followed by a string of lamentations, and a confused narrative of some untoward event out of which the only intelligible words that struck clearly on Chauvelin's ears were: "Calèche," and "cursed malefactors!" His questions remained unanswered; the man continuing to lament and to curse alternately.

Finally bereft of all patience, Chauvelin seized him by the shoulder and shook him vigorously.

"If you don't speak clearly, man," he said roughly, "I'll lay my stick across your shoulders."

The man fell on his knees and swore it was not his fault.

"I could not be in two places at once, citizen," he lamented. "I was looking after your two friends and my wife--"

Chauvelin raised his stick. "What is it that was not your fault?" he shouted at the top of his voice.

"That your calèche has been stolen, citizen!"

"What?"

"It is those cursed brigands! They have infested the town these past-- "

The words died in his throat in a loud cry of pain. Chauvelin had brought his stick crashing upon his back.

"It was not my fault, citizen," he reiterated protesting. "I could not be in two places at once--"

But Chauvelin no longer stayed to listen. Picking up his hat and coat, he hastened downstairs, to be met in the corridor by the concierge's wife and two sons all incoherent and lamenting. The whole house by now was astir. Public Prosecutor Isnard came clattering down the stairs followed by President Legrange, both in more or less hastily completed toilette. And thus the whole party with Chauvelin en tête proceeded at full speed to the stable yard, where the yawning coach-house and empty stalls told their mute tale. Of calèche, horses, driver or postilion not a sign. The stable-man, an old fellow, and his aid, a very young lad, were busy at the moment telling the amazing story to a small crowd of gaffers and market-women who had pushed their way into the yard from the back and were listening, open-mouthed, to a tale of turpitude and effrontery, unparalleled in the annals of Valence.

At sight of Chauvelin and his tricolour sash, the crowd of gaffers and women respectfully made way for him, and he, seizing the old stable- man by the shoulder, commanded him to tell him clearly and briefly just what had happened. Thus it was that at last he was put in possession of the facts that touched him so nearly. It seems that his own driver and postilion, up betimes, had got the calèche and horses quite ready and standing in the middle of the yard. They had in fact just put the horses to, and the postilion and driver were standing by the calèche door drinking a last mug of wine, when the from the narrow lane which connects the yard with the rue Latour at the back, a band composed of four ruffians came rushing in. Before he, the stable-man, could as much as wink an eyelid, three of these ruffians had seized the driver and postilion round their middle and thrust them into the calèche, followed them in, banged the coach door to, whilst the fourth climbed up to the box with the rapidity of a monkey, gathered up the reins and drove away.

In the meanwhile the lad who had been at work in the stables and heard the clatter came running out. Stable-man and lad then ran to the lane and out into the rue Latour, only to see the calèche rattling away at breakneck speed. They shouted and strained their lungs to attract the notice of passers-by, and they did attract their attention, but before they could explain what had happened, the calèche was well out of sight. The lad ran as fast as he could to the nearest poste de gendarmerie, but before the gendarmes could get to horse, no doubt those ruffians would have got well away with their booty.

That was in substance the story to which Chauvelin had to listen, and through which he was forced to keep his temper in check. As soon as the stable-man had finished speaking, the lad had put in his own comments, whilst the gaffers and gossips started arguing, talking, conjecturing, giving advice, suggesting, lamenting. Oh! above all lamenting! That the high roads were not safe, every one knew that to his cost. Masked highway robbers held up coaches, attacked pedestrians, robbed and pillaged the countryside. That the streets of Valence were not safe, was alas! only too true. The gendarmerie was either incompetent or venal, and lucky the man who possessed nothing that could be taken from him. But this outrage to-day in broad daylight surpassed anything that had been seen or heard before. A calèche and pair, pardieu! was not like a purse that could be hidden in one's waistcoat pocket. And so on, and so on, while Chauvelin, still silent and curbing his impatience, went back into the house, followed by his crestfallen friends and by the staff of the Maison de Têtes still lamenting and protesting their innocence and withal beginning to feel doubtful as to what the consequences might be to themselves of this untoward adventure.

The stable-lad was then sent back to the poste de gendarmerie, with orders from Citizen Representative Chauvelin that the chief officer in charge present himself immediately at the Maison des Têtes. Whilst waiting for this officer, Chauvelin, sitting in the small parlour, had a few moments' peace in which to co-ordinate his thoughts. The inertia which had weighed upon his spirits the first thing in the morning had been suddenly dissipated. Already his keen, imaginative brain had seized upon this catastrophe, and planned how to turn it to the furtherance of his scheme. And while his friends, no whit less voluble or more coherent than the concierge or his kind, were loudly lamenting: "What a misfortune, citizens! What bad luck!" and throwing up their arms in utter helplessness, Chauvelin broke in impatiently upon their wailings:

"We must make the best of it, citizens," he said, "I shall certainly be held up here a day or two, on this stupid business, but it certainly need not detain you. The stage-coach leaves for Lyons at half-past eight if I mistake not. As soon as my calèche is recovered, which I doubt not it will be in a couple of days, I'll follow you on. You in the meanwhile can proceed to Paris all the way by stage-coach. It will be perhaps not quite as comfortable as my calèche, but it will serve."

They demurred a little. The stagecoach would certainly not be as comfortable as Citizen Chauvelin's luxurious calèche, and perhaps a day or two's delay would not be very serious.

"It would be fatal," Chauvelin said emphatically. Orders from Paris such as they had received must be obeyed in the least possible delay, a couple of days idling in Valence, when a stage-coach was available, would certainly be put down to pusillanimity and want of zeal.

He could be eloquent when he liked, could Citizen Chauvelin, and on this occasion he was determined to gain his point--to send these two packing, post-haste, off to Paris, and leave himself free to return to Orange immediately. As to what would happen presently, when those two arrived in Paris and found that they had been hoaxed, that they had not been sent for, and would have to return biting the dust and chewing the cud of their wrath, as to that in truth, Chauvelin had not given a thought. To save his Fleurette, to get her away out of the country at the cost of his own life it need be, was all he thought about, and while the business of trying and condemning prisoners was at a standstill through the absence of these two men, there was a hundred to one chance that he could accomplish his purpose.

Therefore he put forth all his powers of persuasion--and they were great. He drew lurid pictures of what happened to those who were thought to be guilty of dilatoriness or want of zeal. So much so that he reduced President Legrange and Public Prosecutor Isnard--at no time very valiant heroes--to a state of abject fear, and half an hour later had the satisfaction of bidding them au revoir, in the yard of the posting-inn, they having found seats in the stage-coach to Lyons.

As soon as he had seen the last of them, he made haste to requisition a chaise and the only horses to be had in Valence, to take him forthwith to Orange.

As for his own calèche, he wished the foot-pads joy in its possession and cared less than nothing what became of his driver or his postilion.

Chapter 24

Could Citizen Chauvelin have seen his calèche and horses a couple of hours later on the road, he would perhaps not have been quite so complacent as to its fate. After rattling over the cobble-stones of Valence and tearing down the high road at maddening speed, it slackened a little for the hill, and worked its way slowly up through the small township of Livron. A quarter of a league or so further, it turned off at the cross-roads in the direction of Cest and after another half-hour came to a halt at that small cottage which still nestles to this day, with its tumble-down roof and vine-covered arbour, beside the celebrated Roman ruins at the foot of the hill, not far from the banks of the Drôme.

Three ruffians, grimy from the roots of their hair to their down-at- heel shoes, jumped out of the calèche, dragging after them in the open the driver and postilion lately in the employ of Citizen Chauvelin, Representative of the National Convention on special mission. Whilst thus journeying between Valence and Livron these two poor wretches had been securely pinioned with ropes, but they were not gagged, and they used the freedom left to their tongues, by uttering oaths and protests which appeared vastly to amuse their captors.

The fourth ruffian--for ruffian he was--despite the fact that he had donned a bourgeois' dress, the better to carry out his coup and pass unnoticed on the road, had in the meanwhile scrambled down from the box.

"Quite successful so far," he remarked lightly, speaking in English, and rubbing his hands, which were slender and long and firm, contentedly together.

"What shall we do with these?" one of his companions asked, laughing and pointing to the two woebegone prisoners, who had ceased to curse and to protest, chiefly owing to want of breath, but also through astonishment at finding themselves the victims of some kind of foreign brigands whose language they did not understand.

"Poor beggars!" the other said lightly. "We'll place them in front of an excellent breakfast and I'll warrant we need not as much as tie their legs to their chairs. Get them inside, Ffoulkes, will you, and I'll talk to them as soon as Tony and I have seen to the horses."

"You don't think the gendarmerie from Valence will be after us, Blakeney, do you?"

"Not they," Sir Percy replied. "They are very short of horses in these parts, and the best will, I doubt not, be requisitioned by my friend M. Chambertin for his own use. I wonder now," he added musing, "what he is after, taking those two ruffians with him to Paris; and whether his errand is sufficiently urgent to cause him to travel in the stage- coach, now that we have borrowed his calèche…."

He paused, slightly frowning, evidently a little puzzled.

"I wonder," he added, "if our friend in there can throw some light upon the matter."

After which Sir Percy Blakeney and Lord Anthony Dewhurst took the steaming horses out of the shafts, relieved them of their harness and gave them a good rub down, a drink and a feed, while Sir Andrew Ffoulkes and Lord Hastings went into the cottage and busied themselves with their prisoners.

My Lord Stowmaries was for the moment in charge of this untenanted cottage, which was a stronghold as well as a rallying place of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, as it lay perdu, off both the main and the secondary roads. He it was who had prepared food for his chief and his comrades with the assistance of one Amédé Colombe. The cottage consisted of four rooms; unsecurely sheltered against the weather by a cracked roof, and against damp by broken floors. There were a few very rare pieces of furniture in the place, abandoned there by the late owner and his family, worthy farmers whom the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had conveyed safely out of France when their loyal adherence to their exiled seigneurs had brought them under the ban of the Revolutionary Government.

In one of the rooms the two prisoners were busy for the moment pinching one another to see if they were really awake. After thinking that they were within sight of death at the hands of a band of malefactors, they found themselves sitting at a table in front of an excellent plate of soup, some bread and cheese and a very large mug of excellent wine, while the cords round their bodies had been removed. Anyway, a very pleasant dream. Leaving conjecture to take care of itself, they fell to on this welcome repast with a healthy appetite. The door which gave on the larger room had been left open, and through it the two men could see the band of malefactors falling to, just like themselves, in front of an excellent meal, laughing and talking in that same gibberish language which they did not understand.

"They don't look to me much like brigands," the driver remarked presently, speaking with his mouth full, "in spite of their dirty clothes."

"And that tall one," the postilion added thoughtfully, "he seems to be their captain. If you ask me I think he is an aristo."

"Or an English spy."

The other shook his head.

"Not he. English spies would have murdered us."

"Then what in the name of hell--"

He got no further, the postilion had gripped him by the arm.

"Nom de nom!" the postilion exclaimed; and expressed further amazement by a prolonged whistle. "If that is not Amédé Colombe."

"Qui çà Amédé Colombe?" the other asked.

"The son of the grocer over at Laragne. I know, I come from those parts. But what the hell is he doing here?"

Amédé Colombe sitting at the table with his wonderful new friends, caught the sound of his name, and gave an anxious start.

"Do not worry about them, my young friend," Sir Percy Blakeney said reassuringly. "Before they could do you any harm we shall be many leagues out of the way."

At which postilion and driver gazed at one another, more puzzled than ever before. Were the really dreaming, or had they actually heard that foreigner speaking their own language?--and perfectly. The driver was inclined to think that the wine which they had been drinking was potent enough to be the cause of the hallucination. Not that this deterred him from pouring himself out another mugful, and drinking it down with much smacking of the lips and sighs of contentment. It was such very excellent wine. Didn't his friend the postilion agree with him? Why of course, and the filing and refilling of the two mugs continued apace and at a great rate.

"They'll be blind in a few moments," Lord Anthony Dewhurst remarked, glancing over his shoulder at the two men.

And he was right in this surmise. In less than a quarter of an hour driver and postilion were blind to the world with arms stretched out across the table, their heads buried in the bend of their elbows, breathing stertorously.

"You are not eating my friend," my Lord Stowmaries remarked to Amédé Colombe, who in truth had been sitting, silent, self-absorbed, neither eating nor drinking.

"Friend, Amédé does not appreciate your cooking, old man," Blakeney put in lightly. "It is fairly bad, I confess. Is it not Monsieur Amédé?"

"It is excellent, milor'," the young man sighed, "but I ask you, how can I eat or drink when I am in such terrible anxiety?"

"We were just going to discuss the best way--and the quickest--of alleviating your anxiety, mon ami," Sir Percy rejoined, "all we were waiting for was for these two amiable gentlemen over there to become deaf temporarily as well as blind."

"It is not for myself that I am anxious, milor'," the young man said timidly. He was over shy of these wonderful men, who had led him from adventure to adventure, in a manner that had almost addled his poor brain. His unsophisticated mind was still vibrating with the excitement of the unforgettable hour, when throwing disguise aside these strangers had revealed themselves not as revolutionary soldiers at all, but as mysterious beings, whose actions had appeared to him to savour of the supernatural. It took him a long time to understand the situation. It seems that his being in possession of Madame de Frontenac's valuables was known to the girl Adèle who was nothing but a spy in the pay of the Committee of Public Safety. She had that night spied upon him and the girl he loved, seen the girl hand over the valuables to him, and revealed the fact to the Committee. Had these mysterious strangers not played the part of revolutionary soldiers and got him, Amédé, safely out of the way, before the real soldiers appeared upon the scene, he would at this moment be languishing in a prison at Sisteron or Orange preparatory to being sent either to the guillotine or for cannon-fodder on the frontier.

All this Amédé understood well enough, he cursed Adèle a thousand times in his heart for being such a snake in the grass. What he could not understand was why these strangers should take an interest in him and in his fate. When to his timid query on that subject their leader laughingly replied: "Sport! mon ami, the fun, the excitement nothing more philanthropic, I assure you, just sport!" he understood still less.

No wonder that to him, Amédé Colombe, the whole adventure had come as a manifestation of something supernatural. As for M. de Frontenac, his fellow-sufferer, on the other hand, he had apparently been prepared for that manifestation. It appeared that Madame and Mademoiselle had already been rescued from peril and taken to a place of safety, where presently M. de Frontenac would be able to join them, always through the instrumentality of these wonder-working strangers. The last thing M. de Frontenac had said to him, Amédé, when he took leave of him a couple of days ago, somewhere in the lonely mountain paths where the party had called a halt, was: "Trust these Englishmen Amédé, trust them with everything you hold dear. Look at me, had I not trusted them with my wife and daughter, I should have seen my dear ones first, and myself afterwards, facing the guillotine at this very hour!"

It was with these words ringing in his ears, that Amédé, sitting now amongst these men to whom he owed his life, had mustered up sufficient courage to reiterate more firmly: "It is not for myself I am anxious, milor'."

"I know that, mon ami," Sir Percy replied, "you are thinking of that brave little girl--Fleurette. Isn't that her name?"

"Yes, milor'," Amédé whispered timidly.

"Some of my friends and I are going straightway back to look after her now."

"And you will hurry, milor', you will hurry, will you not? Every day may be fatal for her."

"I think not," Blakeney said in that decisive way of his, which carried so much conviction. "You told me she was the daughter of a man high up in the councils of the revolutionary government."

"One Armand, milor'," Amédé continued. "Little is known of him in the neighbourhood, save that he is a widower and apparently has influence with the government."

"Fleurette is an only child?"

"Yes. She has lived at Lou Mas all her life."

"If her father has influence he can protect her for a time."

"For a time--yes! But--oh milor'!" the poor young man suddenly burst out with passionate vehemence, "if anything were to happen to Fleurette, I would curse you for having saved my life."

Blakeney smiled at the young man's eagerness.

"Listen, friend Amédé," he said lightly, "are you going to trust me and my friends?"

And Amédé, who remembered those last solemn words spoken by M. de Frontenac, looked into those lazy grey eyes, meeting that half earnest, half-humorous glance beneath the heavy lids, replied simply: "Yes, milor'!"

"And you will accord me what my friends accord so ungrudgingly, bless them, implicit obedience?"

Again Amédé replied simply: "Yes milor'!" And then he added! "What am I to do?"

"For the moment nothing," Sir Percy replied, "but remain here quietly and alone until you hear from me again. Can you do it?"

"If you command."

"You won't mind the loneliness?"

"I shall be thinking of Fleurette and trusting you."

"Come, that's brave!" Sir Percy concluded lightly. "You will find some provisions in the armoire in this room: but apart from that you will find your way every day down to the river, and turning to your right, you will walk along its bank till you come to a derelict shed hidden from view by two old walnut-trees. In a corner of the shed, beneath a pile of leaves, you will find something to comfort you, either a loaf of bread, or a piece of cheese, sometimes a jug of milk or a bottle of wine. Scanty fare probably, but it will suffice to keep the wolf from the door. Those who supply it are poor and risk much to do it. They owe my friends and me a debt which they pay in this fashion. Now are you prepared to live this life of a lonely anchorite while my friends and I return to Laragne and gather news of your Fleurette?"

"If I could only come with you, milor'!" Amédé sighed.

"Tush, man, what were the good of that?" Sir Percy retorted with a slight note of impatience in his pleasant voice. "You would only lead us all--and your Fleurette into trouble."

"But you will bring me news of her soon?" Amédé entreated with tears in his kind, innocent looking eyes.

"Either news of her--or Fleurette herself."

Amédé shook his head. "She would not leave her father," he said dolefully.

"Then she will be safe with him, until better times come along, which will be very soon, friend Amédé, you may take that from me. Another few months--very few--and the dragon's own teeth will be turned against itself. This anarchy cannot endure for ever, because all evil, friend Amédé, is by the grace of God Infinite."

He spoke these last words with unwonted earnestness, and simple Amédé Colombe looked up to him with awe as to a prophet standing there, magnificent in energy and strength, head thrown back, the lazy eyes beneath their heavy lids flashing with unquenchable inner fire. And suddenly he checked himself, laughter chased away earnestness, the eyes twinkled with merriment like those of a care-free schoolboy, rather than a seer.

"La!" he said lightly, "I verily believe we were waxing serious. No cause for that, eh, friend Amédé? My friends and I are off on a gay adventure. To take a message of love from you to a brave little girl who loves you, a shade better methinks, than she loves that mysterious father of hers. Write your love letter, my friend, but be sure and make it brief, and I'll deliver it myself in her own little hands. I saw her, that sweet wench of yours, no woman ever showed more pluck than she did when she went to seek Madame de Frontenac's valuables."

"You saw her, milor'!" Amédé exclaimed wide-eyed. "Mon Dieu! is there anything that you do not see?"

"There is, mon ami," Sir Percy replied gaily. "I have never seen your pretty Fleurette's mysterious father. He must be a fine man to keep the love of so sweet a daughter. So write your letter, my friend," he went on, and pointing to an oaken desk at the further end of the room on which were quill-pen, inkpot and sand, "and I promise you that I will deliver it, if only for the pleasure of having a squint at the mysterious owner of Lou Mas. Heigh-ho!" he added with a contented sigh, "but this promises to be fine sport. What say you, Ffoulkes, or you, Tony? We are going to put our heads into the wolf's jaws again, eh? Stowmaries, you, too, and Hastings. But we'll do it, and I promise you that the sight of pretty Fleurette will be a fitting compensation for some very unpleasant half hours we may have to go through. Now then, friend Amédé! your love missive, and two of you put the horses to, we'll have to make Montélimar by nightfall! there we'll either abandon the calèche, steal a couple of horses and cut across the hills to Sisteron, or keep to the calèche and the road as far as the neighbourhood of Orange, where much information can always be gleaned about the district. We'll make no plans now and trust to luck and chance. What?"

Lord Tony then pointed, smiling, to the driver and postilion still fast asleep in the adjoining room.

"What is to happen to those mudlarks?" he asked.

"We'll take them along, of course," Blakeney replied. "So thrust them into the bottom of the calèche, under the seat for choice, and those who sit inside can use them as footstools. Where we leave the calèche, there we leave them too, to find their way back to the bosom of their families in due course."

He looked so gay and so full of life and strength, so sure of himself, such pure joy in this new adventure radiated from his entire person, that some of that divine spark in him set Amédé Colombe's blood tingling through his veins. Anxiety, melancholy, doubt fell away from him at a glance from those lazy eyes now twinkling with joy, at sight of that firm mouth, ever softened by a smile; of those long, slender hands, delicate as a woman's, firm as those of a leader of men. Poor Amédé was almost happy at this moment, feeling that he was one with this band of heroes, that just by obedience and self-effacement, he could feel that he was one of them.

In cramped schoolboy hand, he wrote a brief, very brief little line to Fleurette, and told her how he adored her and longed for her nearness. He also told her that whatever else happened he implored her to trust the bearer of this note, who would be the means of bringing her back one day to the shelter of her Amédé's arms.

Less than an hour later he was all alone in the tumble-down cottage that nestled against the ruins of a former, long-since-dead civilisation. The late afternoon was soothing and balmy, the sky of a pale turquoise, clear and translucent, and as Amédé, standing somewhat forlorn at the cottage door, watching the narrow road over which the calèche had lumbered awhile ago, bearing away his mysterious new friends, the pale crescent of the moon appeared above the snow-capped crest of La Lance, and Amédé, remembering the old superstition, bowed solemnly nine times to the moon.

Chapter 25

What irked Fleurette most in her prison life was the monotony of it: the want of something to do. After she had cleaned out the room which she shared with ten others, and put herself and everything tidy, the day appeared interminably long. She did her crochet work while her supply of thread lasted; old Louise had been allowed to make up a bundle of some clothes for her, and in it she had also put the crochet work and a few hanks of thread, but a few days saw the end of this supply, after which there was nothing with which Fleurette could occupy her fingers. Some of her fellow prisoners had needles, cotton and thimbles, and presently Fleurette, always willing and always smiling, was asked to darn and mend their clothes. She was glad enough to do it, as a means of killing time.

They were a heterogeneous crowd these fellow-prisoners of hers, culled from every social grade from the great lady to the troll out of the street. Misfortune and the precariousness of existence had brought these usually warring elements closely together: friendships sprang up where in the past even a nod of recognition would have been grudged. The Comtesse de Mornas, who belonged to the highest aristocracy of Provence, would take her morning exercise with her arm round the waist of Eugénie Blanc, daughter of a second-hand clothes dealer of Orange. Hélène de Mornas's husband had been guillotined three months ago on some trumped-up charge or other, and Eugénie Blanc's father, accused of traffic with the enemy--whoever that enemy might be no one knew-- had perished in that awful wholesale massacre perpetrated in Orange last month. Sorrow brought these two women together, as it did many others, and when Claire de Châtelard, obviously a woman of evil reputation, sought Fleurette's compassion with a tale of hunger, misery and arrest, that compassion was freely given, and the girl who had led such a sheltered life at Lou Mas, knowing nothing of temptation or of evil, had for daily companion after that, one Claire de Châtelard, the most notorious jade of Orange.

Thus the first few days went by. In the prison--it is architect Caristie's house with all the furniture turned out of it and the rooms left bare of everything save a few benches, a few paillasses, a table, a wash-hand basin or two--in the prison great puzzlement prevails. Hither-to every day, just before sunset, a captain of the guard with half a dozen men would enter the courtyard and standing there, would in a loud voice read out a list of names. That list was the Roll-call, the decrees of the Revolutionary Tribunal condemning so many to the guillotine on the morrow. And at all the windows of the house around the courtyard, heads would appear: men and women--yes! and children too--clutching their prison bars, and listening. Listening if their name be upon that list. And then a sigh of relief if that name was not called: another day's respite! another day in which to drag this miserable, precarious existence. As for the others, the ones whose names were read out in a loud voice by the captain of the guard, there was nothing for it but to clasp their loved ones, or mayhap only the newly-found friend, in their arms--for the last time. That same night they were transferred to the prison of the Hôtel de Ville, and in the morning the guillotine. Sometimes not that. Just driven like a herd to the slaughter: on the bridge or the Place de la République. And there the guns. And death pell-mell. Like cattle, with ne'er a grave nor a prayer.

That was how it had been before Fleurette's arrival. That cinder-wench Claire de Châtelard told her how it used to be. But Fleurette never saw anything of that. The very day after her arrival was marked by the non-appearance of the captain of the guard with his list. They all wondered, put their heads together, and for an hour or two after the usual time there was whispering, conjecturing going on. Respite for everybody: that was of course what it meant. But why? Had that awful Revolution really come to an end, as everybody had prophesied it would? Had all those tigers up in Paris really devoured one another, and was there no one left to carry on the infamy? Well! that was perhaps how it was. But no one knew anything. Not the warders. Not the prisoners. Not anybody. Inside these walls wherein news was wont to penetrate with extraordinary precision and rapidity, nothing was known. Nothing. Except that there was no list and that on the morrow the guillotine was idle.

This new departure from regular routine was accepted with the same stoicism as everything else. It was the stoicism of supreme helplessness, or rather of despair, and it had engendered in all these people, men and women, herded here together on the eve of death, a kind of levity which it is difficult for modern thought to understand. Death was so familiar to them, such a daily companion, that they had ceased to think of him with awe. Familiarity had bred contempt. And deriding Death, they turned him into ridicule. Made game of him, defied him to break their spirit. It was a species of madness born of intense horror and absolute despair. Fleurette at first felt sick and wretched at sight of these people--proud countesses and high-born seigneurs, as well as muckworms and jades--acting the guillotine, as they called it, in the great hall of Architect Caristie's house, which was assigned to them for recreation. She, poor little soul, had never learned to envisage death as anything but awesome for which the Holy Church was at pains to prepare doomed mankind with sacraments and prayers.

The first time she saw them all in their gruesome mummery, she fled affrighted back to the dark, noisome room where she slept, and throwing herself on her miserable paillasse, she sobbed her little heart out with horror and grief, stuffed her fingers into her ears so as not to hear the voices and the laughter that came from the great hall. Here Claire de Châtelard found her an hour later, and I think this was the beginning of their friendship, for the wench found just the right words wherewith to console this ignorant little country mouse.

"Their one recreation," she urged. "They mean no irreverence. Just think of them face to face with death. Always. Deprived of every consolation: mocked, jeered at. This play-acting is only a blind to hide their own misery, the despair which they are too proud to display."

After a while Fleurette dried her tears. But she slept ill that night. Nightmares pursued her. Visions of that mock tribunal, with the mock prosecutor, and the mock culprit. And then the setting up of two chairs, and draping them with bits of crimson rags to represent the guillotine. Once or twice she sat up on her hard paillasse, hardly able to smother a scream which would have aroused her room-mates from their sleep. She had seen in retrospect one of the warders, who had helped in the acting of the gruesome play, dressed as Satan with horns and tail and entering the hall with a bound and a whoop. His rôle was to snatch the President of the Tribunal and the Prosecutor from their seats and to drag them away with him into everlasting fire, while a weird voice boomed the query: "What hour is it?" and another replied: "Eternity."

Poor little Fleurette! It was her first experience of life. And what an experience! Yet, it had only been one step from Lou Mas with its almond-trees and rippling mill-streams, with Bibi and old Louise, one step from there to this barrack of a house converted into a prison, with all its humiliating propinquities, and all its horrors. Her companions in misfortune were very kind to her. All of them. The men as well as the women. Clair de Châtelard and the Comtesse de Mornas. They all seemed to understand her position, her helplessness, her ignorance. They were so kind! so kind! They admired her crochet-work, and talked to her of Laragne, or the snows of Pelvoux, or the almond- trees of the Dauphiné. They thanked her and kissed her when she offered to ply her needle for them: to mend their clothes or darn their stockings. Within a few days she became one of themselves. A younger sister in this family of the despairing. Within a week, or mayhap ten days, she had lost her sense of horror at their mummeries, could laugh at the antics of the mock Satan come to carry the mock judges off to hell. The only thing to which she could not get accustomed was the representation of the guillotine, the inverted chairs and the bits of red rags, the cords, the victim, the basket and the executioner. Oh! that executioner! He was terrible! Especially of late. The rôle, like that of Satan, had always been undertaken by one of the warders; rough fellows these, culled from the lowest scum of the city; men who delighted in all the physical and moral torture inflicted on the aristos under their charge, who would gloat over the sight of a father torn away from his children and led to the guillotine, who would regale the unfortunate prisoners with tales culled from the Moniteur of wholesale executions or brutal massacres. The idea of acting the part of executioner to the mock representations of the guillotine delighted a certain grim sense of humour which most Southerners possess. There was one man in particular, lately come to replace another who was sick, who threw himself into the gruesome rôle with zest. He would strip almost naked for the part, and then cover his face and his large body with a mixture of soot and charcoal and oil so that he looked like a huge negro, with gleaming teeth and long, lank hair, of a pale blond colour speckled with dirt.

Poor Fleurette could not bear to look at him, nor at the mock execution when one or other of her fellow-prisoners would allow himself to be tied to the mock guillotine, amidst the well-acted laughter and jeers of men and women who impersonated the awful rabble that was always to be found around the real guillotine. It was horrible, and Fleurette would run out into the corridor, or back to her miserable paillasse, anywhere where she could shut her ears to that gruesome mockery.

Unfortunately there came a day when the warder declared that an order had come through, that prisoners must remain together in the hall during the hour of recreation. He said it was so, and there was no one to contradict him. Of all the tyrants that had been set over their fellow-men, these days, none were more dreaded because more autocratic, than prison-warders. As far as prisoners knew, these tyrants' power over them was absolute. In any case they could, if contradicted or thwarted, make it ten thousand times worse than before for those who did not cringe. This order then had to be obeyed and Fleurette, cowering alone in a corner of the hall, kept her eyes tightly shut while the impish scene was being enacted.

Madame de Mornas, aristocrat, dignified, with her arm round Eugénie Blanc's waist, spoke to her very kindly.

"My dear," she said in her gentle, well-bred voice, "if we did not make a mockery of all these horrors we should brood over them, and some of us would go mad."

And Eugénie Blanc, the "old clo" dealer's daughter, added with a shrug: "You dear innocent! You have seen nothing of life as it is. You don't know what it is when memory sets to work and you see things--you see--" She gave a shudder and then a harsh laugh. "This at any rate takes one's mind off memory for a time."

Clair de Châtelard's sympathy was too sincere, though rather more grim: "We've all got to go through the real thing presently; the mockery of it now will make the reality to-morrow more endurable."

"We must practice to-day," M. de St. Luce, the great scientist said lightly, "our attitude of to-morrow."

That was the general tenor of every one's feelings upon the subject. Fleurette, touched by so much sympathy, tried to smile through her tears, and promised to school herself to the same philosophy. But as soon as all these kindly creatures had left her, in order to join, laughing, in the grim spectacle, she once more closed her eyes and sat in the dark corner, quite still, hoping that no one would notice her. But the laughter at one time was so loud, every one's mood so hilarious, that involuntary she opened her eyes and looked. The mock executioner had just completed his task. It seems he was complaining that Madame la Guillotine was still unsatisfied: she was putting out her arms, ready to embrace another lover. M. de Bollène--a minor poet well known in Provence--was declaiming some verses of his own composition, in praise of that promised embrace. The executioner's coal-black face shone like polished ebony in the flickering light of the tallow candles that guttered in their sconces. Madame de Mornas, almost unrecognizable in ragged kirtle and with a crimson scarf tied round her head, was flourishing her knitting and humming the tune of the Carmagnole as an accompaniment to M. de Bollène's verses, whilst Claire de Châtelard sprawled at the foot of the mock guillotine with a red streak across her throat.

And suddenly, to her horror, Fleurette saw the executioner stride towards her corner.

"What?" he cried aloud, "tears? Tears are for aristos. To the guillotine with her!" or words to that effect. Fleurette did not rightly understand what he did say, all she knew was that this hideous, horrible man came striding towards her with hands outstretched, and that every one was laughing or singing or clapping their hands. The next moment she felt that horrible hand upon her shoulder, on her kerchief, her breast. She gave a loud scream and cowered further into the corner thinking the she would faint with terror, until she heard a peremptory voice calling out loudly; "Leave the child alone, man, can't you see she is frightened?"

"Frightened? Of course she is frightened," the loathsome creature retorted with a laugh. "Did I not say that she was an aristo? Let me just call the warder and--"

A woman's voice was raised in protest:

"No, no, don't call the warder. She's done nothing wrong--and he might--"

And Madame de Mornas it was who added:

"You coveted this ring this morning, man, it is yours if you leave the child alone and say nothing to the warder."

How kind people were! How kind! As nothing further seemed to happen, Fleurette ventured to open her eyes: Claire de Châtelard was sitting beside her, trying to comfort her. The gruesome play had apparently come to an end; the prisoners in groups of three or more stood about talking and laughing, preparatory to be driven back to the sleeping- rooms for the night. The black executioner was no longer there.

"He is not a bad man really," Claire de Châtelard said to Fleurette, fondling her hand and smoothing the golden curls that clung to her moist forehead! "only very rough and coarse. Bah! these men!" she went on with a shudder. "The warder is a veritable fiend: a genius in inventing means to punish you if you do not bribe him or give in to him. All my little treasures which I was able to bring here with me, have gone into his rapacious hands. This man is not so bad, he is new to his work, he came a day or two ago to replace one who was ill. But he is only a scavenger. When the warder is dead drunk he takes his place, the rest of the time he does all the dirtiest work in the house. A loathsome creature, what? If he were not so big, we should not be so frightened of him. But he is better than the warder."

Fleurette only listened with half an ear. She still felt bruised and ill after the fright she had had. That horrible black hand touching her breast. It was worse than any nightmare.

She was glad when the bell clanged and the warder accompanied by his new aide---only partially relieved of the soot and the grime of his rôle--drove the prisoners like a herd of cattle back into their pens. So many women in one room, so many men in another. He had his list, and with a stout stick in his hand which he flourished as he read out the names, he drove them all in, into their respective night quarters and locked the doors upon them.

Fleurette shared her wretched paillasse with Claire de Châtelard. There was no dressing or undressing in this overcrowded room. No privacy. One just lay down in one's clothes and snatched what rest one could. Oh! the horror of it all to these women, most of them accustomed to dainty homes. Fleurette never knew which moment she dreaded most, that of opening her eyes to another awful day, or trying to close them in intermittent sleep.

Claire de Châtelard, less impressionable, was already asleep. Fleurette slipped out of her kirtle which she laid tidily across the foot of the paillasse; then she took off her muslin kerchief. As she did so something fluttered to the ground. A piece of paper neatly folded. Smothering an involuntary cry of surprise, she stooped to pick it up. Yet she hardly dared to touch the thing at first. How had it got between the folds of her kerchief? Who could possibly have put it there unbeknown to her? This was the second time with in a very little while that Fleurette had come in contact with something that savoured of the supernatural. Still timorous, and with a trembling hand, she picked the paper up. Claire was asleep and most of the others had already stretched out their limbs upon their hard paillasses. No one paid any heed to Fleurette.

There was no direct light in the room itself, but an oil lamp which hung from the ceiling in the corridor threw a feeble ray of light through the fan-light over the door. Fleurette unfolded the paper and smoothed out its creases against her knee. She made her way to the centre of the room where she could just contrive, by that dim light from above, to decipher the handwriting upon the paper. But the first word that caught her eye, nearly caused her to utter a cry of joy; it was the signature: Amédé.

Amédé! At once her eyes grew dim with tears. Amédé! Those five letters in the clumsy, schoolboyish handwriting meant happiness and home. Amédé! Before trying to read further she pressed the paper against her cheek, fondled it; laid it against her lips.

Amédé! He had written to her. Where from? How? She did not care to think. What did it matter after all? He was thinking of her. Had written to her. And some divine messenger had conveyed his missive to Fleurette. Though he was safe and well--Bibi had assured her that he was--he had thought of her and sent her this letter through one of God's own angels.

And then Fleurette dried her eyes, for she remembered that presently the bell would clang again, when all the lights would be put out and she might have to wait until to-morrow to read Amédé's letter.

It was short, very, very short. Amédé had never been a scholar, but in it he told her how he adored his Fleurette and longed for her nearness. He also told her that whatever else happened, he implored her to trust the bearer of this note who would be the means of bringing her back one day to the shelter of his arms.

The bearer of this note? Who was he? Surely, surely, one of God's angels! and so of course she trusted him. And it was only le bon Dieu who would so guide Bibi that all this trouble would come to an end and she, Fleurette, would of a certainty find a shelter once more in her Amédé's arms.

She read and re-read the few brief lines over and over again, and presently when the bell clanged, and she was forced to make her way hurriedly to her paillasse before the room was plunged into utter darkness, she laid down on the hard straw with a little sigh of contentment and of peace. Her evening prayer was one entirely of gratitude to le bon Dieu for His gift of Amédé's love and Bibi's protection. And that night Fleurette slept quite soundly, with her cheek resting against the letter from Amédé.

Chapter 26

For two whole days Citizens Pochart and Danou of the 137th Section of the committee of Public Safety had been sorely puzzled. They had received a curt note from Representative Chauvelin telling them that he would be absent from Orange for a brief while, and bidding them suspend all business until his return. Suspend all business? In very truth all business was perforce at a standstill, not because of the absence of the representative on special mission, but because of that of two high officers of State; the President of the Tribunal and Public Prosecutor.

Representative Chauvelin in his note had also alluded to this absence, stating that by direct orders from the Central Committee of Public Safety, President Legrange and Prosecutor Isnard had been obliged to proceed to Paris.

It was all very puzzling, not to say suspicious. Pochart and Danou put their heads together and came to the conclusion that here undoubtedly were some machinations at work on the part of Representative Chauvelin with a view to getting his daughter out of harm's way. The question was how to make use of these machinations. Of their knowledge that they were machinations. How in fact to turn them against the man who hitherto had carried himself with such consummate arrogance, lording it over every officer of State in Orange, with thinly veiled threats that had roused ire, malice and hatred in these men, whose rule of life was "strike ere you yourself be struck."

One thing, however, was crystal-clear. Representative Chauvelin was hard hit. He put on an air of lofty indifference; he continued to bluster and to threaten but he was hard hit by the arrest of his daughter, as indeed any family man would be. Pochart and Danou did not care one worthless assignat what became of the daughter, but they did feel that the pleasure of threatening and terrorising the representative on special mission, perhaps even of dragging him down from his exalted position and sending him in his turn to the guillotine, was not one to be missed. Up to the hour when Lieutenant Godet had arrested the wench Fleurette on suspicion, Representative Chauvelin had been a living threat to every patriot in Orange. He seemed, as it were, to be always walking hand in hand with the guillotine, or else in its shadow; sheltered himself, yet a menace to others. But now the tables were reversed, and Pochart and Danou had in one hour learned to substitute threats for soft words, arrogance for servility. And they vastly enjoyed the substitution.

But the trouble was that they were void of imagination. Representative Chauvelin could be brought down, they knew that. But how? Judging other men by themselves, they quite envisaged the possibility of a father sacrificing his own daughter in order to save himself. And there was also the possibility that a representative on special mission was powerful enough to save both his daughter and himself. Strong forces would have to be marshalled against him. Pochart and Danou with heads together passed these forces in review.

There was Lieutenant Godet who hated Representative Chauvelin with a hatred born of fear--the deadliest hatred of all. There was that rat- faced little spy, Adèle, a mixture of petty spite and malice. She would be useful. Others might be found, for Representative Chauvelin had many enemies who had not until this hour dared to come out into the open, but who would readily show themselves once the powerful representative was attacked.

And in the meanwhile the business of purging the countryside of aristos, suspects and traitors was at a standstill. With no Public Prosecutor to frame indictments and no President to try the accused, the order: "Que la Terreur soit à l'ordre du jour": "Let Terror be the order of the day," had become a dead letter. This could not go on, of course. Pochart and Danou, quite apart from their schemes against Representative Chauvelin, felt that a solution must be found--and that quickly--for this impossible situation. If allowed to continue they stood in very great risk of a reprimand from Paris for allowing the business of the State to be at a stand-still. They might be accused of want of zeal. Those great patriots up in Paris were so unreasonable, one never knew what they might do. Having sent for President Legrange and Public Prosecutor Isnard, they probably expected "the order of the day" to go on just the same. But how, nom de nom? How?

They were still seeking a solution, these two, Pochart and Danou, on the third morning, when to their surprise Representative Chauvelin walked in, as calm and indifferent as you please.

He had completed his business, he explained to them, sooner than he had anticipated. President Legrange and Public Prosecutor Isnard on the other hand had continued their journey to Paris.

Danou, suave as ever, expressed satisfaction in the return of the citizen representative. It was indeed a matter of congratulation, he added, for them all, seeing that the business of the State was so completely at a standstill.

Pochart was somewhat more emphatic.

"There are at least one hundred and sixty traitors," he said, "who should have been dealt with days ago. Your absence, citizen, and that of two other public servants should not have occurred at this critical hour--"

"It was inevitable, Citizen Pochart," Chauvelin broke in drily. "Orders from Paris, you know--"

"I was just proposing to Citizen Pochart," Danou put in mildly, "that we send a message to Paris by this new aerial telegraph to ask for further orders. There is one installed at Avignon, and a courier---"

"The aerial telegraph is required for more important business than yours, Citizen Danou," Chauvelin once more broke in, and this time with some impatience.

"What can be more important than the suppression of traitors?" Pochart argued with an obvious sneer. "I marvel at you, citizen representative, that you should think otherwise."

"The very latest decree of the National Convention," Danou added, "was that Terror be the order of the day. I too marvel at you, Citizen Chauvelin."

"There is no cause for marvel," Chauvelin rejoined with well assumed indifference. "I have not been in Orange more than a few hours. I have not had time to devise for this new situation."

"Well, then, to-morrow, citizen," Danou suggested, "will you be ready to consult with us on the best means of meeting this impossible situation? Otherwise, I am still of the opinion that the aerial telegraph, or perhaps a courier to Paris---"

He went on mumbling for a few seconds. His tone had been quite suave, not to say deferential; but Chauvelin's keen ear had not failed to detect the threat that lurked behind those smooth, velvety tones.

"To-morrow, as you say," he concluded dryly.

All through the wearisome journey back from Valence he had been busy scheming and planning; alternately adopting and rejecting one plan after another. He knew well enough that Pochart and Danou were stalking him like wild beasts, ready to pounce on him, come to grips with him in a life and death struggle in which his darling Fleurette would also be involved.

Now after his interview with the two men, he knew that already they scented victory, that they too were scheming and planning, planning his overthrow, and using Fleurette as the deadliest weapon against him. These last three years of titanic struggle of man against man, of the strong against the weak, of the weak against the strong, had taught him that he could expect nothing, neither mercy nor consideration, from enemies whom he himself would never have hesitated to sacrifice to his own whim or his own tyranny. His only hope lay in his avowedly superior brain power. He no longer could dominate these snarling wild beasts, now that they were showing their fangs, but he could outwit them, before they sprang and devoured him. Brain-power as against blind lust. And Chauvelin thought that he could win.

Chapter 27

Representative Chauvelin was quite calm, business-like, armed with sheaves of papers and documents, when he met his colleagues the following morning in the bureau of the Committee.

"I have found," he announced as soon as they were seated, "a solution to our difficulty."

"Ah?" Danou ejaculated simply. And Pochart also said "Ah," but in a different tone.

"I have here," Chauvelin continued, and selected and official document from the pile which he had deposited upon the table. "I have here a decree which exactly meets our case. It was promulgated by the National Convention on the motion of Citizen Cabot on the 6th of Brumaire last."

Leaning back in his chair, he began to read from the official document in his hand. The others, elbows on the table, chin cupped in hand, listened with what we might call mixed feelings.

"Should it occur that through any cause whatsoever, one of the chief officers of State be absent from duty for a period exceeding seven days, the Representative on special mission shall then assume his functions and continue to discharge them for as long as seems expedient. And in the event of more than one important officer of State being so absent, the Representative on special mission shall himself appoint a substitute who will also discharge such duties as the Representative on special mission shall have assigned to him for the time being."

Having finished reading, Chauvelin put the document down, and with a gesture of finality let his thin, clawlike hand rest upon it.

"The decree is clear enough, methinks," he said coldly.

There was a pause. A silence lasting perhaps thirty seconds; then Danou said mildly:

"I have never heard of this decree."

"Nor I," Pochart echoed.

"The Central Committee in Paris," Chauvelin put in drily, "has often remarked on the strange ignorance displayed by avowed patriots, of the decrees promulgated for the welfare of the State. The Committee deems that such ignorance amounts to treason."

"May I look at the document?" Danou rejoined simply, choosing to ignore the reprimand--and the thin veiled threat.

"Certainly," Chauvelin replied, and handed the document over to his colleague.

"Is it a copy?" Pochart asked, looking over his friend's shoulder.

"An attested copy, as you can see," Chauvelin replied. "It is countersigned by Citizens Robespierre, Billaud, Couthon and Saint Just. You are not thinking of disputing the order, Citizen Danou?"

Once more and still that arrogance, those veiled threats. The situation being entirely different from what it was yesterday, Danou and Pochart dared not persist in their mood of defiance. Not before they had consulted one another, marshalled those forces--Godet, Adèle, the proofs against the wench Fleurette--and decided on the mode of attack. Representative Chauvelin must have something up his sleeve, some hidden power, or he would not be so arrogant, so threatening.

Danou wiped the sweat from his bald cranium and handed the document back to Chauvelin. Pochart shaking himself like a wet dog, returned to his seat.

"I'll take over the office of President Legrange." Chauvelin said calmly, "and preside over the Tribunal until his return."

"Then I," Danou put in boldly, "had best take over the work of the Public Prosecutor."

"Impossible, citizen," Chauvelin rejoined firmly; "I must have a lawyer for that office."

"But--"

"You do not seem to have listened very carefully, Citizen Danou," Chauvelin broke in quietly, "to my reading of the decree, or you would remember that it is for the representative on special mission to appoint a substitute, in case of absence on the part of a second important officer of State."

"And whom do you propose to appoint, citizen representative?" Pochart inquired with a sneer.

"I will let you know my decision as to that to-morrow."

"The sooner the better, citizen representative," Danou concluded unctuously. "Remember that it is my colleague and I of the 137th section of the Committee of Public Safety who will have to collect the evidence against the accused and place it before the Public Prosecutor whom you will appoint. That is a duty from which only the Central Committee can relieve us. There are one hundred and sixty prisoners, arrested under the Law of the Suspect. Some of them gravely accused, and by witnesses to."

"I am well aware of that, Citizen Danou," Chauvelin replied calmly. Not by the quiver of an eyelid did he betray the fact that the shaft had gone home. With a perfectly steady hand he collected his papers and placed a weight upon them. After which he dismissed the others with a curt nod.

"Your pardon, citizens," he said, "I have still work to do. You too doubtless. I shall require your attendance here to-morrow at this same hour."

When the door had finally closed behind the two men, the mask fell from Chauvelin's face. Leaning his elbow on the table, he buried his burning head in his hands; a heart-rending groan broke from his parched lips, his eyes felt as if seared with glowing charcoal. Ah! if he had not only forgotten these years past how to pray, what fervent orisons would he not have sent heavenwards at this hour. Help! where could he find help out of this web which his enemies had woven round him? How he hated them! longed to smite them before they had time to accomplish their fell purpose. They had determined on striking at Fleurette. Out of revenge or hatred, or was it fear? they had determined on striking at him, Chauvelin, through this being whom he loved beyond everything in the world. And he who had been one of the first protagonists of hatred and revenge and mutual distrust, he who had the will and the power, seemed so inextricably enmeshed that he could do nothing to save her. Fight? he would fight, inch by inch, step by step. Fight to save his Fleurette. Fight while he had breath in his body; fight until he fell vanquished by her side. For if he failed he would not let her die alone. He could not think of her being dragged through the streets in that awful tumbril which he himself had so often helped to fill; could not--heavens above no--could not think of her mounting the steps of the guillotine, which so many innocent feet had mounted at his bidding. Retribution! It had come nearer, more inexorable now! Death by his Fleurette's side seemed the only possible issue.

And even as he sat there alone, in that room wherein the hatred of his fellow-men seemed still to linger like noisome ghosts, a pale ray of sunlight found its way through the closed window and played upon the myriads and myriads of dust atoms that hovered in the air. Chauvelin's hands dropped down upon the table. His weary eyes rested vacantly upon that shaft of dust-laden light. And inside its very heart he saw a face, smiling and debonair, with lazy eyes and smiling lips mocking him in his grief. It was a vision, gone as soon as seen, but vivid enough during that one brief second to bring a savage curse upon the lonely man's lips. His claw-like hand clenched so tightly that the knuckles shown like polished ivory.

"My evil genius!" he muttered through his teeth. "Had I succeeded in bringing you down, had I seen that mocking head fall under the guillotine, this devastating misery would never have come upon me. If only I could be even with you, I would die happier---even now."

Chapter 28

Ever afterwards to Chauvelin, it seemed as if the Scarlet Pimpernel had heard his challenge, and come in response to his thoughts: for hardly had a couple of days gone before the first rumour reached him of the nearness of his arch-enemy. Twenty-four hours later the hue and cry was all over Orange after a gang of English spies who, it was averred, made it their business to cheat Madame la Guillotine out of her dues.

Citizen Pochart brought Representative Chauvelin the news which already was over the town, namely that Architect Caristie and his family, consisting of his wife and the small son now aged ten, who was destined one day to become one of Orange's most distinguished citizens, had unaccountably disappeared from their tumble-down lodgings in the Rue de la République, where they had taken refuge after their house had been requisitioned by the State and turned into a prison-house.

For some time the sectional Members of the Committee of Public Safety, Citizens Pochart and Danou, ardent patriots, had had their eyes on the Caristie family. Aristos, what? Architect Caristie had designed and built houses in the past for tyrants and ci-devants. The arrest of the entire family had been decided on. It was to have taken place that very evening. Orders to that effect were out, their place of incarceration fixed in the very house where they had once sat in luxury, whilst patriots had starved outside their gates.

And suddenly the news had spread like wildfire through the town that Architect Caristie, his wife and son had disappeared. Disappeared? Where? asked every patriot. But no one knew. One evening they had still been seen, as usual, taking walking exercise on the river-bank, and the next day when the soldiers of the revolutionary army presented themselves at the door of their lodgings in the Rue de la République and demanded admittance, lo! they received no answer: the lodgings were deserted, the birds had flown from their nests. Nor could the guard at any of the gates of the city throw light upon this mysterious occurrence. No one had passed the gates without duly authenticated passes. Pochart was at his wits end and asked counsel of Representative Chauvelin. What was to be done in face of this mystery? Exercise strict supervision at the gates, Chauvelin advised. All passes in future to be signed by himself as well as by the Sectional Members of the Committee of Public Safety.

The news of the presence of the Scarlet Pimpernel in Orange had acted upon his nerves like a whiplash. Fate, it seemed, was hitting at him from every side: and he felt like a fighter who has been downed once, twice, and then suddenly felt the strength of giants in his blood; the agility of a cat spurring him on to a new and stupendous effort. In a vague, fatalistic kind of way the safety of Fleurette and the destruction of the Scarlet Pimpernel appeared to him as inextricably involved. If he allowed his arch-enemy to baffle him now and here, in this city, then Fleurette was doomed and he himself must perish.

This was the immediate state of mind into which the news of the Scarlet Pimpernel had thrown him. A wild desire to link the destruction of his enemy with the safety of his child, to deserve so well of the State, in fact, that the life of Fleurette would be ceded to him as a reward. A drowning man will catch at a straw, and so did Chauvelin catch at this hope, cling to it, turn the thought over and over in his mind. With feverish activity then he spurred those about him into additional vigilance, combated that superstitious terror with which every official these days regarded the gang of English spies and their mysterious chief. He brought to every man notice that the handsome reward offered by the Revolutionary government for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel, described the Englishman's appearance, his methods, his motives, worked up every man in Orange, aye, and every woman too, into a state of enthusiasm for the possible capture of this inveterate and daring enemy of France.

But this particular frame of mind was not destined to endure. Soon memory got to work, recalled unpleasant moments in Calais, Boulogne, in Paris, in Nantes. What if here too, in Orange, the Scarlet Pimpernel should triumph and he Chauvelin once more be forced to eat the bread of humiliation? What if baffled once more, he should lose, at one terrible swoop, both his revenge and his last hope of saving Fleurette? And then it was that first the insidious, the stupendous thought penetrated his brain. Was it Satan himself who had whispered it into his ear? or some army of mocking imps intent upon torturing him to madness? But heavens above, what a thought! The Scarlet Pimpernel and Fleurette! Was that going to be the solution of this terrible impasse? The thought feverishly driven back at first, returned more insistent. Why not? And then again, why not? A young girl, sweet, pretty, innocent, was she not one to arouse those instincts of chivalry which Chauvelin had hitherto affected to despise?

What a possibility! Heavens above, what a possibility! His very senses reeled now at the thought. But he allowed his mind to dwell upon it, to weigh his possibilities: to familiarise itself more and more with it. At first it had seemed like madness, but no longer now! His Fleurette! Already Amédé Colombe was far away, under the protection of the Scarlet Pimpernel, what more likely than that---No! no! it could not be! His daughter! His, Chauvelin's! And in a swift vision he saw himself luring Marguerite Blakeney, the beloved and beautiful wife of the Scarlet Pimpernel to her death, holding her as a hostage, threatening her, torturing her. His enemy's wife! What agonies she had endured at his hands! And now Fleurette! Would not the Scarlet Pimpernel, triumphant and revengeful, gloat over her death, rather than raise a finger to save her life? Would he not gaze with joy on the misery endured by his bitterest foe?

And then once more torturing thoughts would assail him: torturing fears and torturing hopes, hopes? Yes, hopes! "Why should you not hope, man?" Whispered an insidious demon in his ear: "the Scarlet Pimpernel does not know, cannot know that Fleurette is your daughter; the daughter of his enemy Armand Chauvelin. To him she is just the sweet, pretty, innocent victim of a system of government which he hates and which he combats. Then why not hope?" And the floating, racking visions of Juliette Marny, and Yvonne de Kernogan, of the Abbé Foquet and Madeleine Lanoy, would once more haunt the day-dreams of this man already steeped in misery, and hope insidious, ever-living hope, would whisper in its turn: "To that long list of innocents snatched from prison and from death by the insolent adventurer whom you hate, why should not the name of Fleurette by added? Fleurette of unknown parentage, just a sweet girl dwelling at Lou Mas, with old Louise and a father known as Armand? Why not?"

And day after day, whilst presiding, self-appointed over a tribunal of infamy, Chauvelin's mind became more and more familiarised with the vision of his Fleurette snatched out of the jaws of death by the man with the lazy eyes and the mocking lips, the demmed, elusive Pimpernel of his day-dreams and his sleepless nights.

Chapter 29

Meanwhile in Architect Caristie's house, transformed for the necessities of the State into a prison, the old routine is now restored. Daily, once more, an hour before sunset, the captain of the guard with his half-dozen men, enters the courtyard, and in a loud voice reads the names that appear upon his roll-call. They are the names of those who on the morrow are summoned before the Revolutionary Tribunal, there to answer the charges that are trumped up against them by the venal spies, who make their living out of the blood of innocent men and women and children.

Impossible to refute those charges, since the law has decreed that it is a crime to be merely suspected of treason against the State. Foucquier-Tinville, the great Public Prosecutor in Paris, no longer troubles, it seems, to prepare fresh indictments against every accused in turn. He has a printed formula of accusation, with just the name left in blank, presently to be filled in as convenience arises. Therefore in other greater and lesser cities of France, patriots desirous of showing their zeal, can do no better than emulate the example set by so great a man. Local sections of the Committee of Public Safety prepare the indictments--set formulæ with the names left in blank. These they pass on to the Public Prosecutor who mumbles as he reads them before the Tribunal with the President sitting up on the dais, and the accused--names left in blank--brought up to the bar, not allowed to say a word in their own justification, nor to question the witnesses brought up to testify against them.

Abandon all hope then, ye whose names are upon that Roll-call! to- morrow the Tribunal, the next day the guillotine! And once again now, day after day, the captain of the guard comes to the house, late of Architect Caristie, and reads; and at all the windows that overlook the courtyard heads appear, men, women and little children--clutching the bars and listening. Listening for their own name or that of one who is dear. Sighing with relief if neither has been called, or with resignation if to-morrow is destined to bring this miserable existence to an end.

And day after day Chauvelin presides over this tribunal of infamy. Self-appointed he sits upon the dais and sees before him pass a daily file of doomed and dying. Sometimes ten, sometimes as man as twenty in a day, and still the prisons are full--fresh arrests make up for those whom the guillotine has claimed. Acquittals are rare, for moderation now has become a crime. Danton--aye! even Danton, the lion, has perished, he who ordered the September massacres, he who thundered forth from the tribune, "Liberty! Fraternity! Equality! or Death!" he has perished because he became guilty of the crime of moderation. The glorious revolution has no use for such of its products as Danton and Robespierre--for the reality of the one and the canting hypocrisy of the other: so Danton it was who perished. "It is right," he had dared to say once, "to repress Royalists: but we should not confound the innocent with the guilty!"

"And who told thee," Robespierre retorted, sea-green with hatred, "that one single innocent has perished by our hand?"

And because Danton had dared to raise his voice in the cause of the innocent, Danton had perished.

What chance then has Chauvelin to defend his Fleurette? His power is great. He can make your Pocharts and your Danous, our President Legrange or Public Prosecutor Isnard, but he cannot accord special privileges in prison for his own daughter. He cannot see her in private, comfort her, warn her if need be, tell her not to be afraid for Bibi chéri is there, on the watch, ready to protect her with his body, to stand by her in the last hour. He cannot. Pochart and Danou are on the watch. "We must not confound the innocent with the guilty:" Danton had dared to say. And for this he had perished: and though he perished, could not save one single innocent.

And all evening, after the sittings of the Tribunal are over, and ten--or mayhap fifteen or twenty--condemned to the guillotine, Chauvelin like a pale, thin ghost haunts the purlieus of Architect Caristie's house. On pretext of his office he enters the courtyard with the captain of the guard and looks up at the windows to see if she is there. Once he saw her. Just her little face peeping behind the opulent shoulders of one Claire de Châtelard, the best noted strumpet in Orange. The woman had one arm round Fleurette's waist and when the captain of the guard read out the name of Clair known as Châtelard upon his list, Fleurette threw her arms round her and laid her head upon the trollop's breast.

Chauvelin turned away from the spectacle with a groan, and all night he lay awake thinking of his sweet flower laying her head upon the breast of a Claire de Châtelard.

Yet Claire de Châtelard bore herself bravely before him the next day, and when, on the day after that, he watched her from the window of the Hôtel de Ville mounting the steps of the guillotine, saw her standing there, superb and defiant with a coarse jest upon her sensual lips, he gloated over the thought that his Fleurette would no longer pillow her innocent head upon that breast. He tried to picture her, grieving for this friend, the propinquity, the squalor of that house of detention, from which there was but one egress, that egress the gate of Death. Claire de Châtelard to-day--Fleurette when? Every day the indictments are sent up to him for examination, the printed forms of accusation with the names left in blank, to be filled in as convenience demands: and every day a list of ten, perhaps fifteen names are sent along with these printed forms, and it is his business to direct the Public Prosecutor, a man of his own choosing, which of these names are to be inserted in the blank spaces, on the forms of accusation. Up to now he has been able to keep Fleurette's name out, but it has been sent up to him on two consecutive days. The fight then was getting at close quarters, Pochart and Danou were pressing him, showing their teeth like snarling dogs ready to spring. And time was hurrying on. Time would presently bring back President Legrange and Prosecutor Isnard from Paris, time would inevitably bring to light his machinations for keeping those two men out of the way. Aye! time was hurrying on, and Fleurette's name had twice appeared upon the list.

And for the past three days not a word in the town about the English spies. After Architect Caristie and his family, it had been the widow Colmars and her daughter, and then General Paulieu and his family. Disappeared as if the earth had swallowed them up. Always traitors and aristos whose arrest was imminent, whose subsequent condemnation certain. But after that, three days' respite: the Scarlet Pimpernel and his gang seemed to have disappeared in their turn.

The hopes which insidious demons had whispered in Chauvelin's ears were once more merged in a sea of despair. He derided himself for these hopes, lashed himself into a state of fury against himself for having allowed his mind to dwell upon them.

One scheme after another now did he devise and then reject. He would defy his enemies, the jury, the populace: loudly denounce the witnesses against Fleurette as liars and perjurers, pronounce her acquittal in the face of all opposition. Had he not made a point day after day of pronouncing acquittal on one or the other of the accused? just to test his power--to see how his enemies would behave? And he saw them lying low. Sneering. Whispering. Ogling him and laughing. They knew! They saw behind his schemes and his hopes. They reserved their counter-attack. They could afford to wait, whilst he could not.

If only Fleurette bore herself well: did not allow herself to be carried away with admissions or inconsidered words, out of sentiment for that fool Amédé Colombe. Chauvelin longed to see her, if only to impress this one thing upon her; to say nothing. To admit nothing. To hold her tongue and to trust chére Bibi. If only she did that, he felt that he might save her yet. And obsessed by the idea, devoured with the desire to convey this message to her, without compromising her or giving yet another advantage to his enemies, Chauvelin at evening would wander like a restless ghost through the city.

That afternoon after he watched Claire de Châtelard mount the steps upon the guillotine, a joke upon her lips, this restlessness became exquisite torture, and racked with tumultuous thoughts, wrapped in a black mantle, he sallied forth into the streets. It was now early in June: nearly three weeks since that last care-free day, Fleurette's eighteenth birthday, spent with her over at Lou Mas, when the scent of almond blossom had been in the air and the nightingale had sung in the old walnut-tree. The day had been sunless and chilly, after sunset the rain began to fall. But rain and weather held no terrors for Chauvelin in his present mood. Holding his mantle tightly round his shoulders and pulling his hat down over his eyes, he wandered aimlessly through the streets, over the river and back again, down unpaved streets and lonely lanes, now and then sitting down to rest in some obscure little outlying café, where no one knew or heeded him, and then starting off again on his restless course. But always drifting back instinctively to the purlieus of architect Caristie's house.

Almost opposite to it there was a small café: no one sitting outside because of the rain, but the interior lighted up, and sounds of merriment proceeding from within. Chauvelin thought of going inside, feeling that if he sat down there close to the window, he could watch the walls behind which lived and suffered his little Fleurette. He did not dare to go in for fear of being recognised. He was just debating within himself whether he would go or stay, when he saw a man come out of the house of architect Caristie, cross over to the café, then disappear behind its creaking door. A scavenger, no doubt, ragged and dirty--not a warder, he was too ill-clad for that--just a scavenger-- but perhaps he had seen Fleurette. The thought fascinated Chauvelin. His mind clung to it: turned it over and over. The thought that here was a man who perhaps had seen Fleurette within the last few minutes, had swept corridor or staircase when she was passing by. And with that thought there was still the burning desire to send her a message, to tell her to be brave and trust in Bibi, but above all, oh! above all, not to be led into making any admission about those valuables belonging to Madame de Frontenac, or about her association with Amédé Colombe.

Chauvelin, leaning against the wall which faced the little café, dwelt on his thoughts and his desire. He allowed the rain to drip upon his hat and upon his shoulders from the roof above him. He no longer felt restless. He just wanted to stand there and watch for the return of the man, who perhaps would be seeing Fleurette again within the next few minutes. He wondered if he dare approach him, always with the idea of possibly conveying a message to Fleurette. But the fear that the man might know who he was, deterred him from entering the café himself. He had been a fairly conspicuous figure in the courtyard of Caristie's house, standing by the side of the captain of the guard: if that scavenger was at work in the corridor, he might have looked out of the window and seen him, learned who he was. All through he had been at pains to show an indifferent attitude before his enemies: if this man happened to be a spy, would the knowledge that he, Chauvelin, was trying to establish communication with Fleurette compromise him hopelessly and do no good to her?

As he stood there pondering and debating what he had better do, he saw the scavenger come out of the café. For a minute or two the man stood at the door, his hands buried in the pockets of his ragged breeches, contemplating the rain. The next moment another, equally dirty and bedraggled ruffian came down the street, paused at the entrance of the café and passed the time of day with the scavenger. The two mudlarks remained talking for a few moments, after which they parted, each going his own way. The scavenger recrossed the road and entered the Caristie House. The other passed on in the opposite direction and Chauvelin, after an instant's hesitation, followed him. He came up with the man at the angle of the rue Longue: and putting out his arm, touched him on the shoulder. With a cry of terror the man fell on his knees.

"Mercy! I've done nothing!" he babbled almost incoherently.

"I dare say not," Chauvelin said drily "but it will be to thine advantage if thou'lt come along quietly with me."

He seized the man by the arm and dragged him up from his knees. The poor wretch tried to wriggle himself free, but Chauvelin held him tightly, and without another word drew him within the shelter of the nearest doorway. Fortunately, though them and kept up a ceaseless litany of lamentations and cries for mercy, he did so under his breath, thus creating no disturbance nor exciting the attention of the few passers-by who were hurrying homewards through the rain-swept streets.

"Are you willing, citizen," Chauvelin began abruptly, as soon as he had assured himself that the doorway was deserted and no eavesdropper nigh, "are you willing to earn fifty livres tournoi?"

The man gave no immediate reply, it seemed as if he was shaking himself free from his first terror and pondering over this extraordinary proposal, so different to what he had anticipated. Then he cleared his throat, expectorated, slowly repeated the magic words: "Fifty livres tournoi!" and finally added in an awed whisper:

"I have not seen five livres tournoi for months."

"Fifty are yours, citizen, if you'll render me a service."

"What is it?"

"That friend of yours, to whom you spoke just now--outside the café de la Lune--"

"Citizen Rémi?"

"He works in the Caristie House?"

"Yes."

"In what capacity?"

"Cleaner," the man replied laconically. "Rémi hung about for days trying to earn a bit of money. He hasn't a sou, you understand? Same as me. A few days ago one of the inside men fell sick. Rémi presented himself and got the work. I know him well."

"He has access to the prisoners?" Chauvelin asked.

"I suppose so."

"Then tell him that there will be fifty livres for him too if he will convey a written message to number 142 in room 12."

Again the man seemed to ponder: weighing the risks probably, and also the gain. Fifty livres tournoi! Immense! He had forgotten that there was such a sum of money left in the world: and then for him to have the handling of it! This led him once more to expectorate, which action apparently had the effect of stimulating his brain-power.

"It could be done," he murmured at last.

"It can be done," Chauvelin asserted emphatically, "but must be done quickly, or---"

"Rémi will be back at the Café de la Lune soon after eight o'clock. He always goes there for a sip of something after supper."

"Good! Then you can meet him at that hour and tell him to wait for you, then come at once and find me here, under this doorway. I'll have the letter ready---"

"The whole thing is very risky, citizen," the man demurred.

"If it were not," Chauvelin rejoined drily, "I would not spend one hundred livres tournoi in the attempt."

"Fifty livres is not over much, when one risks one's neck."

"You are not risking your neck," Chauvelin retorted, "as you well know. And you'll not get more from me than fifty livres each. Take it or leave it."

He knew how to deal with these mudlarks, apparently, for the man after he had spat once more once or twice, seemed satisfied.

"I'll be back here," he said laconically, "after I have seen Rémi again."

Then Chauvelin let him go. The darkness and the rain soon swallowed him up: but Chauvelin himself remained for quite a while standing motionless under the doorway. He had not yet burnt his boats, was still free, if he thought the risk too great, to fail in his appointment. The man did not know who he was, had not seen him in the darkness and under the wide brim of his hat: but there was the risk that this Rémi might be a spy, who would take the letter intended for Fleurette straightway to Pochart or Danou. The letter might thus betray him and so minimise his power of saving Fleurette. He had to safeguard himself against the merest breath of suspicion in order to keep his power. The more irreproachable, detached, incorruptible he appeared before the populace, the more Spartan in his attitude towards his own child until the day of her trial, the greater his chance of saving her at the last. But his desire to warn her against unconsidered words or any kind of admissions outweighed for the moment every other consideration. He hurried back to his lodgings through the rain, and at once sat down to pen his letter to the child.

"My beloved one," he began, "at last I am able to send a word to you, which I hope and trust will reach your darling little hands. Child of my heart, this is to entreat you to continue in your trust of me, for I swear to you by the memory of your dead mother, that while you trust me I can save you. I can save the man you love. Moreover, I entreat you, beloved child of my soul, do not make any admission when brought before the tribunal, as you must be shortly, alas! If witnesses testify against you, just hold your peace; if others question you, deny everything. This I entreat you to do for the sake of the love I bear you, for the sake of the tears I have shed these past weeks, ever since your folly hath brought you to this pass."

He signed the letter "Bibi." Thus he had mentioned no names and in addition taken the precaution of disguising his writing as far as he was able. After which he sealed the letter and slipped it in the inner pocket of his coat. Time was now hanging heavily. Like a beast in its cage, Chauvelin paced up and down the narrow room, his hands clenched behind his back, a world of soul agony expressed upon his wax-like face.

As soon as he heard the tower-clock of Notre-Dame strike eight, he picked up his hat and cloak and once more sallied forth into the streets.

Chapter 30

A quarter of an hour later two out-at-elbows ragamuffins met inside the Café la Lune. Out-side the rain had not abated, both the men, who were clad in what were little more than rags, appeared soaked through to the skin. At this hour the little café was almost deserted. Citizen Sabot, the proprietor, was sitting at one table with a couple of friends; at another a couple of road-menders were sipping their absinthe, when the scavenger from the prison house came slouching in. He sat down on the bench against the wall in the darkest corner of the room and ordered a bottle of wine for himself and a friend. Presently the latter came and joined him and for a while the two men sat drinking in silence. Soon an animated discussion arose between the proprietor and his friends on the respective merits of Vouvray and Beaujolais as a table wine.

This entailed much shouting and copious gesticulations. Sabot had a deep-booming voice which reverberated from end to end of the room and caused the window-panes to rattle in their frames.

The scavenger from the prison house had apparently drunk more during the day than was good for him. His head leaned heavily on his hand, his elbow resting upon the table, his eyes had become bleary, his speech uncertain. His friend sat opposite to him, with his back to the rest of the company, and when Sabot's voice roused the echoes in the small stuffy room, he leaned forward and whispered in the other's ear:

"I had an adventure after I left you this afternoon."

"Eh?" the scavenger murmured incoherently. "Where?"

"At the angle of the Rue Longue I was pounced upon in the darkness and dragged under the shelter of a door-way. A man had me by the shoulder. He had seen me talking with you. He offered me fifty livres and the same for you, if you will give a letter to a certain prisoner in there."

And he nodded in the direction of the high walls of the Caristie house. His friend's reply to this preliminary statement was a prolonged snore.

"The prisoner to whom you are to give the letter is number 142 in room 12," the other went on, still speaking below his breath. "Who is that? Do you know?"

The scavenger from the prison house waited for a moment or two until the discussion at the next table was specially loud-tongued, then he murmured:

"Yes! It is the girl Fleurette."

"Ah!" remarked his friend.

"Who was the man who spoke to you?"

"I don't know. It was pitch-dark. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and spoke in a hoarse whisper."

"Her father, probably. The man Armand, I have marvelled why we did not hear from him before. What have you arranged?"

"That I meet him under the same doorway, after I've seen you. He will then give me the letter."

"We'll keep to that then. But try and see the man. I might recognise him by your description."

He paused for a moment or two, yawned, stretched, emptied his mug of wine and then went on. "If I went myself I might scare him off. So it is best you should go. But try and see his face. I'll wait here till you come."

After which he ordered another bottle of wine. Sabot broke away from his friends in order to serve his customer.

"You've had about as much as you ought to have, citizen Rémi," he said drily, as he uncorked the bottle and set it on the table.

"That is none of your business, citizen," Rémi retorted with a bibulous laugh, "so long as I pay for what I drink."

He threw some coins on the table. Sabot picked them up with a shrug and then rejoined his friends, and resumed the discussion with them on the merits or demerits of Vouvray and Beaujolais. The other ruffian took the opportunity of shuffling out of the café, and the scavenger, sprawling over the table, composed himself to sleep.

Hugging the walls, the other slunk through the street till he came to the doorway, where effectively he had appointed to meet Chauvelin.

"Well!" the latter queried impatiently as soon as the other came in sight. "Have you seen your friend?"

"Yes."

"Does he agree?"

"Yes."

With a sigh of relief Chauvelin drew the sealed letter from his breast pocket.

"Fifty livres, remember," he said slowly, "for each of you, when you bring me back the answer."

"Oh!" the man exclaimed, visibly disappointed. "There's an answer then?"

"Yes! An answer. You friend will see to it that you bring me back either an answer or some token which will satisfy me that the letter is in the right hands."

The man gave a short laugh.

"You do not trust me, citizen," he said.

"No," Chauvelin replied laconically. "I do not."

"I do not blame you," the other retorted. "I do not trust you altogether either. How do I know, when Rémi and I have risked our lives in your service, that the money will be forthcoming?"

"You do know that, citizen," Chauvelin rejoined drily, "and anyway you are bound to take that risk."

"Why should I?" the man retorted.

"Because you are more sorely in need of money than I of your services."

This argument appeared unanswerable. At any rate the ruffian now said with a light laugh:

"Have it your own way. Give me the letter. Number 142 in room 12 shall have it, you can wager your shirt on that."

Without another word Chauvelin handed him the letter. It was so dark under the doorway that it was only by groping that the other was able to get hold of it. He drew so near to Chauvelin that the latter, fearing that the man was trying to have a close look at him, pulled his hat lower down over his eyes. The other resorted to his habitual expression of indifference by spitting upon the floor; then he slipped the letter underneath his ragged blouse.

"Where do I find you," he asked, "after Rémi has done your errand?"

"You will go into the Rue Longue," Chauvelin replied, "To the house of citizen Amouret, the chandler. Up the first flight of stairs, on the right-hand side, you will come to a door which is painted a slate- grey. Knock at that door and you will find me within."

"At what hour?"

"At any time to-morrow after the executions in the Place de la République," Chauvelin replied.

Chapter 31

To say that Fleurette had in the past few days become familiarised with the grim mummeries that went on in the common room, would be putting it rather strongly. But she certainly had no longer the same horror of them as she had had at first. The presentment of the mock guillotine still harrowed her, it is true, but she could not help laughing when the antics of the mock Satan and his satellites when they seized the President of the Tribunal and the Public Prosecutor and dragged them off to an imaginary hell. There was that one man in particular whom she had sometimes noticed before and who was aide to one of the warders, and was very diverting. She used to watch him turning and wriggling his huge body, which he had painted all over with soot and draped in bits of red rags. He made an ideal Satan with tail and horns complete, and sometimes it seemed to Fleurette as if he went through all his antics for the sole purpose of bringing a smile upon her lips. Moreover, in a vague kind of way, she associated him with that lovely letter from Amédé, which she had found inside the folds of her kerchief one evening.

The death of so many who had been her prison-companions at first, especially that of Claire de Châtelard had deeply affected her. The want of fresh air, of exercise, and above all of love and joy, had begun to affect her health: her cheeks had lost their freshness, her eyes their lustre, her lips their smile.

It was only in the recreation hour that she would smile sometimes. Always when that big, clumsy, hideous-looking fellow who was some kind of aide to one of the warders, set himself the task of fooling for her benefit. She came to look upon him as a friend, and remembering how mysteriously that letter from Amédé had come inside her kerchief, she would look up whenever he came near her, wondering if he had another such welcome message for her. And one evening--she really had not the least idea how it happened--she found a sealed letter inside her work- basket. And the letter was from chéri Bibi. Oh! the joy of it! She read, and re-read it, and kissed the paper whereon his dear hand had rested. How she had missed Bibi all these days! How she longed to reassure him that she was well and that she trusted and believed in him! As to obeying him in all things, of course she would do it. To begin with, she was not afraid, not the least bit in the world. He was watching over her, and he was so great and powerful that no danger could possibly assail her while he cared for her. She would indeed obey him in all things, hold her peace while that wicked Adèle tried to do her harm; she would hold her peace before the Tribunal just as le bon Jésus had done when he was questioned by his judges.

Oh! it was a dear, a comforting, an infinitely precious letter. And beside it Fleurette had found a tiny little slip of paper on which were scribbled the words: "Let me have something to take back to the writer, to let him know that you are well. Leave it in your work basket, and I will see to it that he gets it." And so Fleurette had written a few lines to chéri Bibi; told him that she was well, and assured him that she was not afraid and would obey his commands in all things. She would hold her peace and trust in him. This little note she had hidden that evening in her work basket and by noon on the following day it had gone.

Chapter 32

"But me no butts, my dear Tony, I am sick of all these filthy rags. And if I am to see pretty Fleurette's papa then must I see him decently clad and in my right mind."

So spake Sir Percy Blakeney to his friend, late the following evening, it was in an attic under the roof of a half-derelict house in the Rue du Pont close to the river-bank. The owners of the house had long since disappeared, fled into the mountains or perished on the guillotine; no one knew or cared. Blakeney, and those members of his league who were with him, had hit upon it on their arrival in Orange, had made the attic their head-quarters, whilst most of the vagabonds of the city used the rest of the house as their lair. They too were outwardly vagabonds, dressed in rags, appeared unkempt, unshaven, and unwashed, when they sallied forth in the early mornings each on an errand of mercy to succour those in need of help or those who were in danger or distress.

It was only o' nights, sometimes, that an overwhelming desire for cleanliness and nice clothes caused these English gentlemen to cast aside their rags and to venture out into the open dressed in clothes that would have caused the ragamuffins of Orange go snarl at their heels like so many hungry curs.

They had been eight days in Orange now, and already architect Caristie, with his wife and small son, the widow Colmars and her daughter, and poor old General Paulieu with his family owed their safety to this gallant League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. But there was still more to do.

"We must get that child Fleurette out of that hell," the chief had said, and since then brain and heart had been at work to find the means to that end.

Later on Lord Tony had remarked: "I wish we could find out about that father of hers; this man Armand. He seems to hold some kind of position under this government of assassins, but I for one have tried in vain to learn something more definite about him."

"I think," Sir Andrew Ffoulkes added, "that his position must be a high one, or the girl would have been brought to trial before now."

"Unless our amiable friend, M. Chauvelin, has got this Armand under lock and key somewhere else," was my Lord Stowmaries' comment upon the situation.

Sir Percy was silent. Frankly the position puzzled him. He would have liked to get into touch with the man Armand, but for once he and his friends were baffled by this anonymity which appeared so closely guarded. Great then had been the rejoicing in the attic of the derelict house in the Rue du Pont, when Lord Anthony Dewhurst--a most perfect type of ruffian in rags and a thick coating of grime--related his adventure with the mysterious individual who, under cover of darkness and rain, had offered him and his friend Rémi, fifty livres each for delivering a message to a prisoner, who was none other than little Fleurette.

"At last we'll get in touch with the mysterious Armand," they all declared eagerly. It was arranged that the chief would himself take Fleurette's reply to the house in the Rue Longue. But go on this errand in the filthy rags of a scavenger he would not.

"The night is pretty dark," he declared, "and I would rather the mysterious Armand saw me as I am. I may also have a chance," he added with his merriest laugh, "of coming across my good friend M. Chambertin. It is some weeks since last we met, and not to have had a pleasant chat with him all these days, while we were within a stone's throw of one another, has been a sore trial to me. I caught a glimpse of him a day or two ago, in the courtyard of the Caristie House. He looked to be sick and out of sorts. A sight of me might cheer him up."

"You won't take any risks, Blakeney," Sir Andrew Ffoulkes remarked.

"Any number, my dear fellow," Sir Percy replied laughing. "And you know you envy me, you dog. But I feel thoroughly selfish to-night. I mean to take the note to Armand myself, and I mean to take the privilege of having a little chat with my friend Chambertin. And both these things I am going to do as an English gentleman and not as a mudlark in stinking, filthy rags."

He had completed his toilet now, looked magnificent in clothes cut by the leading London tailor, which set off his splendid figure to perfection, with snow-white stock and speckless boots.

"If a single pair of eyes should see you," Sir Andrew insisted, with an anxious sigh.

"I should have a whole pack of wolves at my heels," Blakeney admitted. "But that wouldn't be the first time any of us have had to run for our lives, eh? nor the first time we gave an entire pack of them the slip."

He picked up his hat and took a last look at Fleurette's little note which he had to deliver at the house in the Rue Longue.

"This man Armand must be a very decent fellow," he mused, "his letter to the child was really fine in spirit as well as in affection. Yes! he must be a decent fellow and we must get the girl for his sake as much as for that of our friend Colombe. What?"

On that, of course, they were all agreed. The activities of the League, since the rescue of General Paulieu and his family, were centered now on Fleurette. There were still one or two minor points to discuss, arrangements of detail to complete, but the main project for the girl's rescue could not be determined until it was definitely known whether her father, Armand, was going to be a help or an hindrance.

"Anyway I shall know more," Blakeney said finally, as he made for the door, "when I have sampled this man."

It was then nine o'clock in the evening. The night was dark and stormy. Gusts of wind alternated with sharp showers of rain--an altogether unusual state of weather for the time of year in these parts. The few passers-by of respectable appearance on their way home from business or work did no more than throw a cursory glance on the tall figure that passed hurriedly by. A few vagabonds clinging to their rags which the wind threatened to tear off their meagre bodies, did perhaps pause, cowering against a dark wall, murmuring a threat or a curse against the aristo, but an unexpected coin slipped into their grimy hands, quickly silenced both curse and threat.

Blakeney knew his way well through the streets of Orange. Having kept along the river bank till he came to the bridge, he turned up the Rue de la République. Glancing up at a house on his right, a smile of pure joy lit up his anxious face. Three nights ago on this spot, he had carried architect Caristie's small son in his arms, while Caristie and his wife followed him down the street to the market cart which awaited them at the top of the bridge. Three hours later an officer of the revolutionary army was hammering at the door of Caristie's lodgings, only to find that the birds had flown. It had been a merry night, and merrier morning, while he, Blakeney, drove the market cart out of the city with Caristie and his wife concealed amidst the sacks of haricots and peas, and the boy thrust into an empty oil-jar.

Well! something equally daring would have to be devised for the girl Fleurette, and perhaps for her father, the mysterious Armand. Blakeney, throwing back his head in the teeth of rain and wind, drew a deep breath of delight. This was life in very truth. To plan, to scheme, to accomplish. Alternately hare and hound, to revel in this case with human lives as the goal. And if at times the thought of beautiful Marguerite, lonely and anxious in far-off England, caused a pang like a knife-thrust to his heart, her soothing voice, her reassuring smile came to him as a swift vision from the spirit-land to encourage and console. In suffering and anxiety, as well as in the joy of reunion, Marguerite always understood.

Now he turned from the Place de la République into the Rue Longue, and the next couple of hundred yards brought him to the house of Lucien Amouret, corn-chandler. The outside door was on the latch. Pushing it open he found himself in a narrow hall, with an inner door leading into the shop on his left and a staircase in front of him. A lamp hung from the ceiling and shed a dim light on stair and hall. From the shop came the sound of voices in conversation, but though the stairs creaked under his tread, no one came out to see whose the step might be.

Sir Percy ran lightly up the stairs, and on the fist landing came to the door, painted a slate grey. This part of the house appeared silent and deserted; the upper floors wrapped in dead gloom. A rusty bell- pull hung beside the door. Sir Percy gave it a pull, and a discordant clang roused the sleeping echoes of the chandler's house. A moment or two later he caught the sound of shuffling footsteps, the door was opened, an old woman in cap and shawl mutely inquired what the visitor desired.

"Is citizen Armand within?" Blakeney asked.

The woman, he thought, looked at him rather curiously for a second or two, then shrugged her shoulders. Without wasting words she shuffled off down a dimly lighted passage, leaving him to enter or not, as he pleased. The next moment he heard a woman's voice--the same woman probably--say: "An aristo is asking to see Citizen Armand." Again a moment's silence, then the woman came shuffling back, signed to him to enter and closed the door behind him.

"In there," she said laconically, and nodded towards the end of the passage where a half open door revealed a shaft of more brilliant light. Then she shuffled off again, presumably to her kitchen, leaving the visitor to his own devices.

Sir Percy took off his hat and coat and laid them down on a chair close by; he then walked the length of the passage to the half-open door, pushed it open and found himself in a small room, comfortably furnished, lighted by a lamp which stood upon a centre table. The table was littered with papers. Behind it sat a man writing. At sound of Sir Percy's footsteps he looked up. The eyes of the two men met, and it almost seemed to one of them at least that time for a few seconds stood still.

And then a pleasant laugh broke the silence, and a gentle lazy voice said slowly:

"Egad! if it is not my engaging friend M. Chambertin! The gods do indeed favour me, sir, for there's no man in the world I would sooner have seen at this hour than your amiable self."

After the first paralysing second, Chauvelin had jumped to his feet. He had thought that once again his feverish fancy was playing his senses a mocking trick, that the face which ever haunted his day- dreams and his sleepless nights had only come to him on the wings of imagination. But the merry laugh, the lazy voice were all too real. His enemy was truly there, not a vision, but a cruel, mocking reality. Swiftly his clawlike hand shot out, fastened on an object that lay amidst a litter of papers, and would have lifted it, had not another slender and firm hand shot out likewise and fastened itself upon his wrist with a grasp like a vice of steel.

Chauvelin had the greatest difficulty in the world to smother a cry of pain. His fingers opened, spread out fan-wise, the pistol which he had seized fell back upon the litter of papers. With a soft laugh Sir Percy sat down on the edge of the table, picked up the pistol, withdrew the charge and swept it into the sand-box close to his hand, the while Chauvelin watched him greedily, hungrily, as a caged feline might watch a prey that was beyond its reach.

A white-faced clock on the wall struck the half-hour. Sir Percy laid the pistol down upon the table, and flicked his fine, well-shaped hands one against the other.

"There now, my dear M. Chambertin," he said gaily, "we can converse more comfortably together. Do you think it would have been wise to put a charge of powder through your humble servant? We should both of us have missed much of the zest of life."

"It is always your pleasure to mock, Sir Percy," Chauvelin said with an effort. "There are various popular sayings which I might recall to your mind, such as that the pitcher went once too often to the well."

"And Sir Percy once too often to visit his friend M. Chambertin, eh?"

"I think you will find that this is so," Chauvelin rejoined trying, none too successfully, to ape his enemy's easy familiarity. "Orange is not a healthy place for English spies these days."

"Possibly not," Blakeney retorted lightly. "Nor for some unfortunate children of France, I am thinking."

"Traitors and spies, you are right there, Sir Percy. We have no use for them in Orange--or elsewhere."

"Or for honest men, eh, my friend? for chaste women and innocent children. That is why your humble servant and the league of which methinks you know a thing or two, propose to remove these from this polluted soil."

Chauvelin had rested this elbow on the table. His hand shading his face against the glare of the lamp, effectually concealed its varying expressions from the keen eyes of his enemy.

"You have not told me yet, Sir Percy," he said after a few second's silence, "what procures me the honour of your visit at this hour."

"Pure chance, my dear sir," Blakeney replied, "though the honour is entirely mine. As a matter of fact I came to find one Armand."

Twice did the pendulum of the white-faced clock tick the seconds before Chauvelin said quietly:

"My colleague? Have you business with him?"

"Yes," Blakeney replied slowly. "I have a message for him."

"I can deliver it."

"Why not I? since I came on purpose."

"My colleague is absent."

"I can wait."

"From whom then is the message?"

"From his daughter."

"Ah!"

Once more there was a pause. The white-faced clock ticked on but the two men were silent. Chauvelin's face was shaded by his hand, and it needed all the energy, all the strength of his will to keep that hand absolutely steady, not to allow a finger to tremble. In the other hand he held a long quill pen and with it he traced a geometrical pattern upon a blank sheet of paper. Sir Percy Blakeney, still sitting on the edge of the table watched him, motionless.

"Pretty drawing that," he said abruptly. And with a slender finger pointed to the design that grew in intricate lines under Chauvelin's aimless pen.

The other gave a start, the pen spluttered, scattering the ink in spots all over the paper.

"There now, you have spoilt it," Sir Percy continued lightly. "I had no idea you were such a master draughts-man."

Chauvelin threw down his pen. He had his nerves under control at last, was able to drop his hand, to lean back in his chair, and with both hands buried in the pockets of his breeches, to throw back his head and look his enemy squarely in the face.

"About that message, Sir Percy," he said with well-feigned indifference.

"What about it, my dear M. Chambertin?" Blakeney rejoined lightly.

"My colleague, Citizen Armand, has been called away--to Lyons on State business."

"But how unfortunate!" Sir Percy exclaimed.

"I am sending a courier to Lyons this very night."

"Too late, my dear M. Chambertin! Too late, I fear!"

Chauvelin frowned. "What mean you by too late, Sir Percy?" he asked slowly.

"Armand's daughter is sick, my dear M. Chambertin," Blakeney rejoined, speaking very slowly, as if to weigh his every word. "Before your courier can possibly reach Lyons, she will be dead."

"My God!---"

It was the most heart-rending cry that had ever come from a man's throat. Chauvelin had jumped to his feet; his two hands, claw-like, as if carved in marble, gripped the arms of his chair; his knees were shaking, his pale eyes stared like those of a maniac, his cheeks were the colour of lead.

For the space of ten seconds he stood thus, with his whole body quivering, his senses reeling, his eyes fixed on those finely moulded lips that had dealt this appalling blow. Then slowly consciousness returned, a veil seemed to be lifted from before his eyes, knowledge had entered his brain. He knew that he had fallen into the trap set for him by this astute adventurer. He realised that he had betrayed the secret which he would have guarded with his life.

"So," Sir Percy said at last very slowly, "'tis you are Citizen Armand, and the sweetest flower that ever bloomed in this putrid atmosphere has its roots in polluted soil?"

Still quite slowly and deliberately he drew Fleurette's note out of the breast-pocket of his coat; for a second or two he held it lightly between slender finger and thumb, then laid it on the table in front of Chauvelin.

"She is not sick," he said quietly, "nor yet dying. If you have not forgotten how to pray, man, pray to God now, pray with all your might, that the same power which enabled you to torture my wife and wellnigh to break her brave spirit, will aid you to save your daughter from those tigers whom you have called your friends."

Chauvelin had sunk back in the chair. His head was buried in his hands. Tumultuous thoughts rushed through his brain until he felt that his reason must be tottering. A haze was before his eyes Perhaps it was caused by tears. Who knows? Only the recording angel mayhap. Even wild beasts cry in agony when deprived of their young.

Only after a few minutes did he become aware of the note penned by his little Fleurette and laid in front of him by his bitterest foe. The Scarlet Pimpernel! The only man in all the world who might perhaps have saved Fleurette, who would have saved Fleurette, if he, Chauvelin, had not betrayed the secret of his heart.

Like one waking from a dream, Chauvelin picked up the note, and looked fearfully about him, dreading to meet those mocking lazy eyes, which, no doubt, at this hour gleamed with malicious triumph.

But Sir Percy Blakeney was no longer there.

Chapter 33

The stage was now set for the last act of the tragedy, which the chief actor himself knew could only end one way. He had schemed and planned until he felt that his reason would give way, until he feared that he would lose the nerve and the power of which he had such sore need. He had thought of everything, weighed every possibility from the bribing of prison warders, to the suppression--by murder if need be--of the two witnesses Godet and Adèle. He had thought of turning the tables on Pochart and Danou, by launching accusations against them. But all these plans had to be rejected one by one. Fleurette liberated to-day through the success of one or the other of these schemes would only be re-arrested on the morrow. The suppression of the witnesses, the arrest of his more powerful enemies, would only rouse more bitter antagonism against himself and failing in the end to save his Fleurette, would end in precipitating her doom.

Driven by despair, he had at one time pinned his hopes of salvation for the child on the possible interference of the Scarlet Pimpernel, but even that fond and foolish hope had been shattered by his betrayal of his jealously guarded secret. What was there left to hope for? That his power was great enough at the Tribunal to force an acquittal in spite of the witnesses, in spite of Pochart and Danou and all the mob whom they had already gathered round them. The Public Prosecutor, a man of his own making, would not dare to side against him. But there was the populace, the rabble, the swinish multitude, who, now that even the worst type of venal and corrupt jury had been abolished, were judges and jury, advocate and prosecutor all in one. The last word always rested with them, and Pochart and Danou, egged on by envy and revenge, would know how to sway the rabble.

Chauvelin was not the man to indulge in illusions. He knew well enough--none better--that the passions of hatred and of spite which he himself had engendered and fostered in the hearts of his fellowmen, were turned against him, as they had been turned on all the makers of this bloody revolution, on your Brissots and your Carriers, your Philippe d'Orléans, and your great Danton. They would destroy his exquisite Fleurette as effectually as they had destroyed thousands of others, equally innocent.

And now the end had come. No longer could the day be put off. President Legrange and Public Prosecutor Isnard might be arriving in Paris any hour when the new aerial telegraph might be set in motion, or a courier sent down to Orange poste-haste and burst the bubble of Chauvelin's machinations.

And then on that afternoon of the 15th of June two things occurred. To begin with when the Public Prosecutor placed before him the printed forms of accusation with the names left in blank, and with them a list of the names of those awaiting trial, Chauvelin with a hand that appeared quite steady, wrote in one blank spaces the name of Fleur Chauvelin, nommée Armand. Secondly when, an hour later, the captain of the guard stood in the courtyard of the Caristie house reading out the names of those who were to stand their trial on the morrow, Fleurette heard the sound of her own name.

She was not frightened, nor did she weep. Tears were a thing of the past for her. Twenty days had gone by since she had been happy, more than a fortnight since she had been brought into this house and deprived of air and sunlight and joy. One by one those who had been kind to her in this prison house had gone: Claire de Châtelard, Madame de Mornas, poor Eugénie Blanc, and kind M. de Bollène. Their names had been on the roll-call. The next day they were gone, and Fleurette never saw them again. Lately she had been lonely too. No one had taken the place in her unsophisticated heart of Claire de Châtelard. The only friend she had left was the warder's aide, the rough scavenger who had brought her the two welcome letters. Amédé's and Bibi's. He still continued his antics, joined in the gruesome mummeries which still went on in the common room, and Fleurette somehow had a sense of re-assurance when he was nigh. But this night of all nights, after she had heard the captain of the guard read her name upon the roll-call, her grimy friend was not there. Fleurette missed him, and disappointment over his absence was the only sorrowful feeling of which she felt conscious, when she realised that her fate would be decided on the morrow.

She was not afraid. Had not Bibi enjoined her, begged her to trust him and not to be afraid? She wondered when she would be allowed to see Bibi, whether he would be there to-morrow, at her trial, encouraging her with his presence and with his glance when she was made to stand before the judge. She knew that in a sense she had done wrong. She had taken Madame's valuables and handed them over to Amédé. This she had no right to do, and since Adèle had seen her with M'sieur Amédé that evening, and spoken ill of her because of that, she supposed that she would be punished. It was only vaguely that she marvelled what the punishment would be. But she was not afraid because she trusted Bibi. Nor did she regret her actions. If it had all to be done over again, she would act in precisely the same way. The mysterious voice often rang in her ear even now. She had obeyed the commands of le bon Dieu, and it was le bon Dieu who had chosen a still more mysterious way for saving M'sieur Amédé from the consequences of her actions.

Thus did Fleurette envisage the day that was to come, with love and trust in her heart for Bibi, and the certainty after all these trials and tribulations of a happy reunion with him and old Louise at Lou Mas.

Not to mention the reunion with M'sieur Amédé.

Chapter 34

The first thing that struck Fleurette's perceptions when she entered that huge room, was that up at the further end of it--upon a raised platform and behind a tall desk, sat Bibi chéri himself. Two other men sat there with him, but Fleurette hardly saw them. It was on Bibi that she looked. She had slept very little during the night. Excitement had kept her awake, as well as the tears and lamentation of two of her room-mates who were to appear with her this day before the tribunal.

And it was Bibi who was to be her judge. Well then obviously she had nothing to fear. One of some fifteen of her fellow-prisoners, she was bustled with them across the room to a wooden bench where they were roughly ordered to sit down. As they crossed the room boos and hisses, and one or two louder cries of execration, greeted them. A few remarks, all of them malevolent, rose above the murmurs.

"That old man there, I knew him once. Old tyrant. He's getting his deserts at last."

"Do you see the woman next to him? Five free-born Frenchwomen she had at a time once, to wait on her and do her hair. Aristo, va! It won't take long to do thy hair to-morrow. One snick with the scissors, what?"

"That young wench too. Not much more than eighteen, I warrant."

"I hear she is a thief as well as a traitor."

"Pity they should have abolished the whipping-post. That would have done the young traitors a world of good."

"Me, I prefer the guillotine; quickest work, eh?"

Fleurette had blushed with shame to the roots of her hair. She tried not to look in the direction whence these voices, harsh and coarse had come. She tried to think of M'sieur Amédé and of the joy she would have when she saw him again. But she could not shut the gates of her consciousness against all these people who had gathered here for the sole purpose of seeing their fellow-creatures suffer. Men and women and even little children. The women for the most part had brought their knitting, for every one was knitting socks these days for the brave soldiers who were fighting against the enemies of France, and through the murmur of voices, the monotonous click-click of the needles acted as an irritant upon the nerves.

All around there appeared to be a sea of faces. And eyes. Innumerable eyes that glared, and mouths that grinned and decided. And above the faces, a sea of red caps with tricolour cockades. Fleurette tried hard not to look. She closed her eyes and tried to murmur the prayers she and M'sieur Amédé used to say together when M. le Cure prepared them for their first communion.

Bibi wore a hat with feathers. He had a bell in front of him, and this he often tinkled, when the noise from the crowd all around became too great. Once or twice he was addressed as "Citizen President." Fleurette had never seen him look so stern. The words which he spoke to the accused were not only bitter but terribly cruel. He seemed so unlike her real chéri Bibi, that she caught herself marvelling whether her fancy was not playing her aching eyes some strange and horrible trick.

One after the other the names of her fellow-prisoners were called, and one by one they were made to stand up and then walk to the centre of the room and up a couple of shallow steps to a small raised platform round which there was a wooden railing. In every instance as soon as the prisoner mounted this platform, and became as it were the centre of attraction for all these innumerable eyes, he or she would be greeted with groans and hisses and cat's calls, until Bibi tinkled his bell and loudly demanded silence.

A man in a red cap who sat just below Bibi's desk then stood up and read something out aloud, which Fleurette never understood, but which the crowd apparently did, for the reader was frequently interrupted by more boos and hisses and often cries of execration. After this reading Bibi, or one of the two men who sat beside him, asked the prisoner questions. These were sometimes replied to, but not always. The crowd invariably threw in loud comments on both questions and answers, and Bibi was then forced to tinkle his bell in order to demand silence. And through the noise, the sound that was never drowned, and never was still, was the click-click of hundreds of knitting needles.

The first batch of prisoners to face the Tribunal, were men and women almost unknown to Fleurette. They had not long been brought into the Caristie House, had replaced others who had been Fleurette's early companions in prison. She had seen them in the common room, acting in the grim farces that were the fashion there, but she had not made friends with them as she had done with Claire de Châtelard or Madame de Mornas. But when came the turn of a woman who had actually been her room-mate, who had sat next to her on the bench of the accused, and squeezed her hand ere she was led up to the raised platform with the wooden railing, then, Fleurette felt all her resolution of bravery and trust in Bibi, giving way.

The heat in the room had become unbearable. The stench of dank and grimy clothes, of perspiring humanity, of hot breaths charged with hate, acted as a pungent soporific. Fleurette's head fell forward once or twice, her eyes involuntarily closed. For a time she lost consciousness. It was her own name spoken in a stentorian voice that brought her back to reality.

"Fleur Chauvelin, nommée Armand."

Some one nudged her elbow. An impatient voice rasped out a sharp: "Allons! allons!" and she found herself dragged to her feet and led by the arm to the raised platform, amidst a din which fortunately was too great to allow her ears to catch individual sounds.

She looked straight across to Bibi, who was as pale as a waxen image.

"Fleur Chauvelin, nommée Armand."

Chapter 35

There is no doubt that everything would have gone well, had it not been for Fleurette herself. Perhaps "well" is the wrong word: "differently" would be better. Nothing could have gone "well," because even though Chauvelin had succeeded in obtaining an acquittal, his enemies would have returned immediately to the charge, and forced on the girl's re-arrest even before she had left the Tribunal. There had been cases during the past few weeks, in Paris, in Lyons and so on, when prisoners were acquitted and re-arrested, re-tried, acquitted again, and again re-arrested. A regular cat-and-mouse game, at which Chauvelin himself was an adept. Nevertheless with a first acquittal there might have been some hope. And he practically had obtained that acquittal, when Fleurette herself ruined her chance and caused her own condemnation. Chauvelin could have struck her for her folly. His love for her always pertained to that of a wild beast for its young; the instinct to devour in moments of peril. If she was destined to perish, then it should be by his own hand, not as a spectacle for the rabble to gloat on.

The Moniteur of the 22nd Messidor gives one or two interesting details concerning the trial of a country girl named Fleur Chauvelin, daughter of a Citizen Armand Chauvelin of the Central Committee of Public Safety, and member of he National Convention, and relates at full length the extraordinary incidents which marked its close. Looking back upon that memorable day, and on the solemn hour which saw the girl Fleur Chauvelin, nommée Armand called to the bar of the accused, we visualise Chauvelin the father, presiding over that Tribunal of infamy, and having sent within the last half-hour half a dozen fellow- creatures callously to death, now seeing his own daughter, the only being in all the world whom he had ever loved, standing there before him, accused, condemned already in the eyes of the canaille.

There was no time wasted during the proceedings, wherein the accused was allowed neither jury nor advocate. The State as represented by its three nominees who sat as judges, was judge and jury and prosecutor all in one. It was men like Chauvelin who had invented this travesty of justice and eliminated all procedure devised by civilisation for the protection of the accused.

The Public Prosecutor opened the proceedings by reading the indictment in mechanical monotone; it was identically the same as that framed against hundreds of others--guilty or innocent alike--the printed formula invented by the odious Foucquier-Tinville in which the words "Traitor" and "Enemy of the Republic" were alone intelligible. All else was a jumble of words. The crowd was not listening. Their attention was fixed on the accused whose modest bearing and spotless attire seemed to arouse their spite and their derision, more than the rags and filth displayed by a previous prisoner had done.

When the reading of the indictment came to an end, Pochart sitting beside the Presiding Judge asked the usual question:

"Is the prisoner accused publicly or in secret?"

And the Public Prosecutor replied: "Publicly."

Danou, the third judge then asked: "By whom?"

And again the Public Prosecutor gave reply:

"By one Adèle," he said, "of unknown parentage, and Citizen Lieutenant Godet of the revolutionary army."

"And to what will these persons testify?"

"To the treason committed against the State by the accused and to her connection with the enemies of the Republic."

After which Adèle was called. Her small rat-like face looked wan and pinched; her hands trembled visibly, and she wiped them continually against the ragged apron which she wore. She was obviously very nervous and never looked once in the direction of the accused, but she spoke clearly enough in a shrill, high-pitched voice. Questioned at first by the Public Prosecutor, she presently embarked more glibly upon her story, relating the events which were intended to condemn Fleurette. Chauvelin already knew the tale by heart. The soldiers on the ridge. The raid on the château. Fleurette's halt that evening in the cottage of the widow Tronchet. Her assignation, through Adèle, with Amédé Colombe. The casket and wallet underneath her shawl, then transferred into young Colombe's keeping.

Ofttimes Chauvelin tried to break into the girl's narrative; he put stern questions to her, tried to intimidate her, to trip her into misstatements or obvious contradictions. But Adèle held her ground. Informer, ingrate, wanton though she was, she was speaking the truth and was not to be shaken. Hisses and boos from the crowd oft greeted the President's cross-questionings, cries of approbation greeted Adèle's spirited rejoinders. In the wordy warfare between herself and Chauvelin, she scored nearly every time. Encouraged by the sympathy of the rabble, she lost her nervousness, whilst he gradually lost his self-control. He had so much at stake, and she nothing but the satisfaction of vanity and of spite.

"Be not intimidated, citizeness," Pochart put in forcefully at one moment, "let not powerful influences sway you from your duty."

"Vas-y, Adèle of unknown parentage!" one of the women shouted from above. "'Twas some aristo doubtless who betrayed thy mother. Let this aristo at least pay for her kind."

Amidst thunderous applause Adèle stepped down from the bar. Chauvelin tried in vain to command silence, he was shouted down by the crowd.

"Thou'rt a true patriot, Citizen Chauvelin," one woman called out lustily. "To have a traitor for a daughter is a curse. Her death will not be for thee a sacrifice."

He waited in seeming patience, white to the lips, until the tumult had subsided, then calling all his reserves of strength, moral and mental, to his aid, he said in a calm firm voice:

"The witness has lied. The events which she has described could not have taken place in her presence seeing that on that day and at that hour she was in my house, at Lou Mas, half a league away."

This pronouncement was greeted with mighty uproar. Derisive laughter, cat's calls, whistling, strident shouts made riotous confusion. Only two persons in the room appeared serene. One was the accused, the other her judge. The Moniteur says that throughout the whole proceedings the attitude of the accused was astonishingly calm: "d'une sérénité êtonnante." She looked straight before her, sometimes at the President, but more often her eyes appeared to be fixed on the tricolour flag draped over the wall above his head, and ornamented with a red cap and the words writ largely: "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité ou la Mort."

And so too was the President equally serene. Outwardly. He stood upright whilst the turmoil continued, with head erect and hands held behind his back. Insults and jeers flew at him from every side. But he never winced. The rabble called him, "Traitor, Liar, Tyrant!" and various other names impossible to record. But he waited in seeming patience, until the crowd, eager to hear more, fell to comparative stillness once more. Then Pochart's rasping voice cut through the silence, like the sound of a file against metal.

"You'll have to substantiate that statement Citizen President," he said.

"My statements need no substantiation," Chauvelin retorted coolly. "The word of a representative of the people is sufficient against any witness."

And while Pochart was considering a suitable repartee, Danou put in smoothly:

"Should we not hear the next witness, citizen Lieutenant Godet, before we discuss the matter?"

"Yes, yes!" the crowd yelled in response.

Scenting the unusual, the crowd was more excited than was its wont. Of late these hasty trials, six to the hour, with condemnation as a foregone conclusion, had become monotonous. One condemnation had been very much like another. But here was something novel. The rumour had already spread like wildfire that the accused was no less than the daughter of the President, Citizen Chauvelin, who was well-known in the councils of State, a prominent member of many committees, and, some said, a personal friend of the great Robespierre. Here in truth was a test of supreme patriotism; a judge called upon to condemn his own daughter if she be guilty. And of course she was guilty, or she would not be here. There was no sympathy for either of them, only interest in the issue of this amazing trial. The crowd did not like the prisoner's attitude, what they called her aristocratic airs and disdainful ways; even the children pointed grimy little fingers at her and hurled the poisonous darts of loathsome epithets at the aristo.

Thus was the scene prepared for the entrance of Lieutenant Godet, who stepped up to the witness' platform with a display of self-assurance and a swagger that charmed the women. He was a man after their own heart, a real sans culotte in grimy rags, unkempt, un-shaved, unwashed, the type of which the martyr Jean Paul Marat had been the most perfect exponent.

Conversations, objurgations, murmurs even were stilled; the click- click of knitting needles alone made a soft accompaniment to Citizen Godet's replies to the Public Prosecutor's preliminary questions. It was indeed a remarkable, an amazing, an almost unbelievable tale, which he had to tell. And gradually as he unfolded the various details of this extraordinary adventure a hush fell over the crowded room, very like the calm which nature assumes ere she sends forth the thunders of her wrath.

Godet, still with this air of self-assurance, related how he and the soldiers under his command, as well as the whole commune of Laragne had been tricked by a band of English spies whose actions proved them to have been in league with Amédé Colombe and with the accused. He told of the magnificently dressed soldiers. Their raid on the premises of Colombe the grocer of the Rue Haute. Their march through the village. Their captain's swagger. His orders to himself, Godet, and to the real soldiers of the revolutionary army.

Still the crowd gave no sign of approbation, or disapprobation. Only that ominous, expectant hush which presaged a storm. The accused always serene, smiled--so the Moniteur avers--as she encountered the President's glance. Smiled cheerfully and trustfully. But the President's face was inscrutable, and the colour of wax.

And then Godet went on to relate the long, weary tramp along the mountain roads. The dust. The fatigue. The want of food. He told how the ci-devant Frontenac and Amédé Colombe wrested from the hands of justice, were presently taken to some unknown place of safety, while the soldiers of the Republic were left by the wayside to perish of fatigue or inanition.

He had finished speaking, and still the click-click of the knitting needles was the only sound that broke the silence. The witness, sensing this silence, feeling its menace, had lost something of his arrogance; the hand with which he stroked his shaggy moustache trembled perceptibly. The accused, overcome by the heat, wiped her forehead with the corner of her apron, then she smiled once more across at her father.

And suddenly through the solemn stillness a woman's shrill voice was raised:

"Those English spies did make a fool of thee, I am thinking, Citizen Godet!"

This suddenly relieved the tension. It was like a dam let loose. In a moment every kind of call and of cry of laughter and of groan rang from end to end of the room.

"The English have made a fool of thee!"

Within a minute or two this became a general cry, accompanied by the stamping of feet, and loud and prolonged laughter, both malevolent and derisive. Godet, ludicrous in his bewilderment, rolled terror-filled eyes, whilst vainly trying to raise his voice above the din. The Moniteur says definitely that the accused put her hands to her ears. The uproar was in truth deafening.

A few moments of this confusion, and the next, Chauvelin was on his feet clanging his bell. His stentorian voice rose above the tumult, demanded silence, and in the lull that presently ensued, that same voice now subdued to a lower, though no less impressive key, rang clear and calm.

"Is it not an insult, citizen patriots to ask you to listen to the words of a fool, when the life of a French girl is at stake?"

The passionate earnestness with which he spoke, the burning indignation expressed in that calm, subdued voice, had the effect of awing the screaming rabble. They turned to gaze on him, as he stood there, facing them all, calm, proud, almost majestic, despite his small stature. Seizing this sudden advantage he began to speak. Without a gesture, hardly raising his voice, he began quietly, not choosing his words, or striving after eloquence, but only as a man speaking to his friends. And by one of those inexplicable reactions which will so often change the temper of a crowd, men, women and children ceased to curse and to deride. The innumerable eyes were fixed with more curiosity than malevolence upon him, the mouths, agape, uttered no further groan, and once more the click-click of knitting needles was momentarily stilled.

"Citizens," he said, "you have heard two witnesses against the accused. One of these, the wench Adèle I myself, representative of the people, have convicted of deliberate falsehood, spoken to the prejudice of a French patriot. The other your own words have condemned for a fool, and an easy tool in the hands of English spies. You called him a fool, citizens, but I call him a traitor. Lieutenant Godet was not a tool in the hands of the English spies, he was their confederate, their help. Can you bring yourselves to believe, citizens, that a loyal soldier of the Republic could be deceived by false uniforms, by French words spoken by alien lips? Can you believe this story of a forced march, of starvation by the wayside in the company of English spies whose every action, every word, every gesture almost, must have betrayed them as the foreigners they actually were. Citizens, I appeal to that reputation for clear thinking and for logic, for which French men and women are famous throughout the world. At this hour when our beloved country is threatened on every side, is this the time, I say, for allowing yourselves to be duped by traitors who would sell you and your land, your dues and your liberty for English gold---?"

"No! no!" came a lusty shout in response. And the crowd took up the cry. "No! We'll not sell our liberties for English gold."

"Say on, citizen representative."

Pochart had jumped to his feet; once or twice he had tried to break in on Chauvelin's peroration, with cries of: "Thou'rt slandering a soldier of the Republic!" or: "Traitor! thou'rt in league with thy daughter!"

But he was not listened to. There was something about Chauvelin which fascinated the mob. His white, calm face, his pale, piercing eyes, his voice, dull, even monotonous, but penetrating to the most distant corners of the room. And there was also that welcome element of novelty. This pleased the women. Trials and condemnations in incessant routine had begun to pall. Here was something new. Witnesses summoned, then discredited, and finally accused. Such a thing had never been witnessed before in Orange.

And so the crowd would not listen to Pochart or Danou, they wanted to hear Chauvelin; they did not particularly wish to see Fleurette nommée Armand acquitted, but they did relish the prospect of the two witnesses being sent to the bench of the accused. That was novelty for them, and it was what they wanted for the moment. Moreover they did think that the citizen lieutenant with all his swagger had been such a consummate fool, if no worse, that it would be distinctly amusing to see that stupid head of his roll down into the basket of the guillotine.

Neither Pochart nor Danou, however, were men to give up the struggle quite so easily. In the fight against the representative on special mission, who had threatened them and lorded it over them for so long, they only contemplated one issue: victory. Victory! which would mean satisfaction of pride and of revenge. They had set out to win and did not consider themselves beaten. Not yet. Already Pochart was on his feet, and his rasping voice rose booming above the tumult. As soon as a slight lull gave him an opportunity he seized it, and cried in thunderous accents:

"Citizens! Frenchmen! French women! All of you!" And then again: "Citizens all! Let me put the same question to you, that the President asked you just now: will you allow yourselves to be duped? Will you go like sheep whithersoever traitors may lead you?"

The crowd murmured and shrugged shoulders, would have shouted Pochart down only that the rasping voice of his rose above the cry of: "A la lanterne, all traitors and fools!"

Pointing an accusing finger at Chauvelin, Pochart took up the cry.

"So say I," he roared in a terrific straining of his powerful lungs: "A la lanterne all the traitors who try to throw dust in your eyes. Have you forgotten that the citizen President is the father of the accused? And that he knows well enough that if the child be guilty, then is the parent guilty too? To save himself he is trying to shield a traitor. Do not allow yourselves to be duped by him. Look on the citizen President, my friends, and ask him how it comes about that he lavished all the treasures of his eloquence upon this one traitor, when yesterday and the day before that, he sent to the guillotine every man, woman and child who came before the Tribunal, and on a mere suspicion of treason."

A dull murmur greeted this peroration. There had been something in Pochart's eloquence which caused the crowd not to veer round just yet, but at an rate to look on the President of the Tribunal with rather less awe, and something approaching suspicion.

"That is true," a woman said loudly. "The President showed no mercy to traitors yesterday. And it is treason now to be as much as suspected of treason, we've been told."

"It is my duty to protect the innocent," Chauvelin retorted firmly, "as well as to punish the guilty."

"Methinks," Danou now broke in, and his slow, and suave tones came in strange contrast to the clamorous eloquence of his colleagues: "methinks that the traitor Danton made some such remark too, ere justice put her hand on him."

"Danton was a traitor, and thou too, Citizen Danou, art a traitor for speaking his name in this hall of justice."

"Justice!" Pochart cried, pallid with rage, for he had felt that the word "traitor" hurled at Danou was meant to strike him also. "Justice! hark at the traitor, who should be standing in the dock beside his brood."

"Vas-y, Citizen President," the woman cried excitedly. "It is thy turn now."

They had cast aside their knitting, so palpitating had this duel become between these three men. Insensate, doltish as they were, they scented the tragedy that underlay this wordy warfare; they guessed that the man who presided over this infamous tribunal and who with a casual stroke of the pen had sent hundreds indiscriminately to death, had one soft corner in his callous heart, and that his colleagues, consumed with envy and hatred were hitting at that vulnerable spot and had already succeeded in making him writhe in agony.

At the same time, such is the psychology of a multitude as against that of individuals, there was still a wave of sympathy tending in the direction of this father fighting so desperately for the life of his child. Strictly speaking it was not sympathy, rather was it mere instinctive understanding of family ties. Five years of this awful revolution, during which every cruel lust in man or woman had been sedulously fostered, every softer mood repressed, had not yet succeeded in crushing altogether that feeling for family solidarity which is the most distinctive characteristic of the French nation. And this spectacle of a father sitting in judgment over his own child, actually expressed to pronounce the death-sentence over her, did undoubtedly for the time being sway the crowd in his favour. He was given a more respectful hearing than either of his colleagues or either of the witnesses, and when Godet's name recurred on the tapis, it was greeted with derisive cries of "Cet imbécile!" and when Adèle was mentioned, most of the women shouted spitefully: "Liar!"

Chauvelin, sensitive of course to the slightest wavering in the temper of the populace, felt his advantage and strained every nerve to press it home. The whole situation was of course terribly precarious. At any moment a look, a word, a false move on his part, might cause the crowd to veer right over against him. Even after an acquittal sometimes, the populace would suddenly demand that the accused be re-arrested: a second trial, more of a mockery and a travesty of justice than the first, would be insisted on, after which condemnation was a foregone conclusion. All this Chauvelin knew, none better, and there were moments when he felt as if madness or death were preferable to this terrible fight that in the end could have but one issue. And yet fight he must, fight for every inch of ground, fight with the last breath in his body, and with it silence the vituperations of those fiends who had raised their noisome voices against his Fleurette.

Even now Pochart was on his feet again, shouting, gesticulating, banging his fist upon the table.

"Citizens," he reiterated for the third time, "do not let yourselves be duped by men who are ruining your country by pandering to traitors. Look at the accused! I say she is nothing but a wanton, who should be tied to the whipping-post ere she be sent to the guillotine. Look at the aristocrat, I say, with the demure airs and the folded kerchief; she, forsooth, goes forth o' nights to meet her lover under the almond-trees, there to concoct treason with her lover against the Republic. She was seen, remember, seen, I say, in spite of what interested parties may aver. You have heard the witness, a humble, simple girl, the victim of aristocratic lust and of tyranny. That witness spoke the truth. She saw the accused and her lover at dead of night whispering and embracing. I ask you, does a clean-minded, respectable woman, citizen of our glorious Republic, spend her nights in the company of her lover? Rather is it not the wanton, the traitor, who shuns the light of day and seeks the darkness, for the hatching of treasonable plots against the State? Look at the witness, citizens. Humbly and simply did she speak the truth---"

"She lied as well you know it, Citizen Pochart," Chauvelin broke in forcefully. "Liar, forger and thief, I decree her accused and command that she stand her trial for these offences against the Republic. Look at her, my friends, citizens all," he went on, and pointed an accusing finger at Adèle whose pinched little face had become the colour of lead, and who sat in a corner of the witness; bench, cowering within herself, her trembling hands, now and then, lifting a handkerchief to wipe the sweat of terror that had risen to her brow. "Look at her," Chauvelin continued, appealing to the sea of faces before him: "And now look at the accused. She is serene, because she is innocent; whilst the guilty trembles because she knows her treachery has come to light at last. Look at those two women, citizens, and yourselves pronounce which is the traitor and which is the stainless."

Of a truth all would have been well after that. Chauvelin passed a quivering hand across his brow. It was streaming with moisture. The strain had been immense. Mentally he felt broken by the effort. But he also felt that for the moment at least he had won the day. The Moniteur states definitely that: "il y eût tout lieu de croire qu'un acquittement eût été applaudi." At any rate the applause at the moment was deafening, and if Chauvelin could have obtained a hearing for another sixty seconds he would have put the acquittal to the populace vote, and, as the Moniteur says, it would have been carried.

What would have happened afterwards nobody can say. The most fickle entity in the world is a multitude, and of all the multitudes, an audience watching the suffering of a fellow-creature is the most fickle and the most callous. For the next two or three minutes at any rate, Chauvelin held the sympathy of the crowd. Fleurette did not count either way. For the spectators of this heart-rending pageant she was just a thing, an insentient object placed there for their entertainment, the pivot round which circled their excitement. But Chauvelin, the father pleading for his daughter's life had won their sympathy--the sympathy of tiger-cats, satiated for the moment and licking their chops in the intervals of snarling.

All then would have been well but for the action of one of the sympathisers who stood leaning up against the wall in the crowd; a giant he was, coated with grime--coal heaver or scavenger probably, only half clad in ragged shirt and torn breeches, with dirty feet thrust stockingless into sabots, a red worsted cap over his unkempt hair, his face streaked with sweat and coal-dust. In one hand he held a large raw carrot which he was munching with loud snapping of the jaws and smacking of the lips. He was one of the noisiest in his approval of the President's peroration.

"Vas-y, President," he shouted. "A la lanterne, the fools and traitors. Where is that trollop? Let her stand up. We want to look at her, eh, citizens?"

"Yes! Yes! we want to see her! Stand up, Adèle of unknown parentage! Let's look at you."

The women, or course, were the loudest in their demand for the unfortunate Adèle. Bred by misery, often out of degradation, trained by five years of an execrable revolution, the women of France were not féministes these days. The spectacle of one of their own sex on the guillotine gave them more satisfaction than that of a man. Now they wanted to see Adèle of the pinched, rat-like face, Adèle with the trembling hands and the shrinking shoulders, they wanted to see her squirm before their wrath, they wanted to see her wriggle like a worm prodded with a pin. Incidentally they had almost for gotten Fleurette.

Louder and even louder they clamoured for Adèle, and at an order from the President, two soldiers of the National guard did presently drag Adèle from the corner of the witness' bench where she was cowering like a frightened rodent, and dragged her--or rather carried her--to the bar of the accused. The crowd seeing that its dictates were being obeyed, restrained its frenzy for an instant and, through the comparative stillness that ensued, a piercing shriek rang out from the unfortunate Adèle.

"Mercy! Mercy!" she cried, and struggled fiercely to free herself from the men's grasp. "I am innocent! I spoke the truth."

A thunderous shout of derisive laughter greeted her cry. The women, with their hands on their knees, were literally rocking with laughter. They thought that Adèle with a face like a rat, wisps of lank hair poking out from underneath her cap which sat all awry, with mouth wide open uttering shrieks which no one could hear through the deafening tumult, was supremely funny.

The President made no attempt to quell the disturbance. It was all to the good. The greater the hatred against Adèle, the greater his chance, not only of forcing wave of sympathy for himself at full-tide, until he had the opportunity of getting Fleurette out of Orange. He was striving with all his might to catch his darling's eye. But Fleurette's glance was fixed on Adèle. She seemed to him to be fascinated with horror, mute and paralysed. She was looking on Adèle, and her dear little hand was fidgeting the corner of her kerchief.

Through the ear-splitting uproar led by the women, Pochart and Danou, their sympathisers, men of their own choosing, vainly tried to get a hearing. As well try to shout down a tempestuous sea as these hundreds of women gloating over the spectacle of one of their own sex writhing in an agony of terror.

"Hein!" came in a stentorian shout from the grimy giant in the rear of the crowd; "thou wouldst slander the innocent girl with lies. Take that for thy pains."

And he hurled the remnant of his raw carrot over the head of the intervening crowd at the unfortunate Adèle.

It missed her by a hairbreadth, but the action delighted the crowd. They took up the cry: "Take that for thy pains!" and sent various missiles flying at the girl, who, crouching down on her knees, lay there like a bundle of goods just below the bar of the accused where Fleurette stood, gazing down at her, fascinated with horror.

Looking back later on that terrible moment, Chauvelin felt that it was the action of the grimy coal-heaver--or scavenger, whatever he was-- that precipitated the catastrophe. He it was who egged on the rabble to virulent hatred against Adèle. It was he who by hurling that first missile at the girl brought in a further, more immense element of cruelty and horror into the situation. Certain it is that up to that moment Fleurette had appeared more dazed than horrified. She must even in her own gentle heart have felt a burning indignation against Adèle for the treacherous part which she had played, and if the girl's arrest had been effected outside the Tribunal, she would perhaps never have actually realised what had brought it about. But with that shout of "Thou wouldst slander the innocent girl with thy lies," full consciousness returned to her, and with it the recollection of everything that had gone before. Chauvelin, who watched her with the devouring gaze of his love, saw as in a flash, through the quick glance which swept form Adèle to himself and thence over the sea of perspiring faces, the full workings of her mind.

He tried to keep the tumult going; he hoped that Fleurette would faint, so that she might be carried out of court. He prayed that the roof of the gigantic building would come crashing down and bury him and Fleurette and all that swinish multitude in its ruins ere she spoke the words which he saw hovering on her lips.

But none of these things happened. Rather by that perversity which is peculiar to Chance, a sudden lull broke in on the mighty uproar, a lull through which Fleurette's calm voice rang clear as water poured into a crystal glass.

"Adèle was not lying, nor did she slander me, I did give some valuable articles into the keeping of my beloved M'sieur Amédé Colombe, at the hour spoken of by her, and I have no doubt that she did see me, as she says."

Chapter 36

One must of necessity turn once more to the Moniteur of the 22nd Messidor year II of the Republic One and Indivisible. There in the Choix des Rapports XXV. 516-17, despite its sobriety of language and paucity of detail, there is ample proof that throughout the proceedings it was the action of one unknown that precipitated the final catastrophe. "Un géant," we are told, "fût le premier à lancer l'accusation fausse contre le Président du Tribunal, et on tumulte irrépressible s'ensuivit."

"False," you observe. But on that 16th day of June, 1794, Chauvelin of the National Convention, member of committees and confidant of Robespierre, did, we know, stand in danger of being dragged out into the open and hung on the nearest lamp post. The crowd was in no mood even to wait for the paraphernalia of the guillotine. They wanted to see the arch-traitor, the perjurer, who had sworn false oaths and lied in order to save himself and his brood, hang then and there. The giant spoken of in the Choix des Rapports had, it seems, hardly waited till the words were out of Fleurette's mouth, before he pushed his way to the forefront of the crowd, with vigorous play of his powerful elbows. Down he was now, in the body of the court. In the struggle, his ragged shirt had been half torn off his shoulders, and his broad chest and sinewy arms could be seen, nude and immense, and coated with grime. Out of one of the pockets of his tattered breeches he produced another uncooked carrot, and into this he bit lustily, then with a wide sweep of the arm he launched one by one against the President of the Tribunal the damning invectives which the Moniteur has characterised as false. "Traitor!" he cried. "Liar and perjurer! Citizens all, have you in all your lives ever witnessed such infamy?"

The Choix des Rapports describes the tumult as irrepressible. Indeed at that moment it would have been easier to dam a raging torrent with one pair of hands, than to suppress the riotous confusion that ensued. Fleurette of a truth stood there forgotten, so did Adèle and Godet. All eyes were fixed on the President, every menacing gesture tended in his direction, all the strident cries, the insults, the varied and foul epithets were hurled against him. There were but few sober tempers in that crowded room at the moment. A dozen perhaps; no more. Older men, one or two women who watched rather than yelled. And what they saw interested and puzzled them, so much that, when the time came, when everybody else was shouting themselves hoarse to the verge of mania, they still kept cool and silent.

Like everybody else these few were gazing on the President. They saw him standing there on the bench like a figure carved in stone, and, like a stone, his face was of a grey, ashen colour. His eyes looked dim and colourless as if a hand had drawn a film over them; his lips were parted, his nostrils distended. The breath seemed to come with difficulty out of his lungs. A figure, in truth of terror and despair. But calm and still. Motionless as a stone. The giant munching his carrot had waved his huge arms about and yelled himself hoarse until he had lashed all the spectators into a state of frenzy. Finally he strode across the room, and came to a halt close to the judges; bench facing the President.

The three judges had been watching him all along: Pochart and Danou with undisguised glee, and President Chauvelin with that stony stare out of his colourless eyes. But even as the giant approached, Chauvelin though apparently motionless, seemed inwardly to sink within himself, to crouch as a hunted beast in face of the menacing enemy. And suddenly like that of an automaton, up went his arm. With finger outstretched he pointed at the giant and one word escaped his trembling, rigid lips.

"You!"

Those who were watching him could not understand the word, for it was spoken in an alien tongue. Nor could they understand what happened afterwards. But what actually did happen was that the grimy giant threw back his head and gave a quaint and altogether pleasant laugh.

"Why yes!" he said in the same alien tongue, which no one present understood. "At your service, my dear M. Chambertin."

And Chauvelin murmured almost under his breath:

"You have your revenge at last, Sir Percy."

"Hitting back as you see, my friend."

It all passed unperceived in the midst of the irrepressible tumult, save by those few who sober-tempered chose to watch rather than to yell. It is doubtful whether even Pochart and Danou, who sat close by, saw anything of this brief, this mysterious scene.

The very next moment the grimy giant, this time with a hoarse and not at all a pleasant laugh, had hurled his half-munched carrot straight into the President's face. Then facing the crowd once more he threw up his great arms high above his head.

"Why should we wait, citizens?" he shouted louder than the rest of the yelling crowd. "A la lanterne, I say, the traitor and his brood. The guillotine is ready outside the Place. The executioner is to hand. Why wait?"

Nothing could have pleased the crowd better. They were all like tigers scenting blood, demanding it, licking their jaws in anticipation.

"Who is for a front place for the spectacle?" a man shouted from the rear of the crowd.

"A moi! the front place," a woman cried in response.

"A moi! A moi!" came from every side.

Then the general scramble began. A stampede down the gradients. The clatter of wooden sabots against the floor. The screams of women and children pushed and squeezed by the crowd. The grounding of arms, the click of bayonets, the words of command from the officer in charge of the guard, who were here to maintain order and who were quite powerless. The did of a truth try to stem the mob, to prevent the mad rush, the trampling, the stampede. But there were in reality too few of them for the task. All available fighting men being required for the army abroad, these were for the most part too inexperienced and too incompetent; raw recruits, half-trained for a wholly inadequate corps of gendarmerie. The officers did what they could, but the men themselves were soon caught in the vortex. Having no idea of discipline or duty, they soon became just a part of the mob, allowed themselves to be carried along by the crowd. They were just as excited, just as eager to see the President of a revolutionary tribunal sent summarily to the guillotine, as anyone else. Their lust for the spectacle was as keen as that of any ragamuffin in the place. They were but half-trained ragamuffins themselves, and as every man these days was at least as good as his officer and owed him neither obedience nor respect, it was small wonder that in emergencies like these, the soldiers got out of hand, whilst the officers, shrugging their shoulders, viewed the scene with indifference.

In the meanwhile the grimy giant had effectually fought his way along the floor of the house as far as the bar of the accused, where Fleurette, wide-eyed, deathly pale, half-crazy now with terror, had just fallen forward unconscious across the railing, drooping like a lily that is battered by the storm.

"And à moi the traitors," the giant shouted, and it was marvellous how his booming voice rang above the uproar and the confusion.

He dragged Fleurette's inanimate body from the bar and flung it over his shoulder, as if it were a bundle of goods. Then with two huge strides he was right in front of the judges; bench, and there turned back to face the crowd again.

"Take your places for the spectacle," the Titan shouted, "and I'll bring along the actors for you."

And so they rushed out in a compact, struggling mass, hurrying, scurrying, fighting and pushing and struggling. Out in the open, in the Place de la République, into the sunshine and under the blue vault of heaven they rushed. The guillotine was set up there ready for its afternoon work, but, as the grimy giant had said, "Why wait?" Why indeed. No one was in a mood for waiting. The blackest traitor this town had ever seen had tried to save himself and his brood by slandering worthy citizens of the République. By the by, where were they? Adèle of unknown parentage and the swaggering Lieutenant Godet? Ah bah! they were forgotten. Lost in the crowd. Who cared? Time enough to cheer them when the traitors and slanderers were punished. Who cared indeed? For the moment the most important thing in the world was to secure a place of vantage for witnessing the wonderful spectacle. The President of a revolutionary tribunal, a representative of the people in the National Convention, was not often to be seen in Orange mounting the steps of the guillotine. That spectacle was reserved for the Parisians--lucky people!--who saw the heads of ci-devant kings and queens, of generals and dukes and duchesses and of countless other aristos roll into the basket. Therefore every one scrambled for a good seat. The houses all round the Place were invaded by the mob; windows and balconies were soon filled with eager faces; boys and men swarmed on the roofs, clung to the rain-pipes, the gargoyles on the Hôtel de Ville, the guillotine reared its gaunt arms, painted a vivid red. The officers of the gendarmerie had succeeded by dint of threats, in restoring some semblance of order in the tenue of their men. They now stood at attention round the guillotine on the platform of which the executioner was busy with his grim task.

The crowd around was very still. Something oppressive, unconnected with the heat of midday sun, seemed to hang in the air. People were still pouring out of the Hôtel de Ville, though not in such compact numbers. Gradually these numbers too were thinned. Those that came out last appeared more sober, less excited than the mob that had spread itself all over the Place shrieking and gesticulating in the manner habitual to these natives of the South. Some of the last to come out were a group of men well known in Orange, one was the butcher from the rue Longue, another the innkeeper of Les Trois Abeilles, a third kept the haberdashery shop over the bridge. Citizens Pochart and Danou were with them. They were all talking eagerly together as they came down the steps. A group of women were standing close by.

"Are they bringing the traitors?" they asked.

"Yes Citizen Tartine," the butcher replied, "that fine patriot Rémi, one of the scavengers at the Caristie house is close behind us, with some of his mates. They've got the traitors between them. We are to give the sign by firing this pistol when the executioner is ready."

He showed the women the pistol which he said Rémi himself had given him.

"The executioner is ready now," the women said, three of them speaking at once.

Citizens Pochart and Danou and the others then walked across the Place to the foot of the guillotine, one of them spoke a few words with the executioner. The crowd of spectators watched with feverish excitement. And presently Citizen Tartine, the butcher, raised his arm and fired a pistol in the air. A number of women shrieked. The excitement was so tense that the loud report sent the others into hysterics. Soon, however, the rumour went round that the pistol-shot was the signal that everything was ready for the spectacle and for the entrance of the chief actors in the play. After which every noise subsided. The multitude held its breath; a thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on the wide-open portals of the Hôtel de Ville waiting for the grandiose appearance of Rémi the scavenger and his mates bearing the traitors upon their shoulders.

Up, on the platform of the guillotine, the executioner was giving a last look to the pulleys. The soldiers stood at attention.

The huge crowd waited.

Chapter 37

The Moniteur does not say much about what happened afterwards. "La foule attendit avec assez de patience," is all it says, "mais personne ne vint."

The portals of the Hôtel de Ville which should have been a frame for the entrance of the principal actors in the last act of the drama, showed nothing but the yawning black emptiness beyond. The crowd waited, says the Moniteur, with sufficient patience. They did wait quite happily for ten minutes, agitatedly for twenty. But nobody came. Citizens Pochart and Danou, also Citizen Tartine, the butcher, and three or four others, were seen to make their way back across the Place, to run quickly up the steps of the Hôtel de Ville and subsequently disappear inside its portals. Still the crowd waited, very much as a crowd will wait in a theatre when the entr'acte is too long; some of them hilariously, others with impatient yawns, others again with tapping of feet and presently with murmurs of: "La Lan- terne! La Lan-terne!"

The next thing that happened was the reverberating clang of the portals of the Hôtel de Ville being suddenly closed. Then only did the crowd realise that they were being cheated of the spectacle. Murmurs were loud, and there were some hisses and boos and cat's calls. But on the whole they took the event with extraordinary calm. There was no rioting as indeed might have been expected. A few hot-heads tried to create a disturbance demanding that the executioner be given something to do. Madame la Guillotine should not be cheated of her dinner.

"She's hungry, give her something to eat," was the catchword these hot-heads used in order to excite the rest of the crowd. Somehow it did not work. There certainly were a few bouts of fisticuffs, one or two broken heads, the soldiers round the guillotine and those on guard at the street corners did use their bayonets with some effect, but on the whole the crowd was strangely subdued, more inclined to whisper than to shout.

For quite a little while after the portals of the Hôtel de Ville had been closed, they still waited, thinking that perhaps something more was being devised for their entertainment. But as time went on and nothing happened, they thought they might as well get home. It was dinner time. The children were hungry, and though there was little enough in the larders these days, one had to get home and give them what there was. The whole thing had been strange. Very strange. As men and women wended their way homeward, their thoughts reverted to that titanic figure with the grimy face and the huge bare chest, one sinewy arm encircling the body of the wench Fleurette nommée Armand, which hung limp across his massive shoulder. He was no mere mortal, that was certain. And though the Government up in Paris had abolished le bon Dieu, and declared that it was Citizen Robespierre who was the "Être Suprême," something of the old superstitions imbibed at their mothers' knees, still lingered in these untutored, undisciplined minds. That the Titan with the flashing eyes and grimy face should have vanished with the traitors whom he and his satellites had seized, was but the fitting ending to his meteoric appearance. The Government might forbid belief in God and the Devil, in heaven and in hell, but here was proof positive that the Devil did exist. He was black and he was of abnormal stature, he had a great bare chest and strong muscular arms, and-- clearest proof of all--he had before the very eyes of the citizens of Orange seized upon two traitors and carried them away with him to limbo.

Nothing would take that idea out of the people's mind, and long after these horrible days of the revolution had passed away and men and women had returned to sanity, those who were present on that day in June at the trial of one Fleur Chauvelin nommée Armand, would recount the marvellous story of how the devil had entered the court-house and spirited the accused away. Only a few knew the true facts of the case, and even so a great deal was left to surmise. Among those who knew was Citizen Tartine, the butcher. And this is what he told his friends when they pressed him with questions. It seems that when the crowd stampeded out of the Hôtel de Ville, he, Tartine, together with Citizens Pochart and Danou who had stepped down from the judges' bench, and three or four other notabilities of the city among whom was Motus, the chief warder of the Caristie House, put their heads together for moment or two, wondering if something could not be done towards sending the wench Fleurette and her father by a back way to one or other of the prison houses, with a view to bringing them up for formal trial on the morrow. They did feel, however, that given the present temper of the populace, such a move might prove dangerous to themselves. "The people will demand a victim, two victims, perhaps more," Danou said with a doubtful nod of the head. "They might vent their wrath on us."

That was sound logic, and the project was abandoned almost as soon as it was formulated.

Motus, it seems, then turned familiarly to the giant and said:

"Tiens, Rémi, is it thou?"

"Myself, citizen," the giant replied.

In response to inquiries from the others, Chief Warder Motus then explained that Rémi was a scavenger whom he himself had taken on in the Caristie House for extra work when the regular man fell sick. A splendid patriot, Motus averred. There was, therefore, not the faintest cause for suspicion.

"Come along, all of you," Pochart now said addressing Rémi and is mates. "Bring along the prisoners. The people are waiting."

"Give them time to settle down," Rémi replied with a shrug and laugh. "We are the chief comedians in this play. Do you all go and prepare everything for our entrance."

"You won't tarry?" Danou admonished.

"Not we," Rémi replied. "We're as eager as you for the spectacle, eh, citizens?" he added, turning to his mates who had the President of the Tribunal still between them.

Rémi then took a pistol out of his ragged breeches and handed it to Citizen Tartine.

"When the executioner is ready," he said, "and everything prepared for our entrance, just give us the signal by firing the pistol. We'll be with you a few minutes after that. We've yet another surprise for the spectators," he added with another laugh, "which will delight them and you."

Tartine vowed that not the slightest suspicion entered his head or that of his companions. How could one suspect a patriot vouched for by no less a person than Motus the chief warder? In the end, however, Pochart decided that two men of the gendarmerie, one of whom was a sergeant, who were still standing at attention below the judges' bench, should remain with Rémi and his mates and escort them when the time came, on to the Place.

After which the group of notabilities followed the rest of the crowd out into the open. When looking back upon what followed, they all agreed that some fifteen minutes must have gone from the time when they finally left the court-house and took their last look at Rémi and his mates, to that when they returned and found the place empty. They all said that even then, at first glance, no suspicion entered their minds and they stood about for a few minutes talking together, thinking that Rémi was preparing the surprise spectacle which he had promised them. Thinking too that every moment would bring the scavenger back with his mates and the prisoners. Tartine, the butcher, was the fist to suspect that there might be something wrong. He crossed the floor of the room, and made his way to the private door which was at the back of the judges' bench and led to some corridors and private rooms, and also to the back of the premises of the Hôtel de Ville, and to a back door which gave on a narrow street that ran parallel with the façade.

The private door was locked, with no key to be seen. But even then, so remote was suspicion from their minds that Tartine and the others hammered away on the door and called loudly to Rémi. The door was made of solid oak, but Pochart and Tartine were both of them powerful men. Receiving no answer to their call, they searched amidst the litter left pell-mell by the crowd upon the gradients, and found an axe and a leaded stick. Thus armed they attacked the panels of the door, whilst Danou and one of the others wisely thought of closing the portals of the Hôtel de Ville. The oak panels yielded after awhile. The door battered in, fell under the heavy blows dealt by Tartine the butcher with the axe. He and Pochart and two or three of the others striding over the debris, found themselves in a dark corridor.

Some twenty paces down the corridor on the right, they came to another door. It was locked, but behind it came a vigorous sound of banging and the door shook now and again as if under heavy blows. Once more the axe was brought into play, the door was smashed in and as it fell in with a crash, it revealed the two men of the gendarmerie, with arms and legs securely pinioned, and their crimson caps stuffed into their mouths. One of them had succeeded in rolling along the floor, near enough to the door to kick against it with his otherwise helpless feet.

There could no longer be any doubt. The public had been hoaxed either by an impudent imposter, or by a traitor, bribed to aid the prisoners to escape. The words: "English spies," soon cropped up as did those of Amédé Colombe and architect Caristie and a host of others. This too, no doubt, was their work. At least this was the opinion of some, whilst others, headed by Danou, shook their heads dubiously. Citizen Chauvelin was known to be the sworn enemy of those English spies-- weren't they called the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel?--and it was Citizen Chauvelin and his daughter Fleur who had been so insolently spirited away.

Having hastily released the men of the gendarmerie, they all ran down the length of the corridor as swiftly as they could, chiefly because one of the soldiers said that this corridor led ultimately to a back entrance of the Hôtel de Ville. But the building itself was something of a maze, the passages were dark and narrow, it took them all some time to find that back door, and when at last they came upon it, they found it locked.

Once more the axe had to come into play, and time had in the meanwhile slipped by to the tune of some twenty minutes. Nor did the narrow back street reveal any of the secrets of this amazing adventure. Impostors, traitors or English spies, Rémi the scavenger and his mates had disappeared with the two prisoners and taken their secret with them. On the other side of the road there was a row of one-storied, tumble down houses, inhabited by some of the poorest families in the city. Inquiries at each house in succession revealed but little. Nearly all the inmates had spent their morning as usual watching the trials in the Hôtel de Ville and were not yet home; but in one of the houses a sick woman had, it seems, been standing at the window when she saw four or five men come out of the building opposite. One of them, she said, was very tall and was carrying what she thought was a large bundle on his shoulder. The others were hustling a short, thin man who wore a blue coat and had on a tricolour sash round his waist. They turned sharply to their right and she soon lost sight of them. She thought nothing about the incident, one saw so many strange things these days.

In the meanwhile the crowd on the Place had begun to disperse, the first stragglers were wending their way to their homes. Pochart and Danou holding high functions in the administration of justice, did not feel that it was incumbent upon them to go hunting for spies. That was the business of the gendarmerie, and they parted presently from their friends, declaring their intention of sending immediately for the Chief Commissary of Police. The others, feeling that it was not part of their duty either to run after escaped prisoners, found that they had pressing business to see to at home.

As far as Citizen Tartine, the butcher, was concerned, the incident had no further interest for him save for the pleasure of recounting his share of the adventure to his numerous friends. A couple more traitors escaped from the clutches of justice, a few more English spies when already the country swarmed with them, was nothing to worry one's head about.

Pochart and Danou did, on the other hand, worry their heads considerably about it all. They had a burning desire to know just what the English spies did ultimately do with their colleague Chauvelin. They hoped--oh! very ardently--that as soon as the much-vaunted Scarlet Pimpernel discovered that it was his inveterate enemy whom he had rescued from the guillotine, he would either hand him back straightway to the tender mercies of justice, or simply murder him in some convenient and out-of-the-way corner of the district. Pochart and Danou would have preferred the former alternative as being more satisfactory to their wounded vanity and their baffled spite.

Unlike Tartine, they seldom spoke of their experiences in connection with the affair. But their hopes did rise to their zenith when a week or so later President Legrange and Public Prosecutor Isnard returned from their fool's errand to Paris; there could be no doubt that even Robespierre, friend of Chauvelin though he be, would order the punishment of such a consummate liar and traitor.

Chapter 38

An immense lassitude had held Fleurette in a kind of semi- consciousness, a dreamless sleep from which she woke at intervals, only to open her eyes for a moment, and immediately let the lids, heavy with sleep, fall over them again. It was the reaction insisted on by health and youth against the terrible nerve-strain of that awful day.

During the brief intervals while she had a certain consciousness of things about her, she found herself nestling against chéri Bibi's shoulder! And when, with half-dimmed eyes she looked up at him, and tried to smile between two yawns, she always saw his pale, grave face turned away in profile, gazing straight out before him into the dark recess of the post-chaise, in which apparently they were travelling. She called softly to him once or twice, but he never turned to look at her, only his hand, which felt cold and clammy, would gently stroke her hair.

How long all this lasted, what happened to her in the intervals of sleep, Fleurette never knew, but there came a time when the chaise rattled unpleasantly over the cobble-stones of a city, and lights darted to and fro through the darkness as the vehicle lumbered along through fitfully lighted streets. Fleurette sat up straight; all the sleep suddenly gone out of her eyes.

"Where are we going, chéri Bibi?" she asked. "Do you know?"

"No! I do not," Bibi replied, and his voice sounded hoarse and hollow. "Would to God I did."

Fleurette had never heard him invoke le bon Dieu before, and she tried through the gloom to peer into his face.

"But we are out of danger now, chéri?" she asked wide-eyed, the old terror which had caused her to lose consciousness in that awful court- house, once more clutching at her heart.

"I do not know," he murmured mechanically; "would to God I did."

And then as if recalled to himself by the half-drawn sigh of terror from Fleurette, he seized hold of her, and pressed her head against his breast.

"No! No!" he said hastily, "they cannot harm you whilst I'm here to guard you."

Just then the coach came to a halt, and a moment later the door was thrown open and a gruff voice said:

"Will you descend, citizeness?"

Fleurette, frightened, clung to Bibi. She made no attempt to move. Whereupon the gruff voice resumed:

"If you don't come willingly, I shall have to send some one to fetch you."

Fleurette buried her face against Bibi's coat. His arms held her tightly. A minute, perhaps less, went by, and then--suddenly--she heard a voice--a very gentle, very timid voice this time, saying:

"Mam'zelle Fleurette! Oh, Mam'zelle Fleurette, I pray you to turn to me. It is I--Amédé."

What had happened? Was she dreaming? Or had she died of fright and gone straight up to heaven? Certain it is that she felt a timid hand upon her shoulder, whilst Bibi's hold upon her relaxed.

"Hold up the lantern, man," the gruff voice now broke in upon the delicious silence that ensued, "and let her see that she is not dreaming."

The light of a lantern flashed across Fleurette's eyes, she opened them and turned her head, and found herself gazing on M'sieur Amédé's pink and moist face, into his kind eyes full of anxiety and of tenderness, upon his mouth which had taught her how to kiss. Gently, slowly, she extricated herself from Bibi's embrace. Gently, slowly she seemed to glide into Amédé's arms.

He carried her whither she knew not. All she knew was that presently she found herself snuggling in a deep, cosy arm-chair, and that Amédé was kneeling beside her, with his eyes fixed ecstatically upon her as if she were la sainte Vierge herself.

"Where am I, dear M'sieur Amédé?" she asked.

"At Ste. Césaire, Mam'zelle Fleurette," he replied.

"Where is that?"

"Just outside Nimes. Your chaise passed through the streets of Nimes."

"I daresay," she said with a tired little sigh. "I was so sleepy; I didn't know where we were."

"We are under the protection of the bravest men that ever lived," Amédé said slowly. "They saved me from death. They have saved you, Mam'zelle Fleurette."

A shudder went through her. She closed her eyes as if to try and shut away the awful visions which his words had conjured up. But his kind, strong arms encircled her closer, and she nestled against him and once again felt comforted and safe. He told her the entire odyssey of his rescue, from the hour when the mock soldiers entered his father's shop at Laragne, until when his brave rescuers took leave of him outside the derelict cottage by the banks of the Drôme, and he, seeing the pale crescent of the moon rise above the snow-capped crest of La Lance, had solemnly bowed nine times, praying for that joy which to- day was his at last.

He had spent a few very lonely days in the cottage after that, devoured with anxiety as to the fate of his beloved. He could not eat, he could not sleep. For hours he would watch the filmy crescent of the moon, whose pale light mayhap illumined the window behind which his own Fleurette would also be watching and praying. And three days ago he received the message which he was waiting for. It appeared mysteriously early one morning outside the cottage door. A missive, with a stone put upon it to prevent its being blown away by the wind. How it got there Amédé never knew. It came from the leader of that gallant little league of Englishmen who devoted their lives to helping those in distress. In it he, Amédé, was ordered to walk as far as Crest, to the house of Citizen Marcor the farrier, where he could hire a horse. And then to hie him straightway hither to Ste. Césaire, not sleeping in any wayside inn, but rather in the fields, under shelter of hedges of forest trees, getting food for himself and his horse as best he could. The missive further directed him, on arriving at Ste. Césaire, to seek out an empty house situated in the Rue Basse, and there to wait, for of a surety within two days he would hold his beloved Fleurette in his arms. Amédé had obeyed these commands to the letter. This very morning he had arrived at Ste. Césaire and found the house in the Rue Basse. It was neither empty nor uninhabited. There was furniture in the house, and what's more there were two friends, two fine English heroes, who had been expecting Amédé and who made him welcome when he arrived. Oh! and didn't Mam'zelle Fleurette think that these Englishmen were the finest and bravest men that ever lived? As for their chief who was known amongst them as the Scarlet Pimpernel (le mouron rouge, M'sieur Amédé called it), he surely was more like one of the mythological gods rather than a mere mortal.

M'sieur Amédé seemed very anxious to know what Mam'zelle Fleurette thought about all these marvellous adventures, but how could she tell him, how could she talk at all when every time she raised her blue eyes to him, he broke off in the midst of a most exciting narrative in order to ask her in a voice vibrating with passion: "Tu m'aimes Fleurette?"

Chapter 39

Chauvelin, after he had seen Fleurette safely carried away in her lover's arms, sat for awhile in the dark interior of the coach, starting into the gloom, his folded hands clasped between his knees. His thoughts were in such a whirl that it almost seemed as if he were unconscious. He certainly was insentient; he neither saw, nor heard, nor felt anything save the joy of knowing that his Fleurette was safe. It was only a few minutes--fifteen perhaps--later that a pleasant laugh broke in on his riotous thoughts, and that he became aware of a tall figure sitting beside him in the coach.

"You see, my dear M. Chambertin," the voice which he dreaded most in all the world said suddenly in his ear, "I would not forgo the pleasure of bidding you au revoir."

Chauvelin half turned to his enemy, the man whom he had so persistently wronged, so persistently pursued with hatred and with spite. Through the gloom he could just see the outline of the massive figure, wrapped in a dark, caped coat, and of the proud head so nobly held above the firm, somewhat stiff neck.

Did all that this man stood for in the way of heroism and selflessness, strike a chord of shame in the heart of this callous, revolutionary tyrant? Why shall say? Certain it is that for the moment Chauvelin felt awed, and sat there in the gloom, silent, motionless, staring into the black vacancy. But after a second or two his lips uttered mechanically the name that was uppermost in his mind:

"Fleurette?"

"She is under my care," Blakeney said slowly. "To-morrow at break of day she and her sweetheart will set sail for England with some of my friends. There she will be under the care of the noblest woman in the world, Lady Blakeney, who will take her revenge on you for all the wrong you did her, by lavishing the treasures of her sympathy upon your child."

"Then Fleurette will be happy?" Chauvelin murmured involuntarily.

"Happy, yes! she will soon forget."

"Then I am ready, Sir Percy."

"Ready? For what?"

"My life is at your service. My enemies are waiting for me over in Orange. You have but to send me back thither and your own vengeance will be complete."

For a second or two after that there was silence in the old post- chaise; only Chauvelin's laboured breathing broke the utter stillness of the gloom. Until suddenly a pleasant, mocking laugh struck upon his ear.

"Egad man, you are priceless," quoth Sir Percy gaily. "You must indeed credit me with a total lack of the saving grace, if you think it would amuse me to hand you over to your genial friends over in Orange."

"But I am at your mercy, sir."

"As I and my beloved wife have been once or twice, eh? Well! I am hitting back now. That's all."

"Hitting back?" Chauvelin exclaimed. "You have the power now. I admit it. I am in your hands. My life is at your command."

"La man!" Sir Percy retorted lightly, "what should I do with your worthless life? For the moment all I want is to make that sweet child up there completely happy by telling her that you are safe and well. After that you may go to the devil for aught I care. You probably will."

"Then," Chauvelin murmured aghast, "you grant me my life, you---"

"I am sending you back safely as far as Nimes. What happens to you after that I neither know nor care. You have tried to do me such an infinity of wrong at different times, you still hate me so cordially, you---"

He paused for a moment with firm lips tightly pressed together and slender hand clutched upon his knee.

"You are right there, Sir Percy," Chauvelin murmured between his teeth. "God knows how I still hate you, even after this. You have the power to hit back. Why the devil don't you do it?"

Whereupon Sir Percy threw back his head and his merry, infectious laugh woke the slumbering echoes of the sleepy little town.

"La, man," he said, "you're astonishing. Can't you see that this is my way of hitting back?"

THE END

The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel

CHAPTER I – "FIE, SIR PERCY!"

CHAPTER II – THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS

CHAPTER III – THE STRANGER FROM PARIS

CHAPTER IV – "FLY-BY-NIGHT"

CHAPTER V – THE LURE OF THE CHATEAU

CHAPTER VI – IN THE TIGER'S DEN

CHAPTER VII – "THE LITTLE DOCTOR"

CHAPTER VIII – THE CHIEF'S WAY

CHAPTER I – "FIE, SIR PERCY!"

I

"You really are impossible, Sir Percy! Here are we ladies raving, simply raving, about this latest exploit of the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel, and you do naught but belittle his prowess. Lady Blakeney, I entreat, will you not add your voice to our chorus of praise, and drown Sir Percy's scoffing in an ocean of eulogy?"

Lady Alicia Nugget was very arch. She tapped Sir Percy's arm with her fan. She put up a jewelled finger and shook it at him with a great air of severity in her fine dark eyes. She turned an entreating glance on Marguerite Blakeney, and as that lady appeared engrossed in conversation with His Grace of Flint, Lady Alicia turned the battery of her glances on His Royal Highness.

"Your Highness," she said appealingly.

The Prince laughed good-humouredly.

"Oh!" he said, "do not ask me to inculcate hero-worship into this mauvis sujet. If you ladies cannot convert him to your views, how can I…a mere man…?"

And His Highness shrugged his shoulders. There were few entertainments he enjoyed more than seeing his friend Sir Percy Blakeney badgered by the ladies on the subject of their popular and mysterious hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel.

"Your Highness," Lady Alicia retorted with the pertness of a spoilt child of Society. "Your Highness can command Sir Percy to give us a true--a true--account of how that wonderful Scarlet Pimpernel snatched Monsieur le Comte de Tournon-d'Agenay with Madame la Comtesse and their three children out of the clutches of those abominable murderers in Paris, and drove them triumphantly to Boulogne, where they embarked on board an English ship and were ultimately safely landed in Dover. Sir Percy vows that he knows all the facts…"

"And so I do, dear lady," Sir Percy now put in, with just a soupçon of impatience in his pleasant voice, "but, as I've already had the privilege to tell you, the facts are hardly worth retailing."

"The facts, Sir Percy," commanded the imperious beauty, "or we'll all think you are jealous."

"As usual you would be right, dear lady," Sir Percy rejoined blandly; "are not ladies always right in their estimate of us poor men? I am jealous of that demmed, elusive personage who monopolizes the thoughts and the conversation of these galaxies of beauty who would otherwise devote themselves exclusively to us. What says Your Highness? Will you deign to ban for this one night at least every reference to that begad shadow?"

"Not till we've had the facts," Lady Alicia protested.

"The facts! The facts!" the ladies cried in an insistent chorus.

"You'll have to do it, Blakeney," His Highness declared.

"Unless Sir Andrew Ffoulkes would oblige us with the tale," Marguerite Blakeney said, turning suddenly from His Grace of Flint, in order to give her lord an enigmatic smile, "he too knows the facts, I believe, and is an excellent raconteur."

"God forbid!" Sir Percy Blakeney exclaimed, with mock concern. "Once you start Ffoulkes on one of his interminable stories…Moreover," he added seriously, "Ffoulkes always get the facts wrong. He would tell you, for instance, that the demmed Pimpernel rescued those unfortunate Tournon-d'Agenays single-handed; now I happen to know for a fact that three of the bravest English gentlemen the world has ever known did all the work whilst he merely…"

"Well?" Lady Alicia queried eagerly. "What did that noble and gallant Scarlet Pimpernel merely do?"

"He merely climbed to the box-seat of the chaise which was conveying the Comte de Tournon-d'Agenay and his family under escort to Paris. And the chaise had been held up by three of the bravest…"

"Never mind about three of the bravest English gentlemen at the moment," Lady Alicia broke in impatiently, "you shall sing their praises to us anon. But if you do not tell us the whole story at once, we'll call on Sir Andrew Ffoulkes without further hesitation. Your Highness…!" she pleaded once more.

"My fair one," His Highness rejoined with a laugh, "I think that we shall probably get a truer account of this latest prowess of the Scarlet Pimpernel from Sir Andrew Ffoulkes. It was a happy thought of Lady Blakeney's," he added with a knowing smile directed at Marguerite, "and I for one do command our friend Ffoulkes forthwith to satisfy our curiosity."

In vain did Sir Percy protest. In vain did he cast surreptitious yet reproachful glances at his royal friend and at his beautiful wife. His Highness had commanded and the ladies, curious and eager, were like beautiful peacocks, spreading out their multi-coloured silks and satins, so as to look their best whilst Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, an avowed admirer of the Scarlet Pimpernel, was being hunted for through the crowded reception-rooms, so that he might comply with His Highness's commands.

The latest prowess of the Scarlet Pimpernel! The magic words flitted on the perfume-laden atmosphere from room to room, and ladies broke off their flirtations, men forsook the gaming tables, for it was murmured that young Ffoulkes had first-hand information as to how the popular English hero had snatched M. le Comte de Tournon-d'Agenay and all his family out of the clutches of those murdering revolutionaries over in Paris.

In a moment Sir Andrew Ffoulkes found himself the centre of attraction. His Royal Highness bade him sit beside him on the sofa, and all around him silks were rustling, fans were waving, whilst half a hundred pairs of bright eyes were fixed eagerly upon him. Sir Andrew caught a glance from Marguerite Blakeney's luminous eyes, and a smile of encouragement from her perfect lips. He was indeed in his element; a worshipper of his beloved chief, he was called upon to sing the praises of the man whom he admired and loved best in all the world. Had the bevy of beauties around him known that he was recounting his own prowess as well as that of his leader and friend, they could not have hung more eagerly on his lips.

In the hubbub attendant on settling down, so as to hear Sir Andrew's narrative, even the popular Sir Percy Blakeney was momentarily forgotten. The idol of London Society, he nevertheless had to be set aside for the moment in favour of the mysterious hero who, as elusive as a shadow, was still the chief topic of conversation in the salons of two continents.

The ladies would have it that Sir Percy was jealous of the popularity of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Certain it is that as soon as Sir Andrew Ffoulkes had started to obey His Highness's commands by embarking on his narrative, Sir Percy retired to the sheltered alcove at the further end of the room and stretched out his long limbs upon a downy sofa, and promptly went to sleep.

"Is it a fact, my dear Ffoulkes," His Highness had asked, "that the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel and his lieutenants actually held up the chaise in which the Comte de Tournon-d'Agenay and his family were being conveyed to Paris?"

"An absolute fact, Your Highness," Sir Andrew Ffoulkes replied, while a long drawn-out "Ah!" of excitement went the round of the brilliant company. "I have the story from Madame la Comtesse herself. The Scarlet Pimpernel, in the company of three of his followers, all of them disguised as footpads, did at the pistol-point hold up the chaise which was conveying the prisoners from their chateau of Agenay, where they had been summarily arrested, to Paris. It occurred on the very crest of that steep bit of road which intersects the forest between Mezieres and Epone. The church clock at Mantes had struck seven when the chaise had rattled over the cobblestones of that city, so it must have been past eight o'clock when the attack was made. Inside the vehicle M. de Tournon-d'Agenay with his wife, his young son and two daughters, sat huddled up, half-numbed with terror. They had no idea who had denounced them, and on what charge they had been arrested, but they knew well enough what fate awaited them in Paris. The revolutionary wolves are fairly on the war-path just now. Robespierre and his satellites feel that their power is on the wane. They are hitting out to right and left, preaching the theory that moderation and human kindness are but the sign of weakness and want of patriotism. To prove their love for France, lovely France, whose white robes are stained with the blood of her innocent children, and to show their zeal in her cause, they commit the most dastardly crimes."

"And those poor Tournon-d'Agenays?" one of the ladies asked with a sympathetic sigh.

"Madame la Comtesse assured me," Sir Andrew replied, "that her husband, and in fact all the family, had kept clear of politics during these, the worst times of the revolution. Though all of them are devoted royalists, they kept all show of loyalty hidden in their hearts. Only one thing had they forgotten to do and that was to take down from the wall in Madame's boudoir a small miniature of their unfortunate Queen."

"And for this they were arrested?"

"They were innocent of everything else. In the early dawn after their summary arrest they were dragged out of their home and were being conveyed for trial to Paris, where their chances of coming out alive were about equal to those of a rabbit when chased by a terrier."

"And that was when the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel interposed?" Lady Alicia put in with a sigh. "He knew M. le Tournon-d'Agenay and his family were being taken to Paris."

"I believe he had had an inkling of what was in the wind some time before the arrest. It is wonderful how closely he is always in touch with those who one day may need his help. But I believe that at the last moment plans had to be formulated in a hurry. Fortunately, chance on this occasion chose to favour those plans. Day had broken without a gleam of sunshine; a thin drizzle was falling, and there was a sharp head wind on, which fretted the horses and forced the driver to keep his head down, with his broad-brimmed hat pulled well over his eyes. Nature, as you see, was helping all she could. The whole thing would undoubtedly have been more difficult had the morning been clear and fine. As it was, one can imagine the surprise attack. Vague forms looming suddenly out of the mist, and the sharp report of a pistol, twice in quick succession. The horses, who, sweating and panting, had fallen into a foot-pace, dragging the heavy coach up the steep incline, through the squelching mud of the road, came to a violent and sudden halt on the very crest of the hill at the first report. At the second they reared and plunged wildly. The shouts of the officer in charge of the escort did, as a matter of fact, so I understand, add to the confusion. The whole thing was, I am assured, a matter of a couple of minutes. It was surprise and swiftness that won the upper hand, for the rescue party was outnumbered three to one. Had there been the slightest hesitation, the slightest slackening of quick action, the attack would of a certainty have failed. But during those few minutes of confusion, and under cover of the mist and the vague greyness of the morning, the Scarlet Pimpernel and his followers, down on their knees in the squelching mud, were not merely fighting, you understand? No! They were chiefly engaged in cutting the saddle girths under the bellies of eight fidgety and plunging horses, and cracking their pistols in order to keep up the confusion. Not an easy task, you will admit, though 'tis a form of attack well-known in the East, so I understand. At any rate, those had been the chief's orders, and they had to be carried out. For my part, I imagine that superstitious terror had upset the nerves of that small squad of Revolutionary guard. Hemmed in by the thicket on either side of the road, the men had not sufficient elbow-room for a good fight. No man likes being attacked by a foe whom he cannot well see, and in the melee that ensued the men were hindered from using their somewhat clumsy sabres too freely for fear of injuring their comrades' mounts, if not their own; and all they could do was to strive to calm their horses and, through the din, to hear the words of command uttered by their lieutenant.

"And all the while," Sir Andrew went on, admist breathless silence on the part of his hearers, "I pray you picture to yourselves the confusion; the cracking of pistols, the horses snorting, the lieutenant shouting, the prisoners screaming. Then, at a given moment, the Scarlet Pimpernel scrambled up the box-seat of the chaise. As no doubt all of you ladies know by now, he was the most wonderful hand with horses. In one instant he had snatched the reins out of the bewildered Jehu's hands, and with word of mouth and click of tongue had soothed the poor beasts' nerves. And suddenly he gave the order: 'Ca va!' which was the signal agreed on between himself and his followers. For them it meant a scramble for cover under the veil of mist and rain, whilst he, the gallant chief, whipped up the team which plunged down the road now at break-neck speed."

"Of course, the guard, and above all the lieutenant, grasped the situation soon enough, and immediately gave chase. But they were not trick-riders any of them, and with severed saddle-girths could not go far. Be that as it may, the Scarlet Pimpernel drove his team without a halt as far as Molay, where he had arranged for relays. Once well away from the immediate influence of Paris, with all its terrors and tyrannical measures, the means of escape for the prisoners became comparatively easy, thanks primarily to the indomitable pluck of their rescuer and also to a long purse. And that, ladies and noble lords," Sir Andrew concluded, "is all I can tell you of the latest exploit of our hero. The story is exactly as I had it from Madame la Comtesse de Tournon-d'Agenay, whose only sorrow, now that she and those she loves are safe at last in England, is that she never once caught a glimpse of her rescuer. He proved as elusive to her as to all of us, and we find ourselves repeating the delightful doggerel invented on that evasive personage by our prince of dandies, Sir Percy Blakeney."

"Marvellous!" "Enchanting!" "Palpitating!" "I nearly fainted with excitement, my dear!" These were some of the ejaculations uttered by dainty, well-rouged lips while the men, more or less, were silent, pondering, vaguely longing to shake the enigmatical hero once at least by the hand.

His Highness was questioning Sir Andrew Ffoulkes more closely about certain details connected with the story. It was softly whispered, and not for the first time either, that His Highness could, and he would, solve the riddle of the identity of that mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel.

Dainty, sweet, and gracious as usual, Lady Ffoulkes, née Suzanne de Tournay, had edged up to Lady Blakeney, and the two young wives of such gallant men held one another for one instant closely by the hand, a token of mutual understanding, of pride and of happiness.

One of two of the ladies were trying to recall the exact words of the famous doggerel, which, it was averred, had on more than one occasion given those revolutionary wolves over in Paris a wholesome scare:

"We seek him here.

We seek him there!"

"How does it go, my dear?" Lady Alicia sighed. "I vow I have forgotten."

Then she looked in dainty puzzlement about her. "Sir Percy!" she exclaimed. "Where is the immortal author of the deathless rhyme?"

"Sir Percy! Where is Sir Percy?"

And the call was like the chirruping of birds on a sunny spring morning. It stilled all further chattering for the moment.

"Where is Sir Percy?" And silence alone echoed, "Where?"

Until a real material sound came in response. A long drawn-out sound that caused the ladies to snigger and the men to laugh. It was the sound of a loud and prolonged snore. The groups of gay Society butterflies, men and women, parted disclosing the alcove at the further end of the room, where on the sofa, with handsome head resting against rose-coloured cushion, Sir Percy Blakeney was fast asleep.

II

But in Paris the news of the invasion of the ci-devant Comte et Comtesse de Tournon-d'Agenay with their son and two daughters was received in a very different spirit. Members of the Committees of Public Safety and of General Security, both official and unofficial, professional and amateur, were more irate than they cared to admit. Everyone was blaming everyone else, and the unfortunate lieutenant who had been in command of the escort was already on his way to Toulon, carrying orders to young Captain Bonaparte to put him in the thickest of the fight, so that he might, by especial bravery, redeem his tarnished honour.

Citoyen Lauzet, Chief of Section in the rural division of the department Seine et Oise, was most particularly worried by the incident which, it must be remembered, occurred in his district. The hand of the well-known English spy, known throughout France as the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, could obviously be traced in the daring and impudent attack on an armed escort, and the subsequent driving of the chaise through three hundred kilometres of country where only shameless bribery and unparalleled audacity could have saved them from being traced, followed, and brought to justice. Citoyen Lauzet, a faithful servant of the State, felt that the situation was altogether beyond his capacity for dealing with; those English spies were so different to the ordinary traitors and aristos whom one suspected, arrested and sent to the guillotine all in the turn of a hand. But how was one to deal with men whom one had never seen and was never likely to see, if rumour spoke correctly? Citoyen Lauzet scratched his bald pate and perspired freely in his endeavour to find a solution to his difficulty, but he found none.

It was in the midst of his perturbations that he bethought him of his friend Armand Chauvelin. Now Lauzet was quite aware of the fact that that same friend of his was under a cloud just now; that he had lost that high position he once held on the Committee of Public Safety, for reasons which had never been made public. Nevertheless, Lauzet had reasons for knowing that in the matter of tracking down spies Armand Chauvelin had few, if any, equals; and he also knew that for some unexplained cause Chauvelin would give several years of his life, and everything he possessed in the world, to get his long, thin fingers round the throat of that enigmatical personage known as the Scarlet Pimpernel.

And so in his difficulty, Citoyen Lauzet sent an urgent message to his friend Chauvelin to come at once to Mantes if possible--a request which delighted Chauvelin with which he forthwith complied. And thus, three days after the sensational rescue of the Tournon-d'Agenay family, those two men--Lauzet and Chauvelin--both intent on the capture of one of the most bitter enemies of the revolutionary government of France, were sitting together in the office of the rural commissariat at Mantes. Lauzet had very quickly put his friend in possession of the facts connected with the impudent escapade, and Chauvelin, over an excellent glass of Fine, had put his undoubted gifts and subtle brain at the service of the official.

"Now listen to me, my dear Lauzet," he said after a prolonged silence, during which the Chief of Section had been able to trace on his friend's face the inner workings of a master-mind concentrated on one all-engrossing object. "Listen to me. I need not tell you, I think, that I have had some experience of that audacious Scarlet Pimpernel and his gang; popular rumour will have told you that. It will also have told you, no doubt, that in all my endeavours for the capture of that detestable spy, I was invariably foiled by persistent ill-luck on the one side, and the man's boundless impudence on the other. It is because I did fail to lay the audacious rascal by the heels that you see me now, a disgraced and disappointed man, after half a lifetime devoted to the service of my country. But, in the lexicon of our glorious revolution, my good Lauzet, there is no such word as fail; and many there are who deem me lucky because my head still happens to be on my shoulders, after certain episodes at Calais, Boulogne, or Paris of which you have, I doubt not, heard more than one garbled version."

Lauzet nodded his bald head in sympathy. He also passed a moist, hot finger around the turn of his cravat. This allusion to failure in connection with the desired capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel had started an unpleasant train of thought.

"I've only told you all this, my good Lauzet," Chauvelin went on, with a sarcastic curl of his thin lips, "in order to make you realize the value which, in spite of my avowed failures, the Committee of Public Safety still set upon my advice. They have disgraced me, it is true, but only outwardly. And this they have only done in order to leave me a wider scope for my activities, particularly in connection with the tracking down of spies. As an actual member of the Committee I was obviously an important personage whose every movement was in the public eye; now, as an outwardly obscure agent, I come and go in secret. I can lay plans. I can help and I can advise without arousing attention. Above all, I can remain the guiding head prepared to use such patriots as you are yourself, in the great cause which we all have at heart, the bringing to justice of a band of English spies, together with their elusive chief, the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"Well spoken, friend Chauvelin," Citoyen Lauzet rejoined, with a tone of perplexity in his husky voice, "and, believe me, it was because I had a true inkling of what you've just said that, in my anxiety, I begged you to come and give me the benefit of your experience. Now tell me," he went on eagerly, "how do you advise me to proceed?"

Chauvelin, before he replied to this direct question, had another drink of Fine. Then he smacked his lips, set down his glass, and finally said with slow deliberation:

"To begin with, my good Lauzet, try and bethink yourself of some family in your district whose position, shall we say, approaches most nearly to that of the ci-devant Tournon-d'Agenays before their arrest. That is to say, what you want is a family who at one time professed loyalty to tyrants and who keeps up some kind of cult--however inoffensive--for the Bourbon dynasty. That family should consist of at least one women or, better still, one or two young children, or even an old man or an imbecile. Anything, in fact, to arouse specially that old-fashioned weakness which, for want of a better word, we will call sympathy. Now can you think of a family of that kind living anywhere in your district?"

Lauzet pondered for a moment or two.

"I don't for the moment," he said slowly, "but when I look through the files I dare say I might…"

"You must," Chauvelin broke in decisively. "That kind of brood swarms in every district. All you have to do is to open your eyes. Anyway, having settled on a family, which will become our tool for the object we have in view, you will order a summary perquisition to be made by your gendarmerie in their house. You will cause the head of the family to be brought before you and you will interrogate him first, and detain him under suspicion. A second perquisition will then not come amiss; in fact you will have it bruited all over the neighbourhood that this particular family has been denounced as 'suspect' and that their arrest and subsequent trial in Paris, on a charge of treason, is only a matter of days. You understand?"

"I do," Lauzet replied, in a tone that sounded decidedly perplexed and unconvinced. "But…"

"There is no but about it," Chauvelin retorted brusquely. "You have asked my help and I give you my orders. All you have to do is to obey and not to argue. Is that clear?"

"Quite, quite clear, my good friend," Lauzet hastened to assure him. "In fact, I already have someone in my mind" "Which is all to the good," Chauvelin broke in curtly. "On the balance of your zeal your reward will presently be weighed. Now listen further to me. Having followed my instructions as to perquisitions and so on, you will arrange as sensational an arrest of your family as you can. The more it is talked about in the neighbourhood the better for our purpose. You understand?"

"I do, I do," Lauzet said eagerly. "I see your whole shceme now. You want to induce the English spies to exert themselves on behalf of this family, so that…"

"Exactly! Therefore the more sympathy you can evoke for them the better; a pretty girl, an invalid, a cripple; anything like that will arouse the so-called chivalry of those spies. Then, having effected your arrest, you arrange to convey the family to Paris, and do so, apparently under rather feeble escort, say not more than four men. You will choose for your purpose the early dawn of a day when a thick mist lies over the land, or when a driving rain or tearing wind makes observation difficult."

"But"

"Not more than four men, remember," Chauvelin reiterated with slow emphasis, "as visible escort."

"I understand."

"Instead of the usual chaise for conveying your prisoners to Paris, you will use the local diligence and, having disposed of the prisoners inside the vehicle, you will have it further packed with half a dozen or more picked men from your local gendarmerie, armed with pistols; and you will take a leaf out of the Scarlet Pimpernel's own book, because that half-dozen picked men will be disguised as other aristos in distress, women, cripples, old men or what you will. You can then go even further in your trickery, and arrange a break-down for your diligence in the loneliest bit of road in the forest of Mezieres, and choose the twilight for your mise-en-scene. Then…"

But Lauzet could no longer restrain his enthusiasm.

"Oh, then! I see it all!" he exclaimed eagerly. "The band of English spies will have been on the watch for the diligence. They will attack it, thinking that it is but feebly gaurded. But this time we shall be ready for them and…"

But suddenly his enthusiasm failed. His round, fat face lost its glow of excitement, and his small, round eyes stared in comic perplexity at his friend.

"But suppose," he murmured, "they think better of it, and allow the diligence to proceed in peace. Or suppose that they are engaged in the nefarious deeds in some other department of France."

"Then," Chauvelin rejoined coolly, "all you'd have to do would be to continue your journey to Paris and set your family down in the Conciergerie, ready to await trial and the inevitable guillotine. No harm will have been done. There'll be a family of traitors less in your district, anyway, and you must begin the setting of your comedy all over again. Sooner or later, if you set your trap in the way I have outlined for you, that cursed Scarlet Pimpernel will fall into it. Sooner or later," he reiterated emphatically, "I am sure of it. My only regret is that I didn't think of this plan before now. It has been vaguely moving in my mind, ever since I heard of the escape of the Tournon-d'Agenays, and I wish to Heaven I had matured it then and there; we could have got that Scarlet Pimpernel as easily as possible. However, there's nothing lost, and all I can do now, my friend, is to wish you success. If you succeed you are a made man. And you will succeed," Chauvelin concluded, rising and holding out his hand to his colleague, "if you follow my instructions to the last letter."

"You may be sure I'll do that," Lauzet said with earnest emphasis.

And the two sleuth-hounds shook hands on their project, and drank a glass of Fine to its success. But before Chauvelin finally took leave of his friend, he turned to him with renewed earnestess and solemnity.

"And above all, my good Lauzet," he said slowly, "remember that in all this your watchword must be: 'Silence and discretion'. Breathe but a word of your intentions to a living soul, and you are bound to fail. The English spies have their spies who serve them well. They have a long purse which will alternatively purchase help from their friends and treachery from ours. Breathe not of your project to any living soul, friend Lauzet, of your head will pay the price for your indiscretion."

Lauzet was only too ready to give the required promise, and the two friends then parted on a note of mutual confidence and esteem.

III

A fortnight later the whole of the little city of Moisson was in a ferment owing to the arrest of one of its most respected tradesmen. Citizen Deseze who, anyone would have thought, was absolutely above suspicion, had been put to the indignity of a summary perquisition in his house. He had protested--as was only natural under the circumstances--and in consequence of this very moderate protest he had been dragged before the Chief of Section at Mantes and had had to submit to a most rigorous and most humiliating interrogatory. Nay more! He was detained for two whole days, while his invalid wife and pretty little daughter were wellnigh distraught with anxiety.

Then on the top of that, there followed another perquisition: just as if anyone could suspect the Deseze family of treason against their country. They certainly had never been very hotly in favour of the extreme measures taken by the revolutionary government--such as the execution of the erstwhile King and of Marie-Antoinette, ci-devant Queen of France--but Citizen Deseze had always abstained from politics. He had been wont to say that God, not man, ruled the destinies of countries, and that no doubt what was happening these days in France occurred by the will of God, or they could never occur at all. He for his part was content to sell good vintage wines from Macon or Nuits, just as his father had done before him, and his grandfather before that, for the house of Deseze, wine merchants of Moisson in the department of Seine et Oise, had been established for three generations and more, and had always been a pattern of commercial integrity and lofty patriotism.

And now these perquisitions! these detentions! and finally the arrest, not only of good Citizen Deseze himself, but of his invalid wife and pretty little daughter. If one dared, one would protest, call a meeting, anything. It was almost unbelievable, so unexpected was it. What had the Deseze family done? No one knew. Inquiries at the commissariat of the section elicited no information. There were vague rumours that the poor invalid citizeness had always remained very pious. She had been taught piety by her parents, no doubt, and had been brought up in a convent school besides. But what would you? Piety was reckoned a sin these days, and who would dare protest?

The servants at the substantial house inhabited by the Deseze family were speechless with tears. The perquisitions, and then the arrest, had come as a thunderbolt. And now they were all under orders to quit the house, for it would be shut and ultimately sold for the benefit of the State. Oh, these were terrible times! The same tragedy had occurred not far away from Moisson in the case of the Tournon-d'Agenays, whom no one was allowed to call Comte and Comtesse these days. They too had been summarily arrested, and were being dragged to Paris for their trial when, by some unforseen miracle, they had been rescued and conveyed in safety to England. No one knew how, nor who the gallant rescuers were; but rumours were rife and some were very wild. The superstitious believed in direct Divine interference, though they dared not say this openly; but in their hearts they prayed that God might interfere in the same way on behalf of good Citizen Deseze and his family.

Poor Hector Deseze himself had not much hope on that score. He was a pious man, it is true, but his piety consisted in resignation to the will of God. Nor would he have cared much if God had only chosen to strike at him; it was the fate of his invalid wife that wrung his heart, and the future of his young daughter that terrified him. He had known the Citizen Commissary practically all his life. Lauzet was not a bad man, really. Perhaps he had got his head rather turned through his rapid accession from his original situation as packer in the Deseze house of business, with a bed underneath the counter in the back shop, to that of Chief of Section in the rural division of the department of Seine et Oise, with an official residence in Mantes, a highly important post, considering its proximity to Paris. But all the same Lauzet was not a bad man, and must have kept some gratitude in his heart for all the kindness shown to him by the Deseze family when he was a lad in their employ.

But in spite of every appeal Lauzet remained stony-hearted. "If I did anything for you, Citizen, on my own responsibility," he said to Deseze during the course of an interrogatory, "I should not only lose my position, but probably my head into the bargain. I have no ill-will towards you, but I am not prepared to take such a risk on your behalf."

"But my poor wife," Deseze protested, putting his pride in his pocket and stooping to appeal to the man who had once been a menial in his pay. "She is almost bedridden now and has not long to live. Could you not exercise some benevolent authority for her sake?"

Lauzet shook his head. "Impossible," he said decisively.

"And my daughter," moaned the distracted father, "my little Madeleine is not yet thirteen. What will be her fate? My God, Lauzet! Have you no bowels of compassion? Have not you got a daughter of your own?"

"I have," Lauzet retorted curtly, "and therefore I have taken special care to keep on the right side of the government and never to express an opinion on anything that is done for the good of the State. And I should advise you, Citizen Deseze, to do likewise, so that you may earn for yourself and your family some measure of mercy for your transgressions."

And with this grandiloquent phrase, Lauzet indicated that the interview was now at an end. He also ordered the prisoner to be taken back to Moisson, and there to be kept in the cells until the following day, when arrangements would be complete for conveying the Deseze family under escort to Paris.

IV

The following day was market-day in Moisson, and at first Lauzet had been doubtful whether it would not be best to wait another twenty-four hours before carrying through his friend Chauvelin's project. The dawn, however, broke with ideal conditions for it: a leaden sky, a tearing wind, and torrents of rain, alternating with a thin drizzle. On the whole, Nature had ranged herself on the side of all those who worked their nefarious deeds under cover of semi-darkness. Lauzet, gazing out on the mournful, autumnal aspect of weather and sky, felt that if the Scarlet Pimpernel did indeed meditate mischief he would choose such a day as this.

Thus it was that in the early dawn of this market-day the citizens of Moisson had a sad scene to witness. Soon after seven o'clock a small crowd collected round the big old-fashioned diligence which had drawn up outside the Deseze house in the Rue des Pipots. To right and left of the behicle were soldiers on horseback, two on each side, mounting guard, and the man who held the reins was also in the uniform of the rural gendarmarie. Everyone in the city knew this man. Charles-Marie was his name, and he had begun life as a baker's assistant-a weak, anaemic-looking youth, who had been sent out of the Army because he was no use as a fighting man, so timorous and slow-witted was he.

Lately he had obtained a position as ostler at the posting inn in Mantes because, it seems, he did know something about horses; but why he should have been chosen to drive the diligence to Paris to-day, nobody could conjecture. He must have had a friend in high places to be so exalted above his capabilities. Anyway, there he sat on the box, looking neither to right nor left, but straight between the ears of his off-leader, and not a word would he say in response to the questions, the jeers and the taunts which came to him from his friends in the crowd.

Soon, however, excitement centred round the portecochere of the Deseze house. It had suddenly been thrown wide open, and in the doorway appeared poor Citizeness Deseze escorted by two officers of gendarmerie, and closely followed by Madeleine, her little daughter, also under guard. It was pitiable to see the poor invalid, who could scarcely stand on her half-paralysed limbs, thus being dragged away from her home where she had lived as a happy wife and mother for close on a quarter of a century. A murmur of sympathy for the two women and of execration for the brutality of this arrest rose from the crowd. But it was quickly enough suppressed. Who would dare to murmur openly these days, when spies of the revolutionary government lurked at every street corner?

Hostile glances, however, were shot at Citizen Lauzet, who had come over that morning from Mantes and now stood by, somewhat detached from the crowd, watching the proceedings in the company of his friend Chauvelin.

"Is this in accordance with your idea?" he asked in a whisper when, presently, Chauvelin completed a quick and comprehensive examination of the diligence.

Chauvelin's only reply was a curt and peremptory "Hush", and a furtive glance about him to see that there were no likely eavesdroppers within hearing. He knew from experience that the famous League of the Scarlet Pimpernel also had spies lurking in every corner; spies not so numerous perhaps as those in the pay of the Committee of Public Safety, but a great deal more astute, and he also knew-none better-that the case of the Deseze family was just one that would appeal to the sporting or chivalrous instincts of that band of English adventurers.

But he was satisfied with the mise-en-scene organized, under his supervision, by Chief of Section Lauzet. Prominence had been given all over the department to the arrest of the Deseze family, to the worth and integrity of its head, the sickness of the wife, the charm and modesty of the daughter. Half a dozen picked men of the gendarmerie of Mantes, armed to the teeth, would join the diligence at Mantes, but they would ride inside disguised as passengers, whilst it was left for anybody to see that the coach was travelling under a feeble guard of four men, an officer and three troopers, and was driven by a lout who was known to have no fight in him.

Lauzet had been inspired when he chose this day; a typical day in late October, with that pitiless rain lashed by a south-easterly wind that would score the roads and fret the horses. Down in the forest, the diligence would have to go almost at foot-pace, for the outline of every tree on the roadside would be blurred, and objects would loom like ghosts out of the mist.

Yes! the scene was well set for the comedy invented by Chauvelin for the capture of his arch enemy. It only remained for the principal actors to play their roles to his satisfaction. Already the female prisoners had been hustled into the diligence amidst the sighs and tears of their sympathizers in the crowd. Poor Madame Deseze had sunk half-fainting with exhaustion into the arms of her young daughter, and the two women sat huddled in the extreme corner of the vehicle, more dead than alive. And now, amidst much jolting and creaking, some shouting and cursing, too, with cracking of whip and jingling of spurs, the awkward, lumbering diligence was started on its way. Some two hundred metres further on, it came to a halt once more, outside the commissariat, and here the male prisoner, Citizen Deseze himself, was made to join his family in the airless, creaking vehicle. Resigned to his own fate, he set himself the task of making the painful journey as endurable as may be to his invalid wife. Hardly realizing yet the extent of their misfortune and the imminence of their doom, the three victims of Lauzet's cupidity and Chauvelin's vengeance suffered their martyrdom in silence and with resignation.

The final start from Moisson had been made at eight o'clock. By this time, the small city was filling with the neighbouring farmers and drovers, with their cattle and their carts and vehicles of every kind, all tending either to the Place du Marche, or to the various taverns for refreshment. Lauzet, accompanied by Chauvelin, had ridden back to Mantes. Just before nine o'clock the diligence rattled over the cobblestones of that city, and a halt was called at the posting inn. It was part of the programme to spend some hours in Mantes, where the extra men of the gendarmerie would be picked up, and only to make a fresh start when the shades of evening were beginning to draw in. It was not to be supposed that the English brigands would launch their attack in broad daylight, and the weather did not look as if it were going to mend.

Chauvelin, of course, was there, seeing to every arrangement, with his friend Lauzet close at his elbow. He had himself picked out the six men of the gendarmerie who were to ride in disguise inside the diligence; he had inspected their disguises, added an artistic or realistic touch here and there before he pronounced them to be good.

Finally he turned to the young officer who was in command of the party.

"Now," he said very earnestly to him, "you know just what you are going to do? You realize the importance of the mission which is being entrusted to you?"

The officer nodded in reply. He was a young man and ambitious. The task which had been allotted to him had fired his enthusiasm. Indeed, in these days, the capture of that elusive English spy known as the Scarlet Pimpernel was a goal for which every young officer of gendarmerie was wont to strive; not only because of the substantial moetary reward in prospect, but because of the glory attached to the destruction of so bitter an enemy of revolutionary France.

"I will tell you, Citizen," the young man said to Chauvelin, "how I have finally laid my plans, and you shall tell me if you approve. About a kilometre and half before the road emerges out of the wood, the ground rises gradually, and there are one or two sharp bends in the road until it reaches the crest of the hill. That part of the forest if very lonely, and at a point just before the ground begins to rise I intend to push my mount on for a metre or two ahead of the men, and pretend to examine the leaders of the team. After a while I will call 'Halt,' and make as if I thought there was something wrong with the traces. The driver is such a lout that he and I will embark on a long argument as to what he should do to remedy the defect, and in the course of the argument I will contrive to slip a small piece of flint which I have in my pocket under the hoof of one of the coach horses."

"You don't think one of your men will see you doing that-and perhaps wonder?"

"Oh, I can be careful. It is done in a moment. Then we shall get on the road again, and five minutes later that same coach-horse will be dead lame. Another halt for examination this time near the crest of the hill. The lout of a driver will never discover what is amiss. I shall make as if the hurt was serious, and set myself the task of tending it. I thought then, subject to your approval, of ordering the troopers to dismount. I have provided them with good wine and certain special rations in their knapsacks. At a word from me they will rest by the roadside, seemingly heedless and unconcerned, but really very wide-awake and keen on the scent. The diligence will the while be at a standstill, with doors shut and curtains closley drawn, but the six men whom we have stowed inside the coach are keen on their work, well-armed and, like hungry wolves, eager to get their teeth into the enemies of France. They will be on the alert, their hands on their pistols, ready to spring up and out of the coach at the first sign of an attack. Now what think you of that setting, Citizen?" the young officer concluded, "for luring the English spies into a fight? Their methods are usually furtive, but this time they will have to meet us in hand-to-hand combat, and, if they fall into our trap, I know that we can deal with them."

"I can but pronounce your plan admirable, Citizen Captain," Chauvelin replied approvingly. "You have my best wishes for your success. In the meanwhile Citizen Lauzet and I will be anxiously waiting for news. We'll make a start soon after you, and strike the bridle-path through the forest. This gives us a short cut which will bring us to Epone just in time to hear your news. If you have been attacked, send me a courier thither as soon as you have the English spies securely bound and gagged inside the coach."

"I'll not fail you, Citizen," the young Captain rejoined eagerly.

Lauzet, who stood by, anxious and silent, whilst this colloquy was going on, shrugged his shoulders with a show of philosophy.

"And at worst," he said, "if that meddlesome Scarlet Pimpernel should think prudence the better part of valour, if he should scent a trap and carefully avoid it, we would always have the satisfaction of sending the Deseze family to the guillotine."

"The English spies," Chauvelin rejoined dryly, "will not scent a trap, nor will they give up the attempt to rescue the Deseze family. This is just a case to rouse their ire against us, and if it prove successful, one to flatter their vanity and redound to their credit in their own country. No," he went on thoughtfully, "I have no fear that the Scarlet Pimpernel will evade us this time. He will attack, I know. The only question is, when he does are we sufficiently prepared to defeat him?"

"With the half-dozen excellent men whom I have picked up here in Mantes," the young officer retorted, "I shall have nine under my command, and we are prepared for the attack. It is the English spies who will be surprised, we who will hold the advantage, even as to numbers, for the Scarlet Pimpernel can only work with two or three followers and we shall outnumber them three to one."

"Then good luck attend you, Citizen Captain," Chauvelin said at last. "You are in a fair way of rendering your country a signal service; see that you let not fame and fortune evade you in the end. Remember that you will have to deal with one of the most astute as well as most daring adventurers of our times, who has baffled men that were cleverer and, at least, as ambitious as yourself. Stay," the Terrorist added, and placed his thin, claw-like hand as if in warning on the other man's arm. "It is impossible, even for me who knows him as he is and who has seen him in scores of disguises, to give you any accurate description of his personality; but one thing you can bear in mind is that he is tall above the average; tall, even for an Englishman, and his height is the one thing about him that he cannot disguise. So beware of every man who is taller than yourself, Citizen Captain; however innocent he may appear, take the precaution to detain him. Mistrust every tall man, for one of them is of a surety the Scarlet Pimpernel."

He fianlly reminded the young Captain to send him a courier with the welcome news as soon as possible. "Citizen Lauzet and I," he concluded, "will ride by the bridle-path and await you at Epone. I shall be devoured with anxiety until I hear from you."

V

The men were not nervous, not at first. They were merely excited, knowng what awaited them, both during the journey and afterwards by way of reward. If they were successful there would be for every man engaged in the undertaking a sufficiency to provide for himself and his family for the rest of his life. The capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel! Half a dozen magic words in truth, and they had spurred Citizen Captain Raffet and his squad with boundless enthusiasm. They felt no discomfort either from tearing wind or driving rain. With eyes fixed before them they rode on, striving to pierce the mist-laden distance where the enemy of France was even now lurking, intent on that adventure which would be his last.

It was long past five o'clock when the diligence with its escort reached the edge of the forest. What little daylight there had been all afternoon was already beginning to wane; the sky was of a leaden colour, heavily laden with rain-clouds, save 'way behind in the west, where a few fiery, crimson streaks cut through the clouds like sharp incisions, there, where the setting sun still lingered in the autumn sky.

The men now were keenly on the alert, their eyes searching the dim light that glimmered through the forest trees, their ears attuned to the slightest sound that rose above the patter of their horses' hoofs, or the grinding of the coach wheels over the muddy road. The forest between Mezieres and Epone is four kilometre long; the road which intersects it plunges down into the valley and then rises up again with one or two sharp bends to the crest of the hill, after which, within the space of two hundred yards the forest trees quickly become sparse, and the open country lies spread out like a map with, on the right, the ribbon of the Seine winding its way along to St. Germain and Paris.

It was in the forest that the enemy would lurk. Out in the open he would find no cover, and could be sighted a couple of kilometres all round and more, if he attempted one of his audacious tricks. The light, which became more and more fitful as the sun sank lower in the west, made observation difficult; the thicket to right and left of the road looked like a dark, impenetrable wall, from behind which, mayhap, dozens of pairs of eyes were peering, ready to attack. The men who were riding by the side of the coach felt queer sensations at the roots of their hair; their hands, moist and hot, clung convulsively to the reins, and the glances which they cast about them became furtive and laden with fear.

But those who were inside the diligence had no superstitious terrors to contend with. The aristos were huddled up together in the far corner of the vehicle, and the men had spread themselves out, three a side, as comfortably as they could. A couple of bottles of excellent wine had been a welcome supplement to their rations, and put additional heart into them. One of them had produced a pack of greasy, well-worn cards from his pocket with which to while away the time.

A quarter of an hour later the Captain in command called a halt; the jolting vehicle came to a standstill with a jerk, and there was much scrambling and creaking and jingling, while the driver got down from his seat to see what was amiss. Nothing much apparently, for a minute or two later the diligence was once more on its way. Soon there was an appreciable slackening of speed, then a halt. More shouting and swearing, creaking and scrambling. The men inside marvelled what was amiss. It was as much as their life was worth to put their heads out of the window, or even to draw one of the tattered blinds to one side in order to peep. But they quickly put cards and wine away; it was better to be prepared for the word of command which might come now at any moment. They strained their ears to listen, and one by one, a word or two, a movement, a sound, told them what was happening. Their comrades outside were ordered to dismount, to take it easy, to sit down by the roadside and rest. It seems one of the draught-horses had gone lame. The men who were inside sighed with a longing for rest, too, a desire to stretch their cramped limbs, but they did not murmur. They were waiting for the word of command that would release them from their inactivity. Until then there was nothing to do but to wait. No doubt this halt by the roadside was just a part of the great scheme for luring the English adventurers to the attack. Grimly and in silence the six picked men inside the coach drew their pistols from their wallets, saw that they were primed and in order, and then laid them across their knees with their fingers on the triggers, in readiness for the Englishmen when they came.

VI

It was not everybody at Moisson who sympathized with the Deseze family when they were arrested. There were all the envious, the dissatisfied, the ambitious, as well as the ragtag-and-bobtail of the district who had linked their fortunes with the revolutionary government and who looked for their own advancement by loudly proclaiming their loyalty to its decrees. For such as these the Deseze family, with their well-known integrity, their wealth and unostentatious piety, were just a set of aristos whom the principles of the glorious revolution condemned as traitors to the State and to the people.

And on market-days Moisson was always full of such people; they were noisy and they were aggressive, and while the sympathizers with the Deseze family, after they had waved a last farewell towards the fast disappearing diligence, went quietly about their business or returned silently to their homes, the others thought this a good opportunity for airing some of those sentiments which would be reported in influential quarters if any government spy happened to be within earshot.

In spite of the persistent bad weather men congregated in and about the market-place during the intervals of business, and lustily discussed the chief event of the day. There was much talk of Citizen Lauzet whom everyone had known as a young out-at-elbows ragamuffin in the employ of Hector Deseze, and who now had power of life and death over the very man who had been his master. Be it noted that Lauzet appeared to have very few friends among the crowd of drovers and shepherds and the farmers who came in with their produce from the outlying homesteads. With advancement in life had come arrogance in the man and a perpetual desire to assert his authority over those with whom he had fraternized in the past. Those, however, who had their homes in the immediate neighbourhood of Mantes dared not say much, for Lauzet was feared almost as much as he was detested, but the strangers who had come into Moisson with their cattle and their produce were free enough with their tongue. Rumour had gone far afield about this arrest of the Deseze family, and many there were who asserted that mysterious undercurrents were at work in this affair; undercurrents that would draw Citizen Lauzet up on the crest of a tidal wave to the giddy heights of incredible fortune.

Nay more! There were many who positively asserted that in some unexplainable way the whole of the Deseze affair was connected with the capture of the English spy known throughout France as the Scarlet Pimpernel. This spy had been at work in the district some time; everyone knew that it was he who had dragged those ci-devant traitors and aristos, the Tournon-d'Agenays, out of Citizen Lauzet's clutches, and Citizen Lauzet was now having his revenge. He would capture the Scarlet Pimpernel, catch him in the very act of trying to effect the escape of the Deseze family, and thus earn the reward of ten thousand livres offered to any man who would lay that enemy of France by the heels.

Lucky Lauzet! Thus to have the means of earning a sum of money sufficient to keep a man and his family in affluence for the rest of their lives. And besides the money there would be glory too! Who could gauge the height to which a man might rise if he brought about the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel? Well, Lauzet would do it! Lucky Lauzet! He would certainly do it, asserted some; those sort of men always have all the luck! There were even those who asserted that the Scarlet Pimpernel was already captured and that Lauzet had got him. Lucky, lucky Lauzet!

"You don't suppose," one man declared, "that anything would be known of the affair unless it was already accomplished? Lauzet is not one to talk till after a thing is done. No! No! Believe me, my friends, Lauzet has already got his ten thousand livres in his pocket!"

He was a wizened, little old man from over Lanoy way, and now he dolefully shook his head.

"And to think," he went on, "that I might have laid that English spy by the heels myself, if I had had a bit of luck like Lauzet."

A shout of derision greeted this astounding assertion.

"You papa Sargon?" one of the crowd ejaculated with a loud laugh. "You, laying the English spy by the heels? That is the best joke I've heard for many a day. Will you tell us how that came about?"

And papa Sargon told the tale how he and his wife had a visit from a squad of soldiers who told him that they were after a band of English spies who were known to be in that district. The soldiers asked for a night's shelter as they were weary after a long day's ride. Papa Sargon remained convinced in his own mind that for the better part of a night he had harboured the most bitter enemies of his country, and if he had only guessed who those supposed soldiers were, he might have informed the local commissary of police, and earned ten thousand livres for himself. Now this story would not perhaps have been altogether convincing to unprejudiced ears, but such as it was, and with everything that had occurred in Moisson these past few days, it aroused considerable excitement. It went to prove that the Scarlet Pimpernel was not nearly so mysterious or so astute as rumour credited him to be, since he almost fell a victim to papa Sargon. It also went to prove to the satisfaction of the company present that Citizen Lauzet had been sharper than papa Sargon and, having come across the Scarlet Pimpernel through some lucky accident, he had laid hands on him and was even now conveying him to Paris, where a grateful government would hand him over the promised reward of ten thousand livres.

This notion, which gradually filtrated into the minds of the company, did not tend to make Citizen Lauzet any more popular; and when presently most of that same company adjourned to Leon's for refreshment, there were some among the younger men who wanted to know why they should not have their share in those ten thousand livres. The Scarlet Pimpernel, they argued with more enthusiasm than logic, had been captured in their district. The Deseze family who were in some way connected with the capture were citizens of Moisson; why should not they, citizens of Moisson too, finger a part of the reward?

It was all very wild and very illogical, and it would have been impossible for anyone to say definitely who was the prime mover in the ensuing resolution which, by the way, was carried unanimously, that a deputation should set out forthwith for Mantes to interview Citizen Lauzet and demand in the name of justice, and for the benefit of Moisson, some share in the money prize granted by the government for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Subsequently, both papa Sargon and a drover from Aincourt were held to be chiefly to blame, but as papa Sargon very properly remarked, neither he nor the stranger from Aincourt stood to gain anything by the wild-goose chase, so why should they have instigated it?

Be that as it may, soon after the midday meal, half a score of young stalwarts climbed into the cart of the drover from Aincourt, and the party, full of enthusiasm and of Leon's excellent red wine, set out for Mantes. They had provided themselves with a miscellaneous collection of arms; those who possessed guns brought them along, then they borrowed a couple of pistols from Leon and two more from old Mitau who had been a soldier in his day. Some of them had sabres, others took sickles or scythes which might be useful; one man had a saw, another took a wood-chopper. All these things would be very useful should there be a fight over this affiar, and most of them hoped that there would be a fight.

The first disappointment came on arrival to Mantes. Here at the Commissariat they were informed that Citizen Lauzet had been gone these past two hours. He had ridden away in the company of his friend who had come fron Paris some two days previously. The general idea prevalent at the Commissariat was that the two men had ridden away in the direction of Paris.

The second disappointment, a corollary of the first, was that the diligence with prisoners and escort had started on its way less than half an hour ago. It seemed in very truth as if the plot thickened. Lauzet and his friend from Paris gone, the diligence gone! No one paused to reflect how this could possibly mean anything in the nature of a plot, but by this time spirits were inflamed. Unaccountably inflamed. Everyone was so poor these days; money was so terribly hard to earn; work was so grinding, remuneration so small, that now that the idea of the capture of the English spy with its attendant reward had seized hold of the imagination of these young hotheads, they clung to it tenaciously, grimly, certain that if they acted quickly and wisely, and if no one else got in the way, they would succeed in gaining the golden prize. A competence! Just think of it! And with nothing to do for it but an exciting adventure. And here was Lauzet interfering! Snatching the prize for himself! Lauzet, who already drew a large salary from the State for very little work.

All this had been talked over, sworn over, discussed, commented at great length all the way between Moisson and Mantes, in the rickety cart driven by the drover from Aincourt. He was a wise man, that drover. His advise was both sound and bold. "Why," he asked pertinently, "should a man like Citizen Lauzet get everything he wants? I say it is because he has a friend over in Paris who comes along and helps him. Because he has money and influence. What? Was there ever anything seen quite so unjust? Where is the English spy, my friend? I ask you. He is in this district. Our district. And what I say is that what's in our district belongs to us. Remember there's ten thousand livres waiting for every man who takes a hand in the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Ten thousand livres! and Citizen Lauzet with that stranger from Paris is even at this hour riding away with it in his pocket."

He spoke a great many more equally eloquent words, for he had a gift of speech, had this drover from Aincourt. A rough fellow, it is true, but one with his heart in the right place, and born in the district, too; anyone could tell that by the contemptuous way with which he spoke of any stranger born outside this corner of Seine et Oise. To the man who had sat next to him on the way from Moisson to Mantes he had confided the story of his life; told him that at thirteen years of age he had been pressed into service on board one of the ci-devant tyrant's ships, that the ship had been captured by English corsairs, and he had been a galley slave until he succeeded in breaking his chains and swimming to shore while the English sloop lay off Ushant. No wonder he hated the whole foul brood of the English. He was their slave for nigh on twenty years. And always he harked back on the golden prize which, he declared, would not be shared up. Each and every man who took a hand in the capture of the English spy would receive his ten thousand livres.

He was listened to with great attention, was the drover. And his words presently carried all the more weight because something very strange came to light. It appeared that the diligence from Moisson with prisoners and escort had made a half of several hours in Mantes. The party only made a fresh start in the late afternoon. That was strange enough in all conscience. What did it mean but that Lauzet was courting the darkness for his schemes? But there was something more mysterious still. While the diligence stood before the posting inn ready to start, horses pawing and champing, the driver on his box, whip in hand, the four troopers who were on guard to right and left of the vehicle would not allow anyone to come within measurable distance of it. Be it noted that all the blinds of the coach were drawn so that it was impossible to get a peep at the inside. But two young men, strangers to the neighbourhood, who had since come forward, eager to tell their story, more venturesome than others, had crept under the horses' bellies and tried to peer into the interior of the coach. They were almost immediately driven away with blows and curses by the troopers, but not before they had vaguely perceived that there were more than just the prisoners inside the diligence. The prisoners were all huddled up in the furthest corner of the vehicle, but there were others. The young men who had had a peep, despite the blows from the troopers, had seen three or four men at least. They might have been ordinary travellers who had picked up the diligence at Mantes. But in that case, why all this secrecy? Why the drawn blinds, the start in the late afternoon so that the shades of evening would actually be drawing in when the diligence and its escort ploughed its way through the muddy road of the forest between Mezieres and Epone? Why a feeble escort of only four men when, of late, and when the ci-devant Tournon-d'Agenays were being conveyed to Paris, as many as eight or ten picked troopers of the National Guard had ridden beside the diligence? Indeed, the drover from Aincourt was right. Indubitably right. Citizen Lauzet and his friend from Paris had entered into a plot, a dastardly, cowardly plot to cheat the citizens of Moisson of their just share in the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel. There was no doubt that the Scarlet Pimpernel was already captured, and that Lauzet was having him conveyed in secret to Paris. The escort might appear feeble, but there were men inside the diligence who held the English spy, bound hand and foot between them, with a cocked pistol at his head. Why! The two young strangers who had succeeded in getting a peep at the inside of the diligence quite thought, from the description everyone had of him, that one of the men whom they glimpsed was in very truth the Scarlet Pimpernel.

"He was so tall," they said, "so tall that he had to sit almost bend double, otherwise his head would have knocked against the roof of the coach." They were almost prepared to swear also that this tall man's hands were tied together with ropes.

After that, as the drover from Aincourt very properly said, any man would be a fool who doubted Lauzet's treachery and cupidity. It was resolved to proceed immediately in his wake, to seize him wherever he might be, him and any man who had helped him in his treachery. Aye, if he had an army to protect him, he would find that the men of Moisson and Mantes were not to be flouted and cheated with impunity. The drover from Aincourt was bribed to take the party in his cart as far as Mezieres. He demurred a little at first; seemed to turn crusty and impervious to threats. Eventually he was offered one hundred livres out of every man's share if the English spy was captured, and one livre if he was not.

"Eh bien," he said at last in token of consent, and they all scrambled back into the cart.

VII

Captain Raffet had given the order to dismount and the troopers sat by the roadside under the trees, making a pretence to rest. Each man, however, had his sabre ready to his hand, and each had seen to the priming of his pistol, while the Captain himself obstensibly busied himself with examining the fetlock of the mare who had gone lame. The wind had gone down and the torrential rain had ceased, but there was a thin mist-like drizzle that soaked through the men's clothing and chilled them to the bone. The tension had become acute. With nerves on edge the men, those who were in the open as well as those who were cooped up inside the diligence, could do nothing but wait while the time dragged on and the woods was full of sounds; of the crackling of twigs, the fall of rain-laden leaves, the scrunching of earth under tiny, furtive, feet scurrying away through the undergrowth. The great, awkward diligence loomed out of the mist like some gigantic spectral erection, peopled by forms that breathed and lived and hardly emitted a sound. Only very occasionally from the interior there came the painful moan, quickly suppressed, from the poor invalid's parched throat.

And all at once something more tangible: a patter of feet, a call, a voice half-drowned in the gathering mist. It came way down the road, from the direction of Mézieres. The men sat up, alert, quivering with excitement, their eyes straining to pierce the thicket, since the sharp bend in the road hid the oncomers from view. The order was to feign inattention, to wait for the attack, lest the wily enemy, scenting a trap, scampered away to safety. And the men waited, very much like greyhounds held in leash, quivering with eagerness, their hot, moist hands grasping sabre and pistol, the while Captain Raffet, as keenly alert as they, carried on a desultory conversation with the driver about the mare's injured fetlock. Vague forms began to detach themselves out of the mist, coming round the bend; soon they gained volume and substance. The voice still calling gained power and clarity. It was as much as Captain Raffet could do, by muttered word and glance of eye, to keep those human greyhounds of his in check. With the Scarlet Pimpernel perhaps in sight they were straining on the leash to its breaking-point.

It was at the very moment that, throwing all prudence to the wind, the men suddenly raised themselves upon their knees, and were on the point of springing to their feet, unable to contain their excitement any longer, that Charles-Marie, the loony driver, who had once been a baker's assistant, exclaimed joyfully, "Pardi! If it isn't Citizen Plante home from market already." And the next instant the oncoming figure revealed itself as that of an old man, walking along with the aid of a tall stick, and calling at times to his dog or to the half-dozen sheep he was driving before him.

Citizen Plante was not of a gregarious disposition, nor of an inquisitive one apparently, for he passed by without a word or glance of curiosity directed at the troopers or at the vehicle. All that he did was to nod to the driver as he went by, whilst the men gazed at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, as if he had been a spectre. And like a spectre he seemed to glide past them and out of sight. A minute or two later the twilight and the mist had swallowed him up with his sheep and his dog, and had smothered his monotonous calls in the veils of the night.

A groan of disappointment and impatience rose from the parched throats of the men. The passage of old Plante and his sheep had exasperated their nerves. A moment ago they had felt chilled and cramped; now their blood was up, their bodies were in a sweat with the violence of their disappointment. Already Plante and his sheep were far away. That silence, so full of sounds, had once more descended upon the forest. Again the men waited with eyes and ears strained, their nerves a-tingle, their breathing hard and stertorous. And once more there fell upon their straining ears the sound of human life coming from the direction of Mézieres. This time it was the sound of cart-wheels creaking through the mud, and of ill-adjusted harness jingling with the movement of wearily-plodding horses. There was also from time to time the sound of distant voices, a harsh call or uproarious laugh suddenly stilled as if in responce to a peremptory warning. Nothing in truth to suggest the furtive methods of the English adventurers it seemed more like a party of farmers coming home from market.

The troopers were on the alert, of course, but not quite so keenly perhaps as they were before their disappointment over Citizen Plante's passage across the scene. But a minute or two later a quick word from their Captain brought them sharply to attention. The cart had obviously come to a halt, but a lusty shout now rang through the stillness of the night, and there was a general sound of scampering and of running, mingled with calls of excitement and encouragement. A few minutes of tense expectation, then suddenly round a bend a band of ten or a dozen men came into view, armed with miscellaneous weapons. At sight of the diligence they gave a wild shout of triumph, brandished their weapons and rushed to the attack.

"Attention, citizen soldiers," Raffet commanded hastily. "Do not shoot unless you are obliged. But if you must, shoot low. We must have some of those English spies alive if we can."

Hardly were the words out of his mouth than, with a renewed shout of triumph, the band of young ruffians threw themselves like a pack of enraged puppies on the soldiers, whilst others made straight for the diligence. But before they had gone within twenty metres of it the Captain gave the quick word of command that brought the men of the gendarmerie out of the coach, pistols in hand, ready for the fight.

The attacking party, however, held no laggards either. Egged on by the drover of Aincourt and still shouting wildly, they rushed on the men of the gendarmerie as they scrambled out of the coach. Numbers being about equal on either side, the men coming out one by one were at a great disadvantage. Almost as soon as they had set foot to the ground they were fallen on with fist or sabre, and soon the confusion was complete.

"What the devil's game is this?" Raffet shouted hoarsely, for in an instant he found himself at grips, not with the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, but with Gaspard, the son of the butcher at Moisson, whom he had known ever since they had been ragamuffins together. And Gaspard was as strong as some of the bullocks his father was wont to kill. Before Raffet could recover from the surprise of this wholly unexpected turn of events Gaspard had brought his heavy fist crashing down on his whilom friend's skull.

"It means," Gaspard shouted, mad with fury, "that thou'rt a traitor and that I'll teach thee to help cheat thy friends."

Nor could Raffet argue after that. He had need of all his faculties to defend himself against this young ox. He had drawn his pistol, true, but Gaspard's iron-like hand had closed around his wrist and the fight soon degenerated to fisticuffs. The troopers fared no better, either. Though they had been prepared for an attack, they were not prepared for this furious onslaught made upon them by their friends. Name of a dog! What did it all mean? For they were all friends, these madmen, every one of them; young men from Moisson and Lanoy and Mantes. There was François the mercer of the Rue Grande, and Jacques whose father kept he tavern at the sign of the Black Swan, and Paul whose mother was the best washerwoman in Mantes. And words flew round to the accompaniment of thumping blows.

"Jacques, art thou mad or drunk?"

"Achille! Thy father will beat thee for this escapade."

"Name of a name, but you'll all get something for this night's work."

And all the while blows were raining fast and furious. There was no lust to kill, only wild enthusiasm for a fight, a desire to be avenged on friends who had aided that rascal Lauzet to cheat the men of the district out of the golden prize.

"Give up the English spies or I'll squeeze the breath out of thy throat." This from Gaspard the butcher's son who had felled his friend Raffet to the ground and rolled over and over in the mud with him, the two men snarling at one another and biting and scratching like a couple of angry dogs.

Had they all gone mad, these men of Moisson? The issue of the struggle might have remained longer in the balance had not Raffet just then freed his right hand from the iron grip of Gaspard and discharged his pistol into his whilom comrade's leg. Gaspard rolled over on to his back with a groan and a curse.

"Traitor. Thou hast murdered me," he cried, while the blood flowed freely out of his thigh.

But the one pistol-shot had the effect of sobering the combatants. The aggressors ahd pistols, too, and sabres, but in their excitement had forgotten how to use them. The sudden report, however, brought the soldiers back to a sense of discipline, wakened them, as it were, from their surprise, and in a moment gave them a decided advantage over the undisciplined attacking party. This wild fisticuffs could not go on. It was unworthy of the soldiers of the Republic. They were being attacked by a band of irresponsible young jackanapes whom the devil himself must for the nonce have deprived of reason, but it remained for the picked men of the rural gendarmerie to teach them that such madness could not remain unpunished, and friend or foe, he who attacks a soldier of the Republic must suffer for his wantonness. Far be it from the chronicler of these events to pretend that all these thoughts did surge clearly in the heads of the troopers. What is a fact is that from the moment their Captain discharged a pistol into Gaspard's thigh, they became masters of the situation. The fight between soldiers and citizens assumed its just proportions; there were a few pistol-shots, some sabre thrusts, a good deal of groaning and cursing, while more than one stalwart besides Gaspard rolled over in the mud.

The fight had lasted less than ten minutes. When the first rush on the diligence was made, the twilight was already fading into dusk. Now when the last shot had been fired and the last of the hotheads had cried for mercy, dusk was slowly yielding to the darkness of the night. Raffet called the soldiers to attention. They were still panting with excitement, some of them were dizzy from the blows dealt freely on their skulls; one or two showed a bunged eye or a bleeding lip, but none of them were seriously hurt. The hotheads from Moisson and Mantes had not fared quite so well. Some of them had received a charge of shot in lef, arm or shoulder, and were lying groaning or half-conscious on the ground; those hwo had escaped with minor hurts were on their knees, held down by the heavy hand of a trooper. They did not in truth represent an edifying spectacle, with their faces streaming with blood and perspiration, their clothes torn, their shirtsleeves hanging in rags, their hair wet and lank, hanging before their eyes. Raffet ordered them to be mustered up; his sharp glance ran over them as they stood or crouched together in a line.

"I ought to have the lot of you summarily shot," Raffet said sternly to them after he had inspected his men and seen that victory had not cost them dear. "Yes, shot," he reiterated, "for interfering with the soldiers of the Republic in the exercise of their duty; and I will do it, too," he went on after a moment's pause, "unless you tell me now the meaning of this abominable escapade."

"You know it well, Citizen Raffet," Paul the washerwoman's son said, still breathless with excitement and with a savage oath, "when you joined hands with that traitor Lauzet to cheat us all of what was our due."

"Joined hands with Lauzet? What the devil do you mean?" Raffet queried frowning. "In what did I join hands with Lauzet?"

"In capturing the English spy and getting the reward for yourselves when it rightly belonged to us."

"The reward," Raffet retorted dryly, "will be for whosoever may be lucky to get the English spy. For the moment I imagine that if he meant to attack us to-night your folly has scared him. The noise you made would keep any brigand out of the way."

"No use lying to us, Raffet," one of the others retorted somewhat incoherently. It was François who spoke this time, the mercer from the Rue Grande, and he had always been noted for his eloquence. "You raised your hands against us citizens of the Republic who came here to avenge an unpardonable wrong. And let me tell you that 'tis you who will suffer for this night's work-"

"Ah ça!" Raffet broke in savagely, for his temper was still up. "How long are you going to talk in riddles? In truth it's the devil that has deprived you of your senses. What's all this talk about the English spy? Who told you we were after him? And why should you hinder us from doing our duty?"

"We know," François retorted, striving to appear calm and full of dignity, "that not only were you after the English spy, but we know that you captured him in our district and that you have got him in the diligence yonder and are conveying him to Paris, where you and your friends will share ten thousand livres which by rights should have belonged to us men of the district where the spies were caputred."

"What gibberish is this? I tell you that not only have we not got the English spy, but owing to your senseless folly, we are not likely to get him now."

"I say that the English spy is in your diligence," François exclaimed, and pointed dramatically at the old vehicle which stood like a huge, solid mass, heavier and darker than the surrounding gloom. "Some of us have seen him, I tell you." And his companions, even those who were in the sorriest plight, nodded in assent.

But Raffet swallowed his temper now. What was the use of arguing with these fools? He would have thought it beneath his dignity to five them ocular demonstration that the diligence now only held three miserable aristos. But the trouble was what to do with this crowd. Raffet counted them over. There were eight of them, and four of these were helpless with wounds in the legs. Somehow at the first rush Raffet thought there had been more like a dozen young ruffians and he had a distinct recollection of a big, clumsy fellow who seemed the prime mover in this senseless escapade. But no doubt he as well as one or two others had had the good sense to take to their heels, and Raffet had certainly no intention of scouring the woods for them. On the other hand, he had every intention of seeing those that remained well punished for their folly. He did not wish to drag them along with him to Epone. It was another four kilometres and more and the first part of the journey would still be through the forest; with the gathering darkness the coach-horses would have to be led by men carrying lanterns.

Pondering a moment over the future of his prisoners, Raffet had a sudden inspiration.

"Who drove the cart that brought you all hither?" he demanded.

"A man from Lanoy," Paul, the washerwoman's son, replied.

"Then he shall take you back to Mantes the way you came."

"You would not dare-" One of the others protested.

Raffet, however, had already turned to his corporal of gendarmerie.

"Citizen Corporal," he said, "take these rascals as far as the cart which brought them thither. It must have come to a halt somewhere near the bottom of the hill. Let two of your men go with them to Mantes and there hand them over to the deputy commissary. Order the owner of the cart to drive them on pain of severe punishmnet if he refuses. Take one of the lanthorns with you. It will be needed as the road will be pitch dark before they are well on their way. And stay! You have some stout cord inside the diligence. We were going to use it on the English spy. Now it will serve to bind these rogues together two by two, lest they try some more of their tricks on you. Those who are hurt can lie in the botton of the cart."

"Citizen Raffet," François, the mercer, raised his voice in final impotent protest. "You will answer to the State for this outrage on her citizens."

Bu Raffet was no longer in a mind to listen. The corporal had sent one of the men to find the length of rope which was inside the diligence and was to have served for binding up the English spies, and now it would be used on a lot of jackanapes on their homeward journey to Mantes. Protests and curses were indeed in vain, and the soldiers, whose tempers had not yet cooled down, were none too gentle with the rope. Raffet, in the meanwhile, had called one of the men of the gendarmerie to him. "Ride, Citizen Soldier," he commanded, "as fast you can to Epone. You will find the Citizen Commissary and his friend from Paris at the posting inn. Tell them just what has occured and that I am sending the pack of miscreants back to Mantes for punishment. Tell them also that this senseless piece of folly has not left us unprepared for attack by the English spies, though we have not much more hope in that direction now. We shall be on the road again in a quarter of an hour, but will have to walk the horses pratically all the way, so do not expect to be in Epone for another two hours at least."

Then at last did comparative silence fall upon the scene, where a brief while ago deafening shouts and tumultous melée had roused the woodland echoes. Only the prisoners now were heard groaning and cursing. The courier had ridden away bearing the unwelcome news to Lauzet and his friend from Paris; the men who were not busy with the prisoners were looking to their horses or their accoutrements, while Raffet stood by, observant and grim. And suddenly, right out of the darkness there came the sound of agonizing calls for help.

"What was that?" Raffet queried straining his ears to listen.

"Help," came from the distance. And then again, "Help! Ho," and "Curse you, why don't you come?" And with it all the now familiar sound of men fighting and shouting. Not so very far away either. A couple of hundred metres, perhaps, just the other side of the bend. Were it not for the thicket and darkness, a man could cut his way through to where those shouts came from in a couple of minutes.

"Help! Help!"

One of the prisoners broke into a harsh laugh. "It's Citizen Lauzet, I'll wager," he said, "and his friend from Paris."

"Citizen Lauzet?" Raffet exclaimed. "What in hell do you mean?"

"Well," Paul, the washerwoman's son, replied still laughing and forgetting his sorry plight in the excellence of the joke. "We found those two ambling on the bridle-path, on their way to Epone, ready no doubt to seize the largest share of reward for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"Great God!"

"And so we seized them both," François, the mercer, rejoined, "and did to htem what you are doing now to us; gave them a good hiding, then bound them together with ropes and threw them in the bottom of the cart."

"Name of a dog"

"And no doubt," came a high-pitched voice from among the group of prisoners, "the English spies have found them and…"

"Malediction!" But Raffet got no further. Astonishment not unmixed with terror rendered him speechless. The Scarlet Pimpernel. Ye Gods! And the Chief of Section and his friend at the mercy of that fiend. Even now his straining ears seemed to perceive through these calls for help a triumphant battle-cry in a barbaric tongue.

"Here," he cried to the troopers. "Two of you are sufficient to bring these rascals along; and you, corporal, and two men come with me. Citizen Lauzet and his friend are being murdered even now."

He hurried down the road followed by the corporal and two men of the gendarmerie, whilst those that were left behind saw to it that the perpetrators of all this additional outrage and of all this pother were duly garrotted and started on their way.

To them Raffet shouted a final: "Three of you remain to guard the prisoners and make ready for an immediate start when we return." Then he disappeared round the bend in the road.

VIII

The shouting had ceased as Raffet and his troops hurried along. Indeed, at first he might have thought that his ears had deceived him, had not that agonized call for help still risen insistently through the gloom. He searched the darkness, and suddenly a sight greeted him by the roadside which caused his hair to stand up on his head. At first this seemed nothing but a bundle lying half-in and half-out of the ditch in the mud, with the drip-drip from the trees making a slimy puddle around it. It was from this bundle that the calls for help and the curses proceeded.

It was appalling, almost unbelievable, for there were the Chief of Section in the rural division of the department of Seine et Oise, Citizen Lauzet, and his friend from Paris whom Captain Raffet knew as Citizen Chauvelin, a man who stood very high in the estimation of the government, and they were lying in a muddy puddle in the ditch like a pair of calves tied together for market. Raffet might have disbelieved his eyes had it not been for the language which Citizen Lauzet used all the while that the rope which bound him was being cut by the corporal.

"Thank the Lord," Raffet exclaimed fervently, "that you are safe."

"I'll have 'em flayed alive, the rascals," Lauzet exclaimed in a voice rendered feeble and hoarse with much shouting, as well as rage. "The guillotine is too mild a death for such miscreants. They attacked me, Citizen Captain, would you believe it? Me! Chief of Section in the rural gendarmerie. Have you ever heard of such an outrage? They shouted at us from behind. My friend and I were riding along quite slowly, and we had just turned into the bridle-path from the road. We heard the cart and all the shouting, but we thought that they were just a pack of drunken oafs returning from market. So we paid them no heed, not even when anon we heard that on the road the cart had drawn up and, chancing to glance back at the moment, I saw these louts jumping helter-skelter out of the cart. And the next moment they were on us, the lot of them. Ten or a dozen of them they were, the rogues."

"The miserable scoundrels," Raffet exclaimed fervently.

"They dragged us out of our saddles," Lauzet continued, "they beat us about the head…"

"Name of a name…"

"And all the while they kept on shouting, 'Traitor! Traitor! Give up the English spy to us.' In vain did we try and protest. They would not hear us, and what could we do against a dozen of them? Then finally they bound us with ropes, wound our cravats about our mouths so that we could scarcely breathe, and listed us into that jolting cart, where we lay more dead than alive while it was driven by a lout at breakneck speed.

"Have no fear, Citizen," Raffet put in forcefully. "Their punishment shall be exemplary."

"I have no fear," Lauzet retorted dryly, "for I'll see to their punishment myself. The scamps, the limbs of Satan! But I'll teach them. There we lay, Citizen Captain, at the bottom of the cart, my friend Citizen Chauvelin, who wore the tricolour scarf of office round his middle, and I, chief commissary of the district, and those ruffians dared to wipe their shoes on us. So we drove for a kilometre and a half through the forest. Then presently the cart drew up and all those louts jumped down like a pack of puppies and ran away up the hill with shouts that would wake the dead. The last I remember, for in the jolting and my cramped position I had partly lost consciousness, was that my friend and I were lifted out of the cart as unceremoniously as we had been thrust into it. We were carried up the road some little way and then thrown into the ditch by the roadside, in the mud, just where you ultimately found us, and our cravats were loosened from round our mouths. Immediately we started screaming for help, but there was such a din going on up the road, that we felt the sound of our voices could not possibly reach you. Fortunately, in the end, you did hear us, or maybe we should have perished of cold and inanition."

"Malediction," Raffet swore viciously. "And you might have been attacked by those cursed English spies while you lay helpless here. We thought we heard them, and their battle-cry, and hurried to your assistance."

He turned and shook his fist with another savage oath at the gang of prisoners which had just come into view. Sobered and chastened, they allowed themselves quite meekly to be dragged along by a couple of soldiers. Some of them were able to walk, and were made to do so with the aid of vigorous kicks if they flagged, whilst the others, those who had sustained wounds or were otherwise helpless, had been hoisted up, none too gently, on the shoulers of their comrades in misfortune. Altogether, they looked a sorry lot. Raffet smiled grimly at sight of them whilst Lauzet fell to cursing and anathematizing them viciously.

Chauvelin alone showed no emotion. As soon as the rope that held him had been severed, he had sat up on a broken tree-stump, staring straight out before him into the mist, and meditatively stroking his sore wrists and arms. It seemed as if some secret thought had the power to keep his wrath and indignation in check. Nor did he as much as glance up when the procession of soldiers and prisoners came into view. Before his semi-consciousness there floated a vague vision which he was striving to capture. When first those abominable louts had thrust him and Lauzet in the bottom of the cart, and he lay there bound and gagged, nursing his stupendous wrath and hopes of revenge, he had become aware that the driver, who still sat aloft just above him, had suddenly turned and, leaning over, had peered into his face. It had only been a very brief glance; the next moment the man was sitting up quite straight again, and all that Chauvelin saw of him was his back, with the great breadth of shoulders and general look of power and tenacity. But it was the brief vision of that glance that Chauvelin now was striving to re-capture. The blue-grey eyes with their heavy lids that could not be disguised, and the mocking glance which had seemed to him like rasping metal against his exacerbated nerves. And suddenly he called to Raffet: "The driver and the cart, where are they?"

The Captain's sharp eyes searched the mist that was rising in the valley.

"Down at the bottom of the hill," he said. "The driver seems to be on the box. I shall want him to drive these rascals back to Mantes."

"Send him to me at once," Chauvelin broke in curtly.

Raffet gave the necessary orders, although inwardly he chafed at this new delay. The prisoners slowly continued their way, and Chauvelin waited, expectant. For what? He could not have told you. He certainly did not expect to be brought face to face with his old enemy. And yet But whatever vague hopes he might have entertained were dissipated soon enough by an exclamation from Raffet.

"Charles-Marie! What in a dog's name are you doing here?"

And a weak, querulous voice rose in reply. "He told me I was to run along and drive the cart back to Mantes for him. He…"

"He?" queried Raffet sharply. "Who?"

"I don't know, Citizen Captain," replied Charles-Marie.

"Who ordered you to leave the diligence and your horses?"

"I don't know, Citizen Captain," protested the unfortunate Charles-Marie. "It's God's truth. I don't know."

"You must know why you're not sitting on the box of the diligence."

"Yes. I know that, for I scrambled down as soon as I saw Gaspard fall on you, Citizen Captain."

"Why did you scramble down?"

"Because the horses were restive. At the first pistol-shot they started rearing and I had a mighty task to hold them. Fortunately, someone came and gave me a hand with them."

"What do you mean by 'someone came'? Who was it?"

"He was a drover from Aincourt, Citizen Captain, and so he knew all about horses, and how could I keep four terrifed horses quiet, all by myself?"

"You miserable fool."

"All very well, Citizen Captain, but I never was a fighting man, and I don't like those pistol-shots all about me. One of them might have caught me, I say, and it was only right I should find cover somehwere, lest indeed I be hit by mistake."

"You abominable coward," Raffet rejoined savagely.

"But all that does not explain how you got here."

"Well, Citizen, it was like this. The drover from Aincourt saw that I was not altogther happy, and he said to me, 'There'll be more fighting presently when the English spies come to attack.' I said nothing at first. All I could do was to groan for, as I say, I'm not a fighting man. I went out of the Army because I was too ill to fight, and my mother…"

"Never mind about your mother now. What happened after that?"

"He said to me: 'You go and get on the seat of the cart which is up the road. It is my cart. You can drive it back to Mantes and leave it and my horses at the posting inn where they know me. I'll look after these horses for you, and when the fighting's over I'll drive the diligence to Paris. No one will be any the wiser and I don't mind a bit of a fight. I can do a bit of fighting myself.' Well," Charles-Marie went on dolefully, "there didn't seem much harm in that. I could see he knew all about horses from the way he handled them; but I'm no fighting man, and when I was engaged to drive the diligence from Moisson to Paris, I was not told that there would be any fighting."

"So you turned your back on the diligence, like a coward, and crept along here…"

"I didn't creep, Citizen. I followed you when…"

"Pardi!" Raffet broke in with an oath. "Another of you that will not escape punishment. If I had my way the guillotine would be busy in Mantes for days to come."

There was nothing for it now but to allow Charles-Marie to drive the cart back to Mantes, since its owner had probably seized an opportunity by now of taking to his heels. Poor Raffet was worn out with the excitement of the past half-hour, and bewildered with all the mystery that confronted him at every turn. Vaguely he felt that something sinister lurked behind this last incident recited to him by Charles-Marie, but for the moment he did not connect it with the possible maoeuvres of the English spies. He thought that chapter of the day's book of adventures closed. It would be an extraordinary piece of luck, indeed, if in the end they should still come across the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Anyway, for the moment, the most important thing was to see the cartload of prisoners on its way, and to this Raffet devoted his attention. He walked down as far as the cart, saw the prisoners stowed in, Charles-Marie on the box with a trooper beside him to see that he did his work properly, another in the cart to watch over the prisoners, and a third to the horses' heads with a lighted lantern. After that, what happened to the pack of miscreants Raffet cared less than nothing; in the end they would not escape punishment, whether they reached Mantes this night, or spent the hours of darkness in the forest. They were securely bound now; wounded of hale they lay huddled up in the cart, their spirit broken, and with hardly a groan left in them. Raffet gave the order to start. With much creaking and grinding the wheels ploughed their way through the mud; it would take a couple of hours to cover the three kilometres back as far as Mantes. Raffet stood for a moment or two watching the veil of darkness which gradually engulfed the cart, the horses and their human load. Just for a minute longer the fitful glimmer of the lanthorn shone through the trees and for awhile the voice of the man who carried it was heard encouraging the horses or urging them on.

Then only did Raffet bethink himself of the citizen from Paris who had given him the order to bring the driver of the cart to him. Quickly he turned on his heel and walked up the road again. The corporal and the troopers were there waiting for him, but Citizen Lauzet and his friend from Paris had gone.

IX

Indeed, Chauvelin had not waited to hear the whole of Charles-Marie's tale. Throughout all the adventures which had befallen him this day, he had seen the hand of his enemy, the Scarlet Pimpernel. Now he no longer had any doubt. Almost at the first words uttered by Charles-Marie he had jumped to his feet, all the stiffness gone out of his bones; and despite the darkness, the mud and the rain, he turned and ran up the slushy road, round the bend beyond which he had heard the fight a quarter of an hour ago. To Lauzet he had shouted a curt, "Come," and Lauzet had followed, obedient, understanding, like a dog, only vaguely scenting danger to himself, danger more serious than any that had threatened him during this eventful day.

Chauvelin ran through the darkness with Lauzet at his heels. The road appeared endless and black, the silence full of portent. Only the drip from the trees broke the silence; only the leaden greyness of the close of evening faintly pierced the darkness where the trees grew sparse on the edge of the wood. Depsite the cold and rawness of the mist, he was in a bath of perspiration; though his veins were on fire, his teeth chattered with the cold. Lauzet, behind him, was panting like an apoplectic seal. The sticky mud clung to the men's shoes; their limbs still stiff from hours of confinement begrudged them every service. Soon Lauzet fell with a groan by the roadside. But Chauvelin did not five in. Through the darkness he had perceived things that moved; through the silence he had heard sounds that spurred him to fresh effort. Stumbling, half-dazed, he went round the bend of the road; then he, too, fell exhausted by the roadside, exhausted and trembling as with ague. The scene which greeted his aching eyes had finally unnerved him. There, on the crest of the hill, he saw three horses tethered to neighbouring trees, three soldiers with their hats pulled down over their eyes. Of the diligence there was not a sign. Chauvelin stared and stared at this scene. He had not strength enough to rise, though his every nerve ached to go up to one of these pinioned figures by the trees and to ask what had happened.

Thus Raffet found him five or ten minutes later. He came with his soldiers and a lantern or two. On their way they had met with Lauzet and had brought him along with them. Chauvelin could not do more at first than point with trembling finger straight out before him, and Raffet and the men swinging their lanterns came on the spectacle of the three men and the three horses tied to the forest trees, the animals calm as horses are wont to be when Nature and men are silent around them; the men inert and half-conscious, smothered under their own hats. Raffet and his troopers soon released them, but it took them some time to recover their breath.

"Question them, Citizen Captain," Chauvelin commanded feebly.

The men's statements, however, were somewhat vague. It seems that after their comrades had gove off, some with their Captain, others with the prisoners, the three who were left behind busied themselves at first with their horses, examining the saddle-girths and so on, when one of them spied something moving underneath the diligence.

"It was getting dark by that time," the man explained. "However, I called to my mates, and we stooped to see what it was. We were very much surprised, you may be sure, to see two pairs of feet in ragged shoes. We seized hold of them and pulled. The feet were attched to two pairs of legs in tattered stocking and breeches. Finally there emerged from underneath the diligence two ragamuffins with mud up to their eyes and their clothing in rags.

"We questioned them," the soldier went on to say, "and gathered from them that they were just what they appeared to be, two young jackanapes who had joined those other hotheads at Mantes where the whole thing was planned, intending to have a little fun. Soon, however, they got scared. Fearing the consequences of their escapade, they had crawled under the diligence, hoping there to lie perdu until they could comfortably take to their heels."

"They were a sorry-looking pair," another soldier put in. "We put them down for two poltroons, not worth powder and shot, and were just wondering what we should do with them when suddenly, without the slightest warning, they turned on us like a couple of demons. Not they only, for a third fellow seemed to have sprung out of the earth behind us, and come to their aid. A giant he was."

"A giant," Raffet exclaimed, for he had suddenly remembered Citizen Chauvelin's warning about the English spy, who was tall above the average.

"Aye! A giant, with the strenth of an ox. I can only speak for myself, but all I know is that in an instant I felt an arm around my throat like a band of steel and I was hurled to the ground with a man on top of me. I was held down and bound with ropes, and my cravat was thrust into my mouth so that I could not shout for help. The next thing I remember was that I was lifted from the ground as if I were a bundle of straw, and I was tied to yonder tree, and finally my hat was pulled down over my eyes, my cravat wound round my mouth so that I just could breathe and no more; and there I remained until you, Citizen Captain, came and set me free."

The other two men had the same tale to tell. All three harked on the giant whose size and strenth they vowed were supernatural.

"He had eyes of flame, Citizen," one of them said.

"His hair emitted sparks as it stood up around his head," declared another.

"The devils," murmured Lauzet with a shudder.

"After them," excalimed the enthusiastic young Captain. "We have three horses, and that awkward diligence can't have got far."

"You haven't looked at the horses, have you, Citizen Raffet?" Chauvelin remarked dryly.

"There's nothing wrong with them, is there?" Raffet retorted and turned to look at the animals. The next moment a savage oath broke from his lips.

"The saddles," he exclaimed. "They're gone."

"And the bridles too, I think," Chauvelin retorted slowly. "Unless some of you are circus riders, I don't quite see what you can do. But you did not suppose, Citizen Captain, that those English devils would leave you the means of running after them, did you?"

No one said anything for the moment. There was indeed, nothing to say. Reproaches and vituperations would come later, punishment, too, perhaps. The soldiers and their Captain hung their heads, brooding and ashamed.

"They have a good start, curse 'em," Lauzet muttered presently.

"What could we do against those limbs of Satan?" Raffet rejoined glumly.

"You should have stayed, Citizen Captain, to guard the coach," Chauvelin retorted with a snarl.

"We heard you call for help, Citizen," Raffet protested glumly, "and one man told us what a plight you were in. We thought you were being attacked by the English spies--murdered perhaps. It was our duty to come to your assistance."

Indeed it was a sense of fatality that had fallen over these men; they felt numb, unable to think, hardly able to move.

"Epone is not more than four kilometres, Citizen," Raffet at last ventured, "and we have the lanterns."

And so the procession started trudging down the incline in the darkness and the rain, Chauvelin and Lauzet, Raffet and his corporal with a couple of troopers carrying the lanterns. Two hours later they reached Epone hungry, tired, spattered with mud up to their chins. Nothing had been seen or heard of the diligence on the way. At the posting inn the party found Raffet's courier waiting for them. He had been perplexed at not finding anyone to whom he could deliver the message, but whiled away the time of waiting in the coffee-room, where mine host plied him with excellent wine which had the effect of loosening his tongue.

He thought he was doing no harm by recounting at full length the adventures that had befallen him and his comrades. Thus the story was all over the district by the time the labourers of Epone had gone to their work the following morning, and the Chief of Section in the department of Sein et Oise, Citizen Lauzet, became the laughing-stock of the countryside, together with his wonderful friend from Paris. Late that same day, a horseless diligence which at first appeared deserted and derelict was discovered half a dozen kilometres to the north of the forest of Mézieres in the mud of the stream that runs southward into the Seine. A group of labourers going to their work were the first to see it. It had been dragged into the stream and left axle-deep in the water behind a clump of tall reeds. The labourers reported their find to a patrol of Raffet's troopers whom he had sent out to scour the countryside. The wheels had sunk deep into the mire, and it was only after a great deal of exertion that labourers and soldiers together succeeded in dragging the coach over the flat bank upon firm land.

In the interior they found three saddles and bridles, and two pairs of ragged shoes.

"Truly fate has been against us," Lauzet sighed dolefully when he heard of the find. "Satan alone knows where the English spies and the prisoners are at this hour."

"Well on their way to England," Chauvelin remarked. "I know 'em. With their long purse and their impudence they'll work their way to the coast, aided by fools and traitors. Such fools and traitors," he added under his breath, "as helped them last night in their latest adventure."

X

Little Madeleine Deseze was very shy. She had been brought by her father to pay her respects to Monseigneur le Prince de Galles, because maman was too ill to accompany her.

His Royal Highness had the child beside him on the sofa, and was questioning her about her adventures on that awful day when she and papa and maman were being taken to Paris in the diligence, and believed that they were destined to perish on the guillotine.

"I don't remember much, Monseigneur," Madeline said shyly. "Maman and I were too frightened to notice anything. There was so much shouting and fighting. It was terrible."

"Shall I tell you what happened, little one?" His Royal Highness was pleased to say.

"Your Highness, steaming punch is served in the yellow drawing-room," a pleasant voice interposed, with the assurance of privilege.

"Fie, Sir Percy," exclaimed Lady Alicia Nugget, "would you spoil His Highness's story?"

"Rather that than let good punch spoil with cooling, dear lady," Sir Percy retorted with a smile.

"Seize him and garrotte him," His Highness broke in with a laugh, "as our gallant hero and his friends seized and garrotted a Chief of Section, whatever that may be, and his powerful friend from Paris."

"Seize him! Garrotte him," cried many a pair of charmingly-rouged lips.

The next moment Sir Percy Blakeney, that prince of dandies, saw himself fettered by a number of lovely arms, while gay voices chirruping like birds cried: "The story, You Highness, we entreat. He cannot interrupt now."

"I have the story from one who knows," His Highness resumed with a smile, "and our little friend Madeleine shall hear it. It was thus: Our gallant Scarlet Pimpernel, in one of his happiest disguises as a drover from Aincourt, did with the aid of two of his followers egg on a number of young louts into the belief that they were being cheated out of the reward due to them for the capture of the noted English adventurers in their district. Full of enthusiasm and excellent wine they came on the Chief of Section who, I imagine, answers to our Chief Constable of a County, together with a gentleman from Paris who some of us have known in the past. Well, the young louts, eager for the fray, and always egged on by the drover from Aincourt, seized and garrotted those two worthy gentlemen and, throwing them into the cart, took them along with them. In the forest of Mézieres they came upon the diligence in which were our little friend Madeleine and her parents. The vehicle was ostensibly guarded by four troopers only, but our Scarlet Pimpernel and his friends had already ascertained that as a matter of fact there were half a dozen more men inside the coach, and that all were armed to the teeth. Altogther too many for three men to tackle; and since the chief motto of our band of heroes is never to attempt where they cannot succeed, stratagem had here to come to the aid of valour."

"And what did they do?" one of the ladies queried breathlessly.

"The driver from Aincourt, our gallant Scarlet Pimpernel," His Highness replied, "brought the cart to a standstill about a quarter of a mile from the crest of the hill where the diligence had come to a halt prepared for an attack. Then he allowed the louts to rush the vehicle, and a general melée ensued. But he and his two followers in the meanwhile lifted the Chief of Section and his fiend out of the cart and carried them up the road to a point from which their call for help would presently be heard. Here they left them in the ditch, but carefully took the gags from their mouths. Immediatley the two worthy gentlemen started to shout. Nor could they be blamed, for their plight was indeed pitiable. At first there was so much din in the melée at the top of the hill that their cries could not be heard. And in the meanwhile one of our gallant heroes had crept up through the thicket to the crest of the hill. Then presently the fighting ceased. The enthusiastic Captain of gendarmerie heard the cries for help, accompnied by a good deal of shouting and clash of metal carried on by the Scarlet Pimpernel himself and his second follower. Now do you see what was the result of this manoeuvre?"

"No! No!" the ladies exclaimed. And the men, no less enthusiastic and interested cried: "Will your Highness proceed?"

"The prisoners let out the secret that the Chief of Section and his friend were lying bound with ropes in a ditch, whilst one of our heroes-the one who had gone back to the scene of the fight and mingled with the crowd--was able to put in a word that no doubt those two great and worthy citizens were being attacked and murdered by the English spies. The English spies! You have no conception, ladies, what magic lies in those three words for every soldier in the Republic. They mean hopes of promotion and of big monetary reward. In an instant the enthusiastic Captain had called to some of his men to follow him, to go to the rescue of their Chief of Section, and incidentally to capture the Scarlet Pimpernel. And that was the immediate outcome of the clever stratagem. The Captain divided his forces. Three he took with him, two were left to bring the prisoners along, another had been sent as courier with a message. Three only were left to guard the diligence. The gallant Scarlet Pimpernel had made a clever calculation. Already by a small ruse he had rid himself of the cart. Under cover of the darkness his two equally gallant followers had crept underneath the vehicle, whilst he waited in the thicket for the right time to strike. I leave you to guess the rest. The three remaining soldiers taken unawares, the horses unsaddled, the diligence finally driven down the hill by our hero, whilst inside the coach his two followers were doing their best to assure little Madeleine and her parents that all was well. Soon they abandoned the cumbersome diligence and took to the road. That part of the story is perhaps less exciting though no less heroic. The Scarlet Pimpernel has nineteen followers; it was their task to be on the road, to aid the fugitives with disguises, to help in the great task of reaching the coach in safety.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story," His Highness concluded, rising. "Let us go and drink some of my friend Blakeney's excellent punch. But after we have drunk our toast for the King, let us raise our glasses to our national hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel."

With a courtly bow and a smile he offered his arm to Marguerite Blakeney who, with a glistening tear in her beautiful eyes, gave His Highness a glance of gratitude.

"Are you coming, Blakeney?" the Prince said with a merry laugh. "You must drink our toast, too, remember. To the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel!"

All the ladies laughed, partly with gaiety, but also with excitement. Then with one accord they cried: "Come and drink, Sir Percy, to the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel."

"I'll come, dear ladies," Sir Percy said with a sigh, "since His Highness commands, but you'll forgive me if I cannot drink to that demmed, elusive shadow."

Laughing still, the ladies cried: "Fie, Sir Percy! Jealous again?"

And little Madeleine, with her great childish gaze fixed upon the handsome English gentleman, cried in her piping little voice: "Fie, Sir Percy!"

CHAPTER II – THE PRINCIPAL WITNESS

I

Those who knew the widow Lesueur declared that she was quite incapable of the villainous and spiteful action which landed poor Joséphine Palmier in the dock for theft. This may or may not be so. Citoyenne Lesueur had many friends, seeing that she was well-to-do and in good odour with all the Committees and Sections that tyrannized over humble folk in a manner which recalled the very worst days of the old régime, to the distinct advantage of the latter. Moreover, Achille Lesueur was a fine man, with a distinct way with the women. He had a glossy black moustache and flashing dark eyes, since he was a true son of the South, rather inclined to be quarrelsome; and he had very decided views on politics, had Achille. You should hear him singing the Carmagnole: "Ca ira! Ca ira!" and "Les aristos à la lanterne!" He did it so lustily, it verily sent a thrill all down your spine.

He was for destroying everything that pertained to the old order: titles, of course, and private ownership of every sort and kind, and the lives of all those who did not agree with him. Land must belong to the nation, and all that grew on the land and was produced under the earth or brought out of the sea. Everything must belong to the people: that was Achille's creed. Houses and fields and cattle and trees and women. Oh, above all, women! Women were the property of the nation.

That was the grand new creed, which had lately been propounded at Achille's Club--the Cordeliers. And everybody knows that what the Cordeliers discuss to-day becomes law by decree of the National Assembly the day after to-morrow.

Now, there were many who averred that Achille Lesueur became a devotee of that creed only after Joséphine Palmier, his mother's maid-of-all-work, disdained his amorous advances. Joséphine was pretty and had the dainty appearance which, in these grand days of perfect equality, proclaimed past sojourn in the house of a whilom aristocrat--as a menial, probably. Bah! Achille, whenever he tried to question Joséphine about the past and received no satisfactory answer, would spit and leer; for he had a wholesome contempt for all aristocrats and bourgeois and capitalists, and people of all sorts who had more money than he--Achilles Lesueur, the only son of his mother--happened to have at the moment.

Did I mention the fact that the widow Lesueur was very well-to-do, that she owned an excellent little business for the sale of wines, both wholesale and retail, and that Achille's creed that everything should belong to the people did not go to the length of allowing, say, Hector and Alcibiade, to help themselves to a stray bottle or so of the best Roussillon which happened to be standing invitingly on his mother's counter?

How he explained this seeming discrepancy in his profession of faith I do not pretend to say. Perhaps he did not consider it a discrepancy, and drew a firm line between the ownership of the people and the dishonesty of individuals. Be that as it may, Achille Lesueur had made up his mind that he was in love with Joséphine Palmier and that he would honour her by asking her to become his wife.

She refused--refused categorically and firmly; gave as an excuse that she could give him no love in return. No love, to him--Achille--with the flashing eyes, the long maternal purse, and the irresistible ways? It was unthinkable! The wench was shy, ignorant, stupid, despite her airs and graces of an out-at-elbows aristocrat. Achille persevered in his suit, enlisted his mother's help, who indeed could not imagine how any girl in her five senses could throw away such a splendid chance. Joséphine Palmier had looked half-starved when first she applied for the situation of maid-of-all-work in the widow Lesueur's house. She had great purple rings under her eyes and hands almost transparently thin; her lips looked pinched with cold, and her hair was lank and lustreless.

Now she still looked pale and was not over-plump; but the Citizeness Lesueur told all her neighbours that the wench had a voracious appetite, very difficult to satisfy, and that in accordance with the national decree, she was being treated as a friend of the house.

And now this wanton ingratitude! Joséphine Palmier, a waif out of the gutter, refusing the hand of Achille, his mother's only son, in marriage!

Ah, ça! Was the baggage perchance an aristocrat in disguise? One never knew these days! Half-starved aristocrats were glad enough to share the bread of honest citizens in any capacity; and it was a well-known fact that the ci-devant Comtesse d'Aurillac had been cook to Citizen Louvet before she was sent as a traitor and a spy to the guillotine.

II

Achille was persistent, and Joséphine obstinate. Citoyenne veuve Lesueur, whilst watching the growth of her son's passion, waxed exasperated.

Then the crisis came.

Achille's passion reached its climax, and the widow Lesueur's anger no longer knew bounds. The baggage must go. Had anyone ever seen such wanton wickedness? First to encourage Achille's attentions--oh, yes! the whilom aristo had from the first made eyes at the rich and handsome son of the house. Now, no doubt, she had some traitor waiting for her somewhere, or even perhaps one of those abominable English spies who literally infested Paris these days, intriguing and suborning traitors and seducing the daughters of honest patriots, so as to point with hypocritical finger afterwards at the so-called immoral tendencies of this glorious revolution. Oh, no! Citoyenne Lesueur did not mince matters.

"Take your rags and chattels with you, my wench, and go!"

And Joséphine, tearful, humiliated, anxious for the future of pauvre maman, who was quietly starving in a garret whilst her daughter earned a precarious livelihood for both as a household drudge, put together her few tiny possessions--mere relics of former happy times--and went out of the Citoyenne Lesueur's inhospitable doors, followed by the latter's curses and jeers--Achille having been got safely out of the way for the occasion.

This had occurred in the late afternoon of the 6th Floréal, which corresponds with the 25th day of April of more ordinary calendars.

On the morning of the 7th, which was Saturday, Citoyenne Lesueur came downstairs to the shop as usual, a little after six, took down the shutters, and started to put the place tidy for the day's work; when, chancing to look on the drawer which contained the takings of the week, she saw at once that it had been tampered with, the lock forced, the woodwork scratched.

With hands trembling with anxiety, the worthy widow fumbled for her keys, found them, opened the drawer, and there was confronted with the full evidence of her misfortune. Two hundred francs had been abstracted from the till--oh! the citoyenne was quite positive as to that, for she had tied that money up separately with a piece of string and set it in a special corner of the drawer. As for the baggage--eh! was not her guilt patent to everyone?

To begin with, she had been dismissed for bad conduct the evening before, turned out of the house for immoral ways, with which Citoyenne Lesueur had only put up all this while out of pity and because the girl was so poor and so friendless. Then there was the testimony of Achille. He had returned from his Club at ten o'clock that evening. He was positive as to the time, because the clock of the Hôtel de Ville was striking the hour at the very moment when he saw Joséphine Palmier outside his mother's shop. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, and carried a bundle under her arm. He--Achille---could not understand what the girl might be doing there, out in the streets at that hour, for he knew nothing of the quarrel between her and his mother.

He spoke to her, it seems, called her by name; but she did not respond, and hurried by in the direction of the river. Achille was very much puzzled at this incident, but the hour being so late he did not think of waking his mother and telling her of this strange rencontre, nor did he think of going into the shop to see if everything was in order. What would you? One does not always think of everything!

But there the matter stood, and the money was gone. And Citoyenne veuve Lesueur called in the Chief Commissary of the Section and gave her testimony, and attested as a patriot and a citizen against Joséphine, known to her as Palmier. That this was an assumed name, the worthy widow was now quite positive. That Joséphine was nought but an aristo in disguise looked more and more likely every moment.

The citoyenne recalled many an incident. Name of a name, what a terrible affair! If only she had not been possessed of such a commiserating heart, she would have turned the baggage out into the street long ago.

But now, what further testimony did any Commissary want, who is set at his post by the Committee of Public Safety for the protection of the life and property of honest citizens and for the punishment of bourgeois and aristos--traitors all--who are for ever intriguing against both?

As for Achille, he attested and deposed, fumed, raged, and swore; would have struck the Citizen Commissary had he dared, when the latter cast doubt upon his--Achille's--testimony; suggested that the Club of the Cordeliers was known for its generous libations, and that at that hour of the night any of its members might be pardoned for not recognizing even a pretty wench in the dark. And the Rue des Enfers was always a very dark street, the Citizen Commissary concluded indulgently.

Achille was beside himself with rage. Imagine his word being doubted! What was this glorious Revolution coming to, he desired to know? In the end, he vowed that Joséphine Palmier was both a thief and an aristocrat, but that he--Achille Lesueur, the most soulful and selfless patriot the Republic had ever known--was ready to exercise the rights conferred upon him by the recent decree of the National Convention and take the wench for his wife; whereupon she would automatically become his property, and, as the property of the aforesaid soulful and selfless patriot, be no longer amenable to the guillotine.

Achille had inherited that commiserating heart from his mother apparently; and the Chief Commissary of the Section, himself a humane and a just man, if somewhat weak, greatly approved of this solution to his difficulties. Between ourselves, he did not believe very firmly in Joséphine's guilt, but would not have dared to dismiss her without sending her before the Tribunal lest this indulgence on his part be construed into trafficking with aristos.

III

All would then have been well, but that Joséphine Palmier, from the depths of the prison where she had been incarcerated for three days, absolutely refused to be a party to this accommodating arrangement. She refused to be white-washed by the amorous hands of Achille Lesueur, declared that she was innocent and the victim of an abominable conspiracy hatched by mother and son in order to inveigle her into a hated marriage.

Thus the matter became very serious. From a mere question of theft, the charge had grown into one of false accusation, of conspiracy against two well-known and highly respected citizens. The Citizen Chief Commissary scratched his head in uttermost perplexity. The trouble was that he did not believe that the accusation was a false one. In his own mind, he was quite certain that the widow and her precious son had adopted this abominable means of bringing the recalcitrant girl to the arms of a hated lover.

But, name of a name! what is a Commissary to do? Being a wise man, Citizen Commissary Bourgoin referred the whole matter to a higher authority: in other words, he sent the prisoner to be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Tribunal Extraordinaire, where five judges and a standing jury would pronounce whether Joséphine Palmier was a traitor, an aristo, as well as a thief, and one who has trafficked with English spies for the destruction of the Republic.

And here the unfortunate girl is presently arraigned, charged with a multiplicity of crimes, any one of which will inevitably lead her to the guillotine.

Citizen Fouquier-Tinville, the Attorney-General, has the case in hand. Citizen Dumas, the Judge-President, fixes the accused with his pale, threatening eye. The narrow court is crowded to the ceiling. Somehow, the affair has excited public interest, and Achille Lesueur and his widowed mother, being well-to-do sellers of good wine, have many friends.

Attorney-General Fouquier-Tinville has read the indictment. The accused stands in the dock facing the five judges, with a set, determined look on her face. She wears a plain grey frock with long, narrow sleeves down to her pale, white hands, which accentuate the slimness of her appearance. The white kerchief round her shoulders and the cap which conceals her fair hair are spotlessly clean. Maman has carefully washed and ironed them herself and brought them to Joséphine in the prison, so that the child should look neat before her judges.

"Accused, what answer do you give to the indictment?" the Judge-President questions sternly.

"I am innocent," the girl replies firmly. "I was not in the Rue des Enfers at the hour when yonder false witness declares that he spoke with me."

Achille, who sits on a bench immediately below the jury, devours the girl with his eyes. Every now and again he sighs, and his red, spatulated hands are clasped compulsively together. At Joséphine's last words, spoken in a tone of unutterable contempt, a crimson flush spreads over his face, and his teeth--white and sharp as those of some wild, feline creature--bury themselves in his fleshy lower lip. His mother, who sits beside him, demure and consequential in sober black with open-work mittens on her thin, wrinkled hands, gives Achille a warning look and a scarce-perceptible nudge. It were not wise to betray before these judges feelings of which they might disapprove.

"I am innocent!" the girl insists. "I do not know why the Citizeness Lesueur should try and fasten such an abominable crime on me."

Here the Attorney-General takes her up sharply.

"The Citizeness Lesueur cannot be accused of trying to make you out a thief, since her only son is prepared to make you his wife."

"I would rather die accused of the vilest crimes known upon this earth," she retorts firmly, "than wed a miserable liar and informer!"

Achille utters a cry of rage not unlike that of a wild beast. Again his mother has to restrain him. But the public is in sympathy with him. Imagine that pitiful aristo scorning the love of so fine a patriot!

The Attorney-General is waxing impatient.

"If you are innocent," he says tartly, "prove it. The Revolutionary Committee of your Section has declared you to be a Suspect, and ordered your arrest as such. The onus to prove your innocence now rests with you."

"At ten o'clock on the night of the 6th Floréal, I was with my mother," the girl insists calmly, "in the Rue Christine--at the opposite end of the city to where the Rue des Enfers is situated."

"Prove it," reiterates the Attorney-General imperturbably.

"My mother can testify--" the girl retorts.

But Citizen Fouquier-Tinville shrugs his shoulders.

"A mother is not a witness," he says curtly. "Mothers have been known to condone their children's crimes. The law does not admit the testimony of a mother, a father, a husband, or a wife. Was anyone else at the Rue Christine that night--one who saw you, and can swear that you could not possibly have been at the Rue des Enfers at the hour to which the principal witness hath attested?"

But this time the girl is dumb. Her sensitive lips are drawn closely together, as if they would guard a secret which must remain inviolate.

"Well?" the Attorney-General goes on with a sneer. "You do not reply. Where is the witness who can testify that you were in the Rue Christine, at the other end of Paris, at the hour when the principal witness swears that he saw you in the Rue des Enfers?"

Again the accused gives no reply. And now it is the turn of the five judges to become insistent first, then impatient, and finally very angry. Every one of them has, in turn, put the same proposition to the accused:

"You say that the principal witness could not have seen you in the Rue des Enfers at ten o'clock of the 6th Floréal, because at that hour you were in the Rue Christine. Well, prove it!"

And every one of them has received the same mute answer: an obstinate silence, the sight o a face pale and drawn, and a glance from large, purple-rimmed eyes that have a haunting, terrified look in them now.

In the end, the Judge-President sums up the case and orders the jury to "get themselves convinced". And this they must do by deliberating and voting audibly in full hearing of the public; for such is the law to-day.

For awhile thereupon, nothing is heard in the court save that audible murmur from the stand where the jury are "getting themselves convinced". The murmur itself is confused; only from time to time a word, a broken phrase, penetrates to the ear of the public or to that of the unfortunate girl who is awaiting her doom. Such words as "obvious guilt", or "no doubt a traitor", "nought but an aristo", "the guillotine", occur most frequently; especially "the guillotine". It is such a simple solver of problems, such an easy way to set all doubts at rest!

The accused stands in the dock facing the judges. She does not glance in the direction of the jury. She seems like a statue fashioned of alabaster, a ghost-like harmony in grey and white, her kerchief scarce whiter than her cheeks.

Then suddenly there is a sensation. Through the hum of the jury "debating audibly", a raucous voice is raised from out the body of the public, immediately behind the dock.

"Name of a dog! Why, Cyrano lodges at No. 12, Rue Christine. He was there on the evening of the 6th. Eh, Cyrano? En avant, my ancient!"

"Cyrano, en avant!" The chorus is taken up by several men in ragged shirts and blouses, to the accompaniment of ribald laughter and one or two coarse jokes.

The jury cease their "audible deliberation". Remember that this Tribunal Extraordinaire is subject to no law forms. Judges and jury are here to administer justice as they understand it, not as tradition--the hated traditions of the old régime--had it in the past. They are here principally in order to see that the Republic suffers no detriment through the actions of her citizens; and there is no one to interfere with them as to how they accomplish this laudable end.

This time, all of them being puzzled by the strangeness of the affair--the singular dearth of witnesses in such a complicated case--they listen to the voice of the public: vox populi suits their purpose for the nonce.

So, at an order from the Judge-President, someone is hauled out of the crowd, pushed forward into the witness-box, hustled and bundled like a bale of goods: a great, hulking fellow with muscular arms and lank, fair hair covered with grime. He is a cobbler by trade, apparently, for he wears a leather apron and generally exhales an odour of tanned leather. He has a huge nose, tip-tilted and of a rosy-purple hue; a perpetual tiny drop of moisture hangs on his left nostril, whilst another glistens unceasingly in his right eye. His appearance in the witness-box is greeted by a round of applause from his friends.

"Cyrano!" they shout gaily, and clap their hands. "Vivat, Cyrano!"

He draws his hand slowly across his nose and smiles, a shy, self-deprecating smile which sits quaintly on one so powerfully built.

"They call me Cyrano, the comrades," he says in a gentle, indulgent voice, addressing the Judge-President, "because of my nose. It seems there was once a great citizen of France called Cyrano, who had a very large nose, and--"

"Never mind about that," the Judge-President breaks in impatiently. "Tell us what you know."

"I don't know much, Citizen," the man replies with a doleful sigh. "The comrades, they will have their little game."

"What is your name, and where do you lodge?"

"My name is Georges Gradin, and I lodge at No. 12, Rue Christine."

He fumbles with one hand inside his shirt, for he wears no coat, and out of that mysterious receptacle he presently produces his certificatory Carte de Civisme--his identity card, what?--which the sergeant of the Revolutionary guard, who stands beside the witness-box, snatches away from him and hands up to the Judge-President.

Apparently the document is all in order, for the Judge returns it to the witness; then demands curtly:

"You know the widow Palmier?"

"Yes, Citizen Judge," replies the witness. "She lives on the top floor and my shop is down below. On the night of the 5th, I was in the lodge of the Citizen Concierge at ten o'clock when someone rang the front-door bell. The concierge pulled the communicating-cord and a man came in and walked very quickly past the lodge on his way to the back staircase; but not before I had seen his face and recognized him as one who has frequently visited the widow Palmier."

"Who was it?" queries the Judge-President.

"I don't know his name, Citizen Judge," Gradin replies slowly, "but I know him for a cursed aristocrat, one who, if I and the comrades had our way, would have been shorter by a head long ago."

He still speaks in that same shy, self-deprecating way, and there is no responsive glitter in his blue eyes as he voices this cold-blooded, ferocious sentiment. The judges suddenly sit up straight in their chairs, as if moved by a common spring. They had not expected these ultra-revolutionary terrorist opinions from the meek-looking cobbler with the watery eyes and the huge, damp nose. But the Judge-President figuratively smacks his lips, as does also Attorney-General Fouquier-Tinville. They have both already recognized the type of man with whom they have to deal: one of your ferocious felines, gentle in speech, timid in manner and self-deprecating; but one who has sucked in bloodthirsty Marat's theories of vengeance and of murder, by every pore of his grimy skin, and hath remained more vengeful far than Danton, more relentless than Robespierre.

"So the principal witness in this mysterious case is an aristo?" the Judge-President puts in thoughtfully. "Where does he live?"

"That I do not know, Citizen Judge," Gradin replies in his meek, simple way. "But I can find him," he adds, and solemnly wipes his nose on his shirt-sleeve.

"How?" queries the Judge.

"That is my affair, Citizen," says Gradin imperturbably. "Mine, and the comrades!" Then he turns to the body of the court, there where in a compact mass of humanity a number of grimy faces are seen, craned upwards in order to catch full sight of the man in the witness-box. "Eh, comrades?" he says to them. "We can find the aristo, what?"

There is a murmur of assent, and a reiteration of the ribald joke of awhile ago. The Judge-President raps upon his desk with the palm of his hand, demands silence peremptorily. When order is restored, he turns once more to the witness.

"Your affair!" he says curtly. "Your affair! That is not enough. The law cannot accept the word of all and sundry who may wish to help in its administration, however well-intentioned they may be; and it is the work of the Committee of Public Safety to find such traitors and aristos as are a danger to the State. You and your comrades are not competent to deal with so serious a matter."

"Not competent, Citizen Judge?" Georges Gradin queries meekly. "Then I pray you look at the accused and see if we are not competent to find the aristo whom she is trying to shield."

He gave a short, dry laugh, and pointed a long, stained finger at the unfortunate girl in the dock. All eyes were immediately turned to her. Indeed, it required no deep knowledge of psychology to interpret accurately the look of horror and of genuine fear which literally distorted Joséphine Palmier's pale, emaciated face. And now, when she saw the eyes of the five judges fixed sternly upon her, a hoarse cry escaped her trembling lips.

"It is false!" she cried, and clung to the bar of the dock with both hands as if she were about to fall. "The man is lying! No one came that evening to maman's lodgings. There was no one there but maman and I."

"Give me and the comrades till to-morrow, Citizen Judge," Gradin interposed meekly; "and we'll have the aristo here, to prove who it is that is lying now."

The Moniteur, of the 10th Floréal, year 1, which gives a detailed account of that memorable sitting of the Tribunal Extraordinaire, tells us that after this episode there was a good deal of confusion in the court. The jury, once more ordered by the judges to deliberate and to vote audibly, decided that the principal witness on behalf of the accused must appear before the court on the morrow at three o'clock of the afternoon; failing which, Joséphine Palmier would be convicted of perjury and conspiracy directed against the persons of Citizeness veuve Lesueur and her son Achille, a crime which entailed the death sentence.

Gradin stepped down from the witness-box, a hero before the public. He was soon surrounded by his friends and led away in triumph.

As for Achille and his mother, they had listened to Georges Gradin's evidence with derision rather than with wrath. No doubt they felt that whichever way the affair turned new they would have ample revenge for all the disdain they had suffered at the hands of the unfortunate Joséphine.

The Moniteur concludes its account of the episode by the bald statement that the accused was taken back to the cells in a state of unconsciousness.

IV

The public was on tenterhooks about the whole affair. The latter had the inestimable charm which pertains to the unusual. Here was something new--something different to the usual tableau of the bourgeois or the aristocrat arraigned for spying or malpractices against the safety of the Republic; to the usual proud speech from the accused, defying the judges who condemned; to the usual brief indictment and swift sentence, followed by the daily spectacle of the tumbril dragging a few more victims to the guillotine.

Here, there was mystery; a secret jealously guarded by the accused, who apparently preferred to risk her neck rather than drag some unknown individual--an aristo evidently, and her lover--before the tribunal, even in the mere capacity of witness.

And so the court is crowded on this second day of Joséphine's trial, with working-men and shopmen, with women and some children. A sight, what? This girl, half-aristocrat, half-maid-of-all-work! And the handsome Achille--how will he take the whole affair? He has been madly in love with the accused, so they say.

And will Cyrano produce the principal witness as he promised that he would do? A fine fellow, that Cyrano, and hater of aristos! Name of a name, how he hated them!

The court is crowded; the judges waiting. The accused, more composed than yesterday, stands in the dock, grasping the rail with her thin, white hands, her whole slender body slightly bent forward, as if in an attitude of tense expectancy.

Anon, Georges Gradin appears upon the scene, is greeted with loud guffaws and calls of "Vivat, Cyrano!" He is pushed along, jostled, bundled forward, till he finds himself once more in the witness-box, confronting the Judge-President, who demands sternly:

"The witness you promised to find--the aristocrat--where is he?"

"Gone, Citizen Judge!" Gradin exclaims, and throws up his arms with a gesture of desperation. "Gone; the canaillee scoundrel! The traitor!"

"Gone? Name of a dog, what do you mean?"

It is Fouquier-Tinville who actually voices the question. But the Judge-President has echoed it by bringing his heavy fist down with a crash upon his desk. The other judges, too, have asked the question by gesture, exclamation, every token of wrath. And the same query has been re-echoed by a hundred throats, rendered dry and raucous with excitement.

"Gone? Where? How? What do you mean?"

And Gradin, meek, ferocious, with great hairy hands clawing the rail of the witness-box, explains.

"We scoured Paris all last night, the comrades and I," he begins, in short, halting sentences. "We knew one or two places the aristo was wont to haunt--the Café de la Montagne, the Club Républicain, the Bibliothèque de la Nation. That is how we meant to find him. We went in bands, two and three of us at a time. We did not know where he lodged; but we knew we should find him at one of those places--then we would tell him that his sweetheart was in peril--we knew we could get him here---But he has gone--gone; the scoundrel, the canaille! They told us at the Club Républicain he had been gone five days…got a forged passport through the agency of those abominable English spies--the Scarlet Pimpernel, what? It was all arranged the night of the 6th, when he went to the Rue Christine, and the accused and her mother were to have joined him the next day. But the accusation was launched by that time and the Palmiers, mother and daughter, were detained in the city. But he has gone! The thief! The coward!"

He turned to the crowd, amongst whom his friends were still conspicuous, stretched out his long, hairy arm, and shook his fist at an imaginary foe.

"But me and the comrades will be even with him yet! Aye, even!" he reiterated, with that sleek and ferocious accent which had gained him the confidence of the judges. "And in a manner that will punish him worse than even the guillotine could have done. Eh, comrades?"

The Judge-President shrugs his shoulders. The whole thing has been a failure. The accused might just as well have been condemned the day before and much trouble would have been saved.

Attorney-General Fouquier-Tinville alone rejoices. His indictment of the accused would now stand in its pristine simplicity: "Joséphine Palmier, accused of conspiring against the property and good name of Citizeness Lesueur and her son." A crime against the safety of the Republic. The death sentence to follow as a natural sequence. Fouquier-Tinville cares nothing about a witness who cannot be found. He is not sure that he ever believed in the latter's existence, and hardly listens to Georges Gradin, still muttering with sleek ferocity: "I'll be even with the aristo!"

The Judge-President, weary, impatient, murmurs mechanically: "How?"

Georges Gradin thoughtfully wipes his nose, looks across at the accused with a leer on his face, and a sickly smile upon his lips.

"I'll marry the accused myself," he says, with a shy, self-deprecating shrug of his broad shoulders. "I must be even with the aristo."

Everyone looks at the accused. She appears ready to swoon. Achille Lesueur has pushed his way forward from out the crowd at the back.

"You fool!" he shouts, in a voice half-strangled with rage. "She has refused to marry me!"

"The law takes no count of a woman's whim," Gradin rejoins simply. "She is the property of the State. Is that not so, comrades?"

He is fond of appealing to his friends: does so at every turn of events; and they stand by him with moral support, which consists in making a great deal of noise and in shouting "Vivat, Cyrano!" at every opportunity. They are a rough-looking crowd, these comrades of Gradin: mechanics, artisans, citizens with or without employment, of the kind that are not safely tampered with these days. They are the rulers of France.

Now they have ranged themselves against Achille Lesueur: call him "bourgeois" to his face, and "capitalist".

"The aristo shall wed Gradin, not Achille! Vivat, Cyrano!" they shout.

Georges Gradin is within his rights. By decree of the Convention, a female aristocrat becomes the property of the State. Is Joséphine Palmier an aristocrat?

"Yes!" asserts Gradin. "Her name is de Lamoignan. Her father was a ci-devant--an aristo--of the worst type."

"If she marries anyone, she marries me!" asserts Achille.

"We'll see about that!" comes in quick response from Gradin. "A moi, comrades!"

And before the judge or jury, or anyone there for that matter, can recover from the sudden shock of surprise, Gradin, with three strides of his long legs, is over the bar of the dock, in the dock itself the next moment, and has seized Joséphine Palmier and thrown her across his broad shoulders as if she were a bale of goods. To clinch the bargain, he imprints a smacking kiss upon her cheek. Josephine Palmier's head rolls almost inert upon her shoulders, white and death-like save for the crimson glow on one side of her face, there where her conquering captor has set his seal of possession. Gradin gives a long, coarse laugh.

"She does not care for me, it seems," he says, in his usual self-deprecating way. "But it will come."

The comrades laugh. "Vivat, Cyrano!" And they close in around their friend, who once more, with one stride of his long limbs, is over the bar of the dock, at the back of it this time, and is at once surrounded by a yelling, gesticulating crowd.

There is indescribable confusion. Vainly does the Attorney-General shout himself hoarse, vainly does the Judge-President rap with a wooden mallet against his desk. Everyone shouts, everyone gesticulates; most people laugh. Such a droll fellow, that Cyrano, with his big nose! There he is, just by the doorway now, still surrounded by "the comrades". But his huge frame towers above the crowd, and across his broad shoulder, still slung like a bale of goods, lies the unconscious body of Joséphine Palmier.

In the doorway he turns. His glance sweeps over the court, above the massed heads of the throng; and suddenly he flings something white and weighty across the court. It lands on the desk of the Judge-President. Then, using the inert body of the girl as a battering-ram wherewith to forge himself a way through the fringe of the crowd, he begins to move. His strength, his swiftness, above all his authority, carry him through. In less than ten seconds he has scattered the crowd and has gained ten paces on the foremost amongst them. The five judges and the jury are left gasping; and the Judge-President's trembling hands mechanically finger the missile, whilst with every second the pseudo-Gradin has forged ahead, striding with long limbs that know neither hesitation nor slackness. He knows his way about this Palace of Justice as no one else does probably in the whole of Paris. In and out of corridors, through guarded doors and down winding stairs, he goes with an easy, swinging stride, never breaking into a run. To those who stare at him with astonishment or who try to stop him, he merely shouts over his shoulder:

"A female aristocrat! The spoils of the nation! The Judge-President has just given her to me. A fine wife, what?"

Some of them know Gradin the cobbler by sight. A ferocious fellow with whom it is not safe to interfere; and name of a name, what a patriot!

As for "the comrades", they have been merged with the crowd, swallowed up, disappeared. Who shall recognize them amongst so many?

Less than five minutes later, there is a coming and a going, and a rushing; orders given; shouts and curses flying from end to end, from court to corridor. The whole machinery of the executive of the Committee of Public Safety is set in motion to find traces of a giant cobbler, carrying a fainting aristocrat upon his shoulders.

The Judge-President has at last mastered the contents of that missile flung at him by the cobbler across the court. It consists of a scrap of paper, scrawled over with a doggerel rhyme and a signature drawn in red, representing a small, five-petalled flower in shape like a Scarlet Pimpernel.

But of "Cyrano" there is not a trace, nor yet of half a dozen of his "comrades" who had been so conspicuous in the court when first he had snatched the aristocrat Joséphine Palmier from the dock.

V

Maître Rochet, the distinguished advocate who emigrated to England in the year 1793, has left some interesting memoirs, wherein he gives an account of the last days which he spent in Paris, when his fiancée, Mademoiselle Joséphine de Lamoignan, driven by extreme poverty to do the roughest kitchen work for a spiteful employer, was accused by the latter of petty theft, and stood in the dock under the charge. He knew nothing of her plight, for she had never told him that she had been driven to work under an assumed name; until one evening he received the visit of a magnificent English milord, whom he subsequently knew in England as Sir Percy Blakeney.

In a few very brief words, Sir Percy told him the history of the past two days and of the iniquitous accusation and trial which had ended so fortunately for Mademoiselle de Lamoignan, and for her mother. The two ladies were now quite safe under the protection of a band of English gentlemen, who would see them safely across France and thence to England.

Sir Percy had come to propose that Maître Rochet should accompany them.

It was not until the distinguished advocate met his fiancée again that he heard the full and detailed account of her sufferings and of the heroism and audacity of the English adventurer who had brought her and her mother safely through perils innumerable to the happy haven of a home in England.

CHAPTER III – THE STRANGER FROM

PARIS

I

What had happened was this:

On the night of the 16th Nivôse a band of those English adventurers who were known throughout the country as the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had made an armed attack on the local commissariat at Limours. They had presented pistols at the heads of the police officers, had gagged and pinioned them, whilst the rest of their gang had ransacked the commissariat, and duly found the half-dozen aristos who had been apprehended that very day on a charge of counter-revolutionary sentiments openly expressed, and were to have been transferred to Paris the next day for trial and, presumably, summary condemnation and execution. They were women for the most part, these aristos, and there were a couple of children amongst them. Anyway, those English spies got clear away with them, vanished into the night after their coup, like so many spooks carrying their living booty upon their saddlebows.

How they ever managed to elude the night patrols on the main roads, or, in fact, what became of them at all after their daring raid, remained a baffling mystery. But the feelings of the population of Limours were positively outraged by this impudent act of aggression. Hitherto the Scarlet Pimpernel, well known in Paris and in the great cities as the most virulent and most active enemy of the Republic, the most able and most daring of the thousands of English spies who infested the country, was at Limours nothing but a name: that of a man endowed with supernatural attributes, in whom only the superstitious and the ignorant believed; but, in truth, just a legend which caused the sophisticated and wise to smile with lofty incredulity.

"Let that elusive personage but show his face in Limours," those wiseacres would say, "and we would very soon show him that we are not so easily hoodwinked as all those clever people in Paris, or Nantes, or Boulogne."

Thus the raid on the commissariat came as a veritable thunderclap, scarce to be believed.

Citizen Campon, the chief commissary of police, sent urgent messages to Paris: "What am I to do?" and "I am at my wit's ends," alternated with "In the name of--er--everything, send me help." In fact, the poor man was in despair. He felt that "suspension" was in the air and talk of "dereliction of duty." Between this and a positive accusation of treason was but a very short step these days. Heaven and a wayward fate alone knew when the unfortunate commissary would be made to take it. Fortunately for him, he happened to have a friend in Paris who had at one time been a man of considerable influence on the Committee of Public Safety. This man had of late somewhat fallen from this high estate, but he was still credited with being on intimate terms with Maximilien Robespierre and one or two of the more prominent orators in the Convention. His name was Chauvelin, and it was to him that Campon turned in his distress.

Citizen Chauvelin's advice (sent to his friend in Limours by special courier) may be summarized thus:

My good friend:

I know that cursed Scarlet Pimpernel and his ways to my cost. The more impossible or perilous the adventure, the more certain is he to embark upon it. Judging from his recent coup, he appears to have confederates in Limours. At any rate, he is, I imagine, still in touch with your township. My advice to you is this: secure a pack of aristos, the more innocent, the more pathetic, the better, two or three women, young, if possible, a batch of children. Give it out that you have them incarcerated in any house or place you choose to name, and that you propose to send the whole pack to Paris, or elsewhere, for trial on any given day. Then you may take what precautions you choose and calmly await events. As sure as I am sitting here writing this with mine own hand, as certain as is my hatred for that abominable English intriguer, he will make an attempt to get those aristos out of your clutches. Then 'tis for you to see that he fails, and that you catch him in the attempt.

Unfortunately, Citizen Chauvelin was not permitted to journey to Limours in order to be of active assistance to his friend. Rumours anent the activities of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel in Paris itself necessitated his remaining in the city. Had he been allowed to go…

But I am anticipating.

Suffice it is to say that the Committee of Public Safety, realizing the need of the moment at Limours, as well as in Paris, sent a sealed letter then and there to Citizen Campon, assuring him that within the next four-and-twenty hours Citizen Mayet, one of the ablest men known to the sectional committees for the tracking down criminals and the detection of spies, would journey to Limours in order to take in hand and carry through a plan for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

In the meanwhile, Chief Commissary Campon was desired to act on the advice given him by Citizen Chauvelin.

This Campon did, and after reflection decided on the arrest of a woman named Mailly, widow of a late officer of the Royal Guard, of her sister who had been abbess in a local, now derelict, convent, and of her two children, Pauline, aged sixteen, and André, a lad of eleven. A lovely lot, in truth, to serve as a bait for the adventurous passion of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

To these arrests Citizen Mayet, on his arrival two days later, gave unqualified approval.

"A lovely lot," he agreed, "as you say. Where have you put them?"

"I have them here in the commissariat," Campon replied, "and am ready to make any arrangements which you might suggest."

"The commissariat," Mayet agreed, "will do very well for the moment. Give it out as publicly as possible--but not obtrusively, remember--that the prisoners will be transferred to the tribunal of Chartres on any given day you choose to name. This will give that cursed English spy time to make his plans, whilst we, on the other hand, can make ours for the laying of him by the heels."

And Citizen Mayet rubbed his huge, coarse hands complacently together. He was a large, brawny, muscular fellow whose clenched fist looked fit to fell on ox. He explained to Citizen Campon that at one time he had been a butcher by trade, but that since the severe shortage of meat he had found it more profitable to serve one or other of the committees as a sleuth-hound and denouncer of counter-revolutionaries. He was apparently of a very cheerful disposition, for his loud guffaws and violent outbursts of hilarity, mostly at his own jokes, would shake the walls of the old commissariat to their very foundations.

Campon had at once conceived the greatest possible admiration for the newcomer. He appeared so invariably cheerful, and so very sure of himself, and withal so marvellously ferocious, like a huge man-eating tiger---three qualities not one of which did the poor commissary himself possess. He himself had always been considered an able, cool-headed, reliable man. Born at Limours, he and his family before him, who had kept the local cookshop for three generations, were as well known in the district as the proverbial town pump. But just now Citizen Campon was little else than a bundle of nerves. He knew that his head, of which he was both fond and proud, was at stake in this plan for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

II

In accordance with Mayet's orders it was at once given out quite publicly that the prisoners, who were still confined in the commissariat, would be transferred the very next day to the tribunal at Chartres.

"No doubt," the jovial ex-butcher had declared with unruffled cheerfulness, "the Scarlet Pimpernel has evolved some scheme by now for wresting the aristos out of our clutches, whether from the commissariat or on the road to Chartres remains to be seen, but the latter is the more probable."

The commissariat, an isolated building standing at an angle of the principle street in Limours, was being guarded day and night, but to make assurance doubly sure, Mayet had asked for, and obtained, the assistance of half a company of the 61st Regiment, which was stationed at Chartres, with a sergeant and two corporals. These men were to furnish the escort for the journey between Limours and Chartres, which was duly arranged to begin at ten o'clock of the following day.

At that hour and on that day everything was ready for the start. The aristos were duly packed like so many cattle in an old market cart to which a couple of heavy artillery horses were harnessed, and on the front board of which sat one of the corporals belonging to the 61st regiment would form the escort, whilst Chief Commissary Campon had arranged to ride at the head of the procession and Citizen Mayet, with two rough fellows whom he had brought with him from Paris as aides-de-camp, would form the rear. As this cavalcade formed outside the commissariat it looked in truth very imposing. All Limours turned out to see the start.

The old clock in the church tower had not yet struck ten; the morning was bitterly raw and frosty, and the men---ill clad and ill shod as were most of the armies of the Republic---were obviously grumbling at the cold.

Citizens Campon and Mayet were standing talking together outside the commissariat waiting to give the order to start when a man was suddenly seen running down the street from the direction of Longjumeau at an immoderate speed, waving his arms and shouting as he ran.

Soon his shouts became more coherent. He was calling for the citizen commissary at the top of his voice:

"Citizen Commissary! Citizen Commissary! News! News!"

The next moment he was close on the scene, appeared gasping for breath, and, despite the cold, was streaming with perspiration.

"I have run all the way from Bernix," he contrived to say in answer to the chief commissary's peremptory query.

"Well?" broke in Campon eagerly.

"There's a gang of foreigners--English spies in very truth--in hiding in the ruins of the château."

"Name of a name!" Campon ejaculated, and would have shouted still more emphatically had not Mayet restrained him.

"Who is this man?" the latter demanded.

"Jean Mathis, the shepherd," Campon gave reply. "I have set a number of these fellows to scour the neighbourhood for me for traces of those English adventurers."

In a moment Mayet's jovial face had become grave.

"You should not have done that without consulting me. You have them on the qui vive now, and--"

"Never mind about that," Campon interposed roughly. "We know where they are."

"Then leave them there till they come out into the open."

"Not I," the other retorted decisively. "The château de Bernix is not half a league away. I am going here and now, with a dozen men, to capture my quarry whilst I know where I can lay my hands on them."

"But the prisoners," Mayet protested.

"You stay behind and look after them. I'll leave a score of soldiers to help you and half the population of Limours. You would be a fool to let them slip away, more especially as I shall be engaging the attention of our elusive friend, the Scarlet Pimpernel."

Mayet vainly endeavoured to assert his authority.

"I was sent here in order to capture those English spies," he said. "If you run counter to my orders you do so at your risk and peril, Citizen Campon."

"If I let the opportunity slip by of capturing that Scarlet Pimpernel, when I know where he is hiding, I should be contravening my duty. Sergeant Torson," he added authoritatively, "you will accompany me with a score of your men. The others remain here with Corporal Vernay in charge under the orders of Citizen Mayet. Understood? Then en avant!"

Mayet swore and threatened, but in the end had to give in. Already a quarter of an hour had been lost in useless arguments. Campon was in the saddle, and whilst Torson got his men ready the chief commissary asked a few more pertinent questions of Jean Mathis.

Were the foreigners in hiding at the château yesterday, or had they, seemingly, only just come? Jean Mathis could not say exactly when they had come. He had been near the ruins yesterday, and had seen no one then. But this morning when he arrived, soon after six o'clock, he at once perceived signs of life in and around the derelict château. Subdued lights were moving to and fro; he had heard whisperings and stealthy footfalls. How did he know that the intruders were foreigners? Well, he had caught the words "Yes" and "Damn!" both of which were English, and---well---because one man came up to him and, seeing that he was on the watch, offered him money to go away and to hold his tongue. He spoke French, but like a foreigner. What had Jean done then? Why, taken the money, of course, and then run like a good patriot to tell the citizen commissary what he had seen. But not before he had noted many things! (And here Jean Mathis thumped himself vigorously on the chest in conscious pride at his own foresight and his own patriotism.) He had noted that the gang of malefactors had much luggage with them---bundles without number, and some cooking utensils---and that six horses---yes, six horses---had not Jean mentioned them before?---six horses were tethered in that portion of the rained château that had once been the stables. Oh! and Jean was nearly forgetting something. The money that the foreigner had given him was wrapped in a piece of paper, and on this paper there was something written which Jean, not knowing how to read, could not, of course, decipher, but he had brought the paper with him, and now produced it from the depth of a very hot and very grimy hand. It was creased and soiled, the writing blurred almost beyond recognition, but both Campon and Mayet pored over it, trying to wrest, at any rate, a part of its secret from those grimy folds.

It was Campon who in the end pointed a triumphant finger to the last word of the mysterious writing. The rest he could not read, because it was in a foreign tongue--English most probably---but that one word stood clear and unmistakable: whether you knew the language or whether you did not, there was the word as clear as crystal: "Pimpernel."

"Now, Citizen Mayet," he said, his voice hoarse with excitement, "do you still persist in calling me a fool for going to capture a prey that is absolutely waiting to fall into my hand?"

After that, in truth, even Mayet appeared undecided. If Jean Mathis had spoken the truth, then it were treason and worse to allow the prey to escape. With their bundles and their cooking utensils and their horses, those impudent English spies evidently used the ruined château as their headquarters and relied on the superstition of the neighbouring yokels to give the ghost-haunted place a wide berth.

"Anyway," and these were Mayet's final words to the excited chief commissary, "anyway, I will not make a start with the prisoners until your return. I do not personally believe that you will come across that gang of malefactors at Bernix, and I have no wish to encounter them on the highroad with only twenty men to aid me in case of an attack. Whilst I am in Limours the population will see to it that these accursed spies do not show their ugly faces in this township. Eh, my friends?"

Whereupon those who had pressed forward sufficiently to catch the citizen's words gave a loud cheer. Admittedly, they cared nothing about Citizen Mayet, who was a stranger to them, sent down from Paris, and therefore an object of suspicion and jealousy, and they cared everything for Citizen Commissary Campon, who was one of themselves, and whose mother still kept the local cook shop, as she had done for the past thirty years. But these feelings of sympathy and of antipathy were for the nonce merged in an intense and comprehensive feeling of deadly hatred against that mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel, whom rumour had represented to them as the incarnation of evil, the worst enemy their country ever had, the upholder of aristos and the friend of traitors. So they cheered Campon as he rode away with his escort of twenty stalwarts, all well armed with good muskets and with pistols in their belts, and they cheered Mayet, who remained behind to guard the aristos with another score equally stalwart and equally well-equipped soldiers of the 61st Regiment; and when, a moment or two later, a child in the crowd spied the aristos who had thrust pale, anxious faces out of the closely hooded market cart, marvelling what new misery, what further indignity, was being projected against them, there rose from the crowd such a mighty hissing and booing as would have gladdened the heart of the most bloodthirsty rhetorician in the Convention.

III.

Along the hard, frozen road which leads from Limours to Bernix, Campon and his escort clattered on at a steady trot. On! On! Not a man there but had it in his mind that the nation had promised a reward of ten thousand francs to the first man who laid hands on the Scarlet Pimpernel, and of a thousand to each man who had aided in the capture of the abominable spy. So on! on! my stalwarts! heedless of the biting frost, the keenest that has been known in this part of France within memory of the oldest inhabitant; heedless of the awful jar from the uneven road which even under the trees was frozen to the consistency of corrugated iron. Jean Mathis was riding on the pillion behind one of the men. He felt that the glory of the expedition, if successful, would be entirely due to his perspicacity, his courage, and his patriotism.

The road betwixt Limours and Bernix cuts straight across the woods, leaving Longjumeau well on the left. On the edge of the wood Campon cried a halt. Some two hundred metres farther on, the gray ruins of the château, with the pale rays of the midday sun full upon them, had suddenly come in sight. The house had been built some ninety years ago by "Le Roi Soleil" for one of the ladies of his choice: it had been the first to suffer at the outbreak of the Revolution, as it was then still held by one of the lineal descendants of that same lady who was mightily unpopular in the neighbourhood. The château was burned and gutted, the trees of the park cut down for fuel, its surrounding wall demolished, its forged iron gateway melted down for cannon, and there the place had remained since, derelict, lonely, reputed to be haunted by the ghosts of dead aristocrats, but in reality the meeting place of every gang of malefactors of the district---thieves, smugglers, or spies---who found their safety in the superstitious awe of the countryside.

Even Campon, advanced republican and free-thinker though he was, could not repress a shudder when he first caught sight of the old château looming before him through the broken-down gateway of the park---silent, solitary, awesome. It seemed as if a hundred hidden eyes were peeping out through the orifices, the broken windows, the roofless attics of the derelict building.

A strange silence appeared to reign around, and though in the woods which the men had just traversed the keen frosty air had been very still, here in the outskirts of this abandoned park a weird, soughing breeze moaned through the leafless twigs of broken and torn trees and the lifeless foliage of evergreen shrubs.

So strange indeed was the silence that Campon felt a sudden sinking of the heart at thought that mayhap his quarry had already fled, or, worse still, that it was falling even now, into the hands of his rival, Mayet.

He gave hurried orders to the men to remain well under cover in the woods, whilst he dismounted, and, accompanied only by Jean Mathis, crept forward cautiously on hands and knees through the shrubberies and tall rough grass of the park, with a view of ascertaining if indeed the gang of spies was still there or no. But, indeed, the silence appeared all the more oppressive as the two men drew nigh to the château itself. Neither here nor in the park was there the faintest sign of life. Certainly the horses were no longer in the stables, and not a footfall, not a quickly drawn breath even, was perceptible to the straining ears of Citizen Campon. Had the English gang decamped, or were they on the watch? Again that awful feeling crept down the chief commissary's spine, that awful feeling that numberless pairs of eyes were watching him through the torn windows of the château.

After a rapid consultation with Jean Mathis it was decided that the latter should go on alone as far as the château. The English spies already knew him by sight; he was dressed in his shepherd's blouse, his sheepskin and gaiters, just as he had been this morning when one of the strangers had accosted him. They would, therefore, have no suspicion of him.

Campon was conscious of an intense feeling of excitement, and when he saw Mathis straighten out his long, lean back and start at an easy, careless stride toward the château, he felt a positive thrill shake his nerves, like the presage of something huge, stupendous, the turning point of his whole career.

For a while he waited in agonized suspense. Jean Mathis had quickly disappeared amidst the shrubberies. Just for a second or two his sheepskin and the blue of his blouse appeared upon the steps of the perron, then it seemed that he entered the château, for he was lost to sight.

Campon made his way back to the shelter of the woods. His nerves were terribly on edge. He could not get to horse, but paced up and down the narrow clearing where the men and their mounts had found satisfactory cover.

Half an hour went by. Campon was enduring the tortures of a lost soul. He could not understand why Jean Mathis tarried, imagined every kind of horror and the worst of disappointments. So unnerved was he that after a while he sent one of the men all the way back to Limours to beg Citizen Mayet on no account to relax vigilance, or to make a start with the aristos until he, Campon, had returned from the expedition on which he was now engaged.

At the end of that half hour Campon's apprehension had turned to genuine fear. Something must have happened to Mathis. He consulted with Torson, the sergeant, who appeared sulky and unhelpful. It was long past the dinner hour. The men were desperately hungry. There was already talk amongst them of turning tail and returning to their quarters at Chartres, and in these days of rampant democracy and slackened discipline that threat would undoubtedly be put into execution unless something was done. The men were ready enough for a man-hunt, keen enough to capture the Scarlet Pimpernel if he was about, but hours of inactivity in this biting cold weather had ruffled their tempers, and they were on the verge of insubordination.

Campon, realizing the danger, agreed with the sergeant that there was only one thing to be done: make for the château at all risks. The men were armed, and their rising temper could incite them to make quick work of the spies. The brigands were in the château, of that there could no longer be any doubt, since they had apparently done away with that unfortunate Jean Mathis.

Far be it for me to say that there were any cowards among those men. They were twenty all told, and ready enough for a scrap with the English adventurers. The superstitious awe which had hold of them in face of the silent, ghost-haunted château soon disappeared when they were called to action. Silently they looked to their pistols, and at a word from their sergeant they tethered their horses to the most convenient trees, and the next moment were picking their way carefully through the rough grass of the park, which with its rank growth had long ago obliterated the last vestiges of the garden paths.

Still not a sound from the château. Campon, who had the sergeant, Torson, with him, was the first to reach the perron. The men quickly followed suit, and soon, cocked pistol in hand, they were all firing in through the broken doorway into the derelict building.

The next moment a loud exclamation from Torson brought them all to the stately door of one of the apartments on the ground floor. Here an amazing sight met their gaze. The room which stretched out before them, with broken ceiling, gutted window frames, and charred walls, had obviously been once an imposing one. Right along the centre of it now there was a long board, supported on trestles and covered with a white cloth. On this board was spread a copious collation---meats, bread, bottles of wine---everything apparently prepared for a joyous feast. Of this Jean Mathis was even now partaking freely. He sat at the farther end of the board, a huge pasty before him, into which he still dived at intervals with his knife. Beside him lay a couple of empty bottles on their sides, and the flush upon Jean's cheeks, the vague look in his eyes, the disorder of his hair, and the thickness of his speech bore witness to the excellent reasons which had kept him inside the ruined château for so long.

The men, in truth, gave only one look upon the unexpected scene; the next moment they hurled themselves with a wild shout of joy, helter-skelter into the room, tumbling over one another in their eagerness to share in the delectable feast. Nor did their sergeant's somewhat feeble protests against this lack of discipline prevail. The men were half-perished with cold and hunger. They saw the good things of this earth spread invitingly before them, and would have been more than human had they as much as attempted to resist the alluring temptation. A minute later a portentous silence had fallen over the assembly; nothing, in truth, could be heard in the vast and stately ruins save the clatter of knives and dishes, and the delicious, mellifluous sound of wine gurgling out of bottles. Torson, of course, was caught in the vortex. He was no martyr to duty. Moreover, was there not a certain merit in consuming this repast so lavishly laid out for the enemies of the Republic?

As for Campon, he began by storming and swearing, then he admonished and entreated, and, finally, when obviously he was wasting his breath, he picked up a dish of pasty and a bottle of wine, and, standing apart from the others, he leaned against one of the deep window embrasures and in sullen silence began to eat.

A strange scene, forsooth, and a mysterious one; this repast spread by unseen hands for guests who did not appear. In the intervals of enjoying the pasty and putting down a mug or two of excellent wine, the good Campon would feel an uncomfortable jarring of his nerves, a sickly apprehension that all was not as it should be.

What, in the meanwhile, was happening at Limours? What was Mayet doing in the interval? Campon, beginning to feel replete, was gazing thoughtfully through the window across the devastated park when, with a loud oath, he turned, hastily put down empty dish and mug, and ran incontinently out of the room. The men did no more than look up lazily as he disappeared through the door, and his hurried footsteps clanged weirdly on the broken flagstones of the hall. They were, in truth, far too happy and comfortable to pay heed to anything that might be going on outside. Some of them had fallen into a delicious state of somnolence, others were singing bibulous songs, others again, including Jean Mathis, had collapsed upon the floor.

Campon took no notice of them; he was out of the building in less than ten seconds and running across the park, where a man on horseback, with another riding beside him, had but a moment ago emerged out of the wood. The rider was urging on his horse with spur and knees, and the beast, despite the cold and frost, was covered with lather. At sight of Campon the rider drew rein and the two men jumped out of the saddle. One of them was the soldier whom Campon had sent back to Limours about an hour before with an urgent message to Mayet.

"What is it?" the commissary queried sharply as soon as the men had dismounted, his heart thumping furiously against his breast in an agony of apprehension.

"I was to report from Citizen Mayet," the soldier replied, "that all was well…"

"Thank God!" Campon ejaculated, remembering for the first time for many years that God still presided over the destinies of France, even though her sons had chosen to deny Him.

"But," the soldier went on rapidly, "he says that he cannot wait much longer. He told me to explain to you that his force was quite sufficient to convey the aristos to Chartres, and that he would certainly make a start in the early part of the afternoon."

Campon made no reply. He was brooding over the news, marvelling if it would be in his interest to let the whole matter drift as Mayet had ordered it. Then he bethought himself of the man who had ridden behind the soldier.

"Who are you?" he asked abruptly.

The man appeared weary, scarce able to stand. At the commissary's peremptory query, however, he drew a sealed letter from the inner pocket of his tattered coat.

"Courier in the service of the Committee of Public Safety," he said, laconically, and handed the letter to Campon. "I rode from Paris this morning, with orders to deliver this to no one but the Citizen Campon himself."

"I met the courier just outside Limours, on my way back here," the soldier went on to explain, whilst Campon, with an obviously shaking hand, was breaking the seal of the letter. "He was asking after the citizen commissary. I thought I could not do better than bring him along with me…"

But the man got no further in his speech. He was, in truth, only just in time to catch the commissary, who with a loud cry of horror had tottered, and would undoubtedly have measured his length on the ground but for the soldier's timely assistance.

"A horse!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, for indeed he felt that he was choking. "I must to Limours at once."

And, without waiting for the man's help, he strode to where the horses were tethered in the wood, champing and fretting their bits, and, seizing the nearest one by the bridle, he made futile efforts to free the animal, all in a vague, blundering manner which further upset the poor brute and called forth an exclamation of contempt from the two men.

After that the soldiers made the horse ready, and held the stirrup for the quaking commissary.

"You get to horse, too, and at once," the latter commanded, "and let the courier come, too."

The men murmured. They were dog-tired.

"Do as I say," Campon went on roughly. "It is a matter of life and death, and the others are all lying besotted or dead drunk inside the château."

"But what has happened, Citizen?" the soldier queried sullenly. "Duty is duty, but…"

"There is no but about it," the commissary cried in a raucous voice as he settled down into his saddle and gathered the reins in his shaking hand. "This letter comes to me from Citizen Mayet."

"Citizen Mayet!" the soldier exclaimed, thinking that the commissary had lost his head. "But the letter comes from Paris…"

"Yes," Campon cried in response, "from Paris, where Citizen Mayet, the real Citizen Mayet, still is at the present moment. He warns me that that accursed English spy has been impersonating him these few days past."

"Malediction!" the soldier ejaculated lustily.

"Aye, malediction!" Campon assented, whilst his whole body thrilled in a veritable frenzy of excitement, "for it is a false Mayet who came to Limours---a false Mayet who hath charge of the prisoners---a false Mayet who will spirit them away right under our very noses unless I get to Limours in time!"

"Then I am with you," the two men cried simultaneously, as they, too, swung themselves into the saddle, leaving their own wearied mounts to wander loosely and at will.

"But have no fear, Citizen Commissary," the soldier added, just as his horse settled down into an easy trot. "There are twenty of our regiment guarding the aristos, and the whole population of Limours is out to foil the tricks of that crafty Scarlet Pimpernel."

Hope and despair alternately played havoc with the chief commissary's nerves as he pushed along at breakneck speed, along the road to Limours, closely followed by the two men. On the whole, hope predominated. As the soldier had pertinently reminded him, there were not only twenty of his loyal comrades, but half the population of the little township on the spot to see that that impudent English adventurer did not carry out one of his accursed tricks.

At last the edge of the wood was reached. Limours was in sight. Another ten minutes and the three riders had reached the first isolated house of the city: another five, and the horses were thundering down the long main street. Already Campon had seen that unusual bustle reigned around the commissariat. Already he could hear the clanking of metal, the snorts and pawing of the horses, the creaking of saddles and harness, the words of command and the shouts attendant upon a cavalcade on the move.

On, no! But a minute more and he had perceived the hood of the market cart lumbering slowly up the street, to right and left of it the tricolour cockades on the caps of the soldiers catching the pale gray light of the wintry sun: and ahead, in front of the cart, the huge figure of the false Mayet, mounted on a white charger, appeared to Campon's excited gaze like the very incarnation of the devil. And all around, the crowd of worthy citizens of Limours, booing the aristos and cheering to the echoes the impudent and audacious trickster who was even then leading them by the nose.

Right into the very midst of the crowd Campon rode, scattering affrighted men, women, and children all around him. Then suddenly he brought his horse to a standstill.

"Halt!" he cried in a stentorian voice.

At first only the crowd heard him, gazed on him openmouthed and terrified, for truly the face of the chief commissary was livid with fury. But on ahead the cavalcade went coolly on its way. In fact, that fiend incarnate upon the white charger had just given the order to trot.

"Halt!" cried Campon again. "In the name of the Republic, halt!"

Some of the soldiers heard him, turned in their saddles to see what was the matter. Campon caught the eye of the corporal in charge, and once again cried: "Halt! In the name of the Republic, at your peril, Corporal Vernay, I command you to halt!"

Then that impudent English spy turned in his saddle, too, caught sight of Campon shouting and gesticulating in the midst of the crowd; but all that he did was to swear loudly.

"Name of a dog, that fool Campon is trying to interfere again! En avant!" he cried to the soldiers, "or we'll not make Chartres before nightfall."

But the corporal and the men had instinctively pulled up at the commissary's peremptory calls of "Halt!" After all, they knew him. He was the local commissary. The stranger from Paris was, in truth, nothing to them. So they halted: and the market cart, after lumbering on for a while in splendid isolation, came also to a halt, whilst the stranger from Paris stormed and swore that they would all suffer for this insubordination. The crowd, in the meanwhile, was swarming everywhere---round the market cart, round the soldiers, and, above all, round Campon, who had begun to tell them of the impudent trick that the man on the white charger had very nearly played them. In quick, jerky, but pithy sentences he told them just what had happened: the arrival of the stranger with the letters of credentials from the Committee of Public Safety, the stranger who pretended to be Citizen Mayet, the servant of the Republic, and who was none other than that accursed and famous English adventurer, the Scarlet Pimpernel.

At first the man on the white charger did not seem to understand what Campon was saying, then a look went over his face as if he though the chief commissary was nothing but a raving maniac. Finally, when after a few seconds the purport of Campon's oratory reached his senses, he swore the loudest and most comprehensive oath that had ever shaken the little township to its very foundations; after which he broke into a loud and immoderate roar of laughter.

But that outburst of hilarity soon died in his throat. The crowd, too, had suddenly realized the full, horrible reality. With a wild shout, men and women, aye, even the children, literally hurled themselves upon the man who had thought to play them such an abominable trick. He swore and he shouted, plunged his spurs into his horse's flanks till the beast reared and struck out with its fore-hoofs, scattering momentarily the angry, yelling crowd. But only momentarily. The next they had returned to the charge, headed and egged on by Campon, whom shame at being fooled and latent horror of what might have been so hideous a catastrophe had turned into a raging and vindictive madman. The soldiers whose duty it was to protect the abominable malefactor, in order to save him from the guillotine, did what they could to keep the crowd at bay. But even so the object of their fury was torn from his white charger, rolled on the ground, kicked, maltreated, spat upon like the abominable spy that he was.

Gradually, however, even the wild ravings of an angry crowd are bound to subside. In this case, after twenty minutes of the maddest orgy of rage and of hate some of the soldiers had succeeded in forming a guard around the prostrate form of the stranger from Paris and of his quivering, excited, snorting charger, whilst others gradually pushed the foremost of the crowd back from the object of their wrath and their vindictiveness. The temper of the people was slowly cooling down. Pushed back by the soldiers, they formed into knots, still talking, volubly and with much animated gesture, of the past exciting events. The chief commissary was urging them all to go home. He even collected his scattered wits sufficiently to order the removal of the aristos back to the commissariat, as it would now be too late to convey them to Chartres this day.

Ah! when the true Citzen Mayet, the noted and trusted servant of the Committee of Public Safety, did eventually arrive in Limours he would find that his task had already been ably accomplished by a proud chief commissary of police, conscious of his own worth and of valuable services rendered to the state!

Even whilst Citizen Campon, saddle-sore but happy, was able to dismount, meaning to take a few hours' rest in his mother's cook shop over the way, a loud exclamation followed by a vigorous curse quickly dispelled his short dream of bliss.

"The cart!" Corporal Vernay had exclaimed, and the soldiers near him had cried excitedly: "And the aristos! They have gone!"

"Impossible!" shouted one man.

But the impossible was a fact indeed! The market cart, with its occupants, had vanished---spirited away even whilst the crowd, the soldiers, the commissary had their whole attention fixed upon the object of their rage. The market cart had gone! When? Whither? Who could tell? Not the two soldiers who had sat on the front board, for they were presently discovered some fifty paces round the curve of the road, with arms and legs securely tied together with cords, so that they could not move, and woollen scarves wound around their mouths. When these were removed they were able to explain that when the disturbance was at its height and their own attention entirely concentrated on the lively spectacle which they were watching by standing on the front board and looking over the hood of the cart, they were suddenly seized by the legs, thrown down, gagged, and bound, then carried to this spot before they could even utter a scream. No one paid any heed to them, and they actually saw the cart driven away at breakneck speed in the direction of Versailles.

To Campon this tale, when it was reported to him, was like a fall of icy water down his spine. For a moment he could neither see nor hear, he could not even think, and the expression of his face was so terrible that those nearest him fell back appalled. Quite mechanically, and like one moving in a dream, he went up the street to where half-a-dozen soldiers were guarding the prostrate body of the stranger from Paris. The latter, bruised, bleeding, aching in limb, in pride, and in temper, was only partially conscious, but sufficiently so to glare with bunged-up eyes, redolent of hatred and contempt, on the unfortunate chief commissary, and to murmur in a choked and throaty voice: "You dolt! You fool! You ass! You traitor! You shall pay me for this!"

Then only did Citizen Campon understand that the man who lay there before him, bruised and sore, spouting vengeance through purple and thick lips, was indeed the true Citizen Mayet after all, and that the whole tragic episode from beginning to end--the strangers at the ruined château, the money and paper purposely give to Jean Mathis so as to lure him, Campon and some of the soldiers away from the scene of the proposed coup, the feast spread out in the château in order to entice those soldiers to indiscipline and render them momentarily helpless, the courier (obviously a false one, bearing a forged letter from Paris, and whom now Campon vainly sought amongst the crowd)---all, all had been part of the gigantic hoax invented and perpetrated by that abominable spy, the Scarlet Pimpernel.

IV.

In a lonely cottage the other side of Versailles, hidden from the road and secure from prying eyes, the little party halted. It was, in truth, their first halt since the exciting moment when three men, who seemed but a part of that awful, yelling crowd at Limours, had boarded the market cart, overpowered its drivers, and driven it away under the very noses of chief commissary and sergeant, of soldiers and citizens, who were all far too blind with excitement to see anything but the object of their wrath.

Madame Mailly, with her sister and two children, were vainly trying to find words wherewith to express their gratitude to the brave English gentlemen who had saved them from certain death. One of these, who appeared to be the leader, and who looked magnificent even in the rough and shabby clothes of a proletary of Limours, said to her with a smile:

"I pray you do not thank any of us, dear lady. My friends will tell you, as I do, that we spent in Limours to-day one of the most enjoyable afternoons of our checkered careers. The only thing I regret is that I must be in Paris this night, else it were my greatest joy to go and watch the first tête-à-tête meeting between our friends Campon and Mayet. What say you, Tony?" he added, turning to one of his friends. "You were such an efficient courier. When you handed the forged letter to Campon this morning and he really thought that good old Mayet was none other than the Scarlet Pimpernel, what did he say? His language was forcible, was it not?"

"Nothing to what Mayet's must have been later on when the fun was raging around him," the other assented, with a laugh.

"Nothing," the leader said, with his irrepressible gaiety, "to what their language is now, when they realize that Madame Mailly and her family are safely out of their hands. En route, madame, mademoiselle," he concluded, "we hope to let you see the white cliffs of England before many days are past."

CHAPTER IV – "FLY-BY-NIGHT"

1

They were so enthusiastic! so eager! Perhaps the secrecy and the excitement of it all appealed more to them than the actual ideals which they advocated. For they were all young men of the professional classes and of the lower bourgeoisie: men who, you would have thought, would have nothing to gain by political intrigue or the reëstablishment of the old monarchy, and who were risking their lives to overthrow a system that had not, in very truth, much interfered with the even tenor of their lives.

They held their meetings in the cellar of an old house at the bottom of the Rue de l'Odéon, which was decorated with a white flat that bore the emblem of the royal fleur-de-lys on it in gold, and was hung on the wall immediately behind the seat usually occupied by the chairman. Here the young hotheads would talk politics o'nights and swear allegiance to King Louis XVII, by the grace of God King of France: the poor mite who had been dispossessed of all save his precarious little life, and that too was at the mercy of the inhuman brutes who held him captive. An old wastrel, Servan by name, kept watch at the street door during the sittings and tidied up the place afterward. Strangely enough, no one knew much about Servan. He came and he went. Now and then he disappeared for days on end, when, at his earnest request, sittings would be suspended until his return. Servan was invaluable for ferreting out the plans of the committee of the section; invaluable in his position as watch-dog-in-chief of the Club des Fils du Royaume.

It was one night while Servan was absent that the inevitable catastrophe occurred. He had begged that the sittings of the club should be postponed for a few days. But the next day happened to be the 14th of October, and on that morning had begun the trial of Marie Antoinette---erstwhile Queen of France, now called the Widow Capet---before the Revolutionary Tribunal, at the bar of Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor. What could Les Fils du Royaume do but call a hurried meeting to discuss this portentous event?

Old Servan's warning was forgotten, and at eleven o'clock that same night eighteen or twenty young enthusiasts met to formulate plans for the liberation of their queen.

An hour later the blow had fallen. The ominous command: "Open in the name of the Republic!" came loudly and peremptorily from outside. "The police! Sauve qui peut!" in hurried, hoarse whispers from within. They were trapped like so many rats in a burrow. There was nothing for it but to make a fight for one's life first and make a rush for the open, if possible, when darkness might be of service.

But the revolutionaries were armed with bayonets, and the issue was never for a moment in doubt. The Sons of the Kingdom fought bravely and there were several broken heads among the guard. In the end, some fifteen of the young conspirators were overpowered. Bleeding from several wounds, they were tied together like so much cattle, with cords, and marched up the narrow dank stairs into the street, where the raiding party handed them over to a fresh body of soldiers. They were taken to the chief depôt of the section, whilst five others lay dead upon the floor of the cellar in the Rue de l'Odéon. The chief commissary of the section ordered the bodies to be left there.

"The garbage can be cleared away another time," he remarked spitefully.

Two days later the bodies were removed, but there were only four of them then. And on looking through his list of prisoners and comparing it with that of the dead, the chief commissary found that one name was missing from both. It was that of Félicien Lézennes, chairman of the Club des Fils du Royaume.

2

The news of the raid on the Club des Files du Royaume came as a thunderbolt upon the little household at Mon Abris. Little was known at first save the meagre announcement which appeared the following day in the Moniteur. Madame St. Luc, however, was at once filled with the gloomiest forebodings as to her son-in-law's fate. Adrienne Lézennes, always self-contained, didn't say much, but her father appeared distinctly resentful as well as anxious. The plight into which Félicien's hot-headedness had landed them all had a grating effect upon his nerves.

They might all of them have been so happy in their little home--a detached, creeper-clad house, standing in an hectare of ground in the Batignolles quarter of Paris, not far from the Porte d'Asnières--had it not been for Félicien's mania for running his head into a noose. Monsieur St. Luc himself had been a well-to-do attorney in his time, had retired at the outbreak of the Revolution, for he was a firm upholder of the monarchic system; but what was the use of airing one's views on so great a subject, when the guillotine loomed so large on the horizon of every bourgeois's life these days?

"That fool Félicien!" so his father-in-law invariably dubbed him. More so now than ever, since he had become a fugitive, hiding God alone knew where, starving probably. For five days after the raid his family did not know what had become of him. Adrienne haunted the purlieus of the prisons, trying to get some information as to her husband's fate, but she could glean none. Then, on the fifth day, when despair had wellnigh seized her, there came a message written in Félicien's own hand, assuring them all that he was safe and under the protection of a brave English milord, who had picked him up half-dead after the raid and brought him, at risk of his life, to a place of safety just outside Paris. How that note came to the house it was impossible to say. Marthe, the serving wench, found the scrap of paper lying on the mat in the small lobby when she came down in the morning. It had been pushed in under the door, and Marthe had hardly dared to touch it at first; it looked so weird and ghostlike, she said.

The note also contained an earnest warning that, the house being certainly now under observation by the spies of the Committee of Public Safety, the utmost discretion and circumspection were imperative; but that mother and father and Adrienne, and also Marthe, had best make quietly ready to leave Paris at an hour's notice. In the meanwhile, however, Félicien adjured them all not to be anxious, and on no account to make any move until they heard from him again. The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel---a magnificent English organization---had the welfare of the household in hand. All would be well if they would only act on instructions.

Unfortunately, Monsieur St. Luc, accustomed as he had been all his life to direct and regulate the affairs of his family, refused on so solemn an occasion to be dictated to by his son-in-law (that fool Félicien!). By his orders a few necessary effects were at once hastily put together. The whole family, he decided, had best leave Pariws that very day. He himself would see to passports. He had friends in several administrations who would help to get his family away, and they would all go to St.-Aubin by the Sea, where he owned a little house property, and where they could live in retirement until this cloud had blown over.

While the women packed St. Luc went to the local commissariat to see about the passports. His request was flatly refused. The Committee of Public Safety, so the chief commissary of the section told him, had an eye on Mon Abris. This sudden desire on the part of the household to leave Paris would certainly cause all their names to be placed upon the list of the "Suspect"; which meant that a domiciliary visit, a perquisition, and consequent arrest on some kind of trumped-up charge could now be considered imminent.

Monsieur St. Luc, by his obstinacy, had precipitated the crisis and hopelessly endangered his own life and that of all those he cared for. The situation, from being tense, had suddenly become tragic. There was nothing for it now but to act on Félicien's original advice, praying God in the meanwhile that this wiser course had not been taken too late.

Soon after Monsieur St. Luc's return from his unsuccessful errand another message came, exactly similar to the previous one--a scrap of paper pushed mysteriously under the door and found by Marthe in the little lobby on the mat. But the writing this time was a strange one, and it bore no signature, only a small device in the left-hand corner, drawn in red, and representing a small five-petalled flower, in shape like a Scarlet Pimpernel. The message warned Monsieur St. Luc that a domiciliary visit at Mon Abris could be expected at about four o'clock; that the arrest of the entire household, on suspicion of conspiracy, had already been decided. The usual travesty of justice would inevitably follow, with condemnation, and probably the guillotine in the end. The message, however, went on to assure Monsieur St. Luc that measures were being taken for the immediate flight of himself and his household out of Paris, but that their very lives now depended on implicit obedience. The writer of this warning would himself be at Mon Abris within the hour, to give them final instructions.

3

The family had assembled in the little boudoir which gave on the left of the hall. The two old people were sitting, one on each side of the hearth. Between them, Adrienne Lézennes, kneeling in front of the fire, had the drawer of her husband's desk beside her. This she had filled with all his papers that she could find, and was systematically putting them, packet by packet, into the flames.

"Above all, Adrienne," Madame St. Luc insisted earnestly, "burn anything you can find that looks as if it related to the English milord. It would be an eternal shame on us all if those brutes came on his track while he is working for our salvation."

"Milord is too clever to allow a pack of loons to catch him," Monsieur St. Luc riposted dryly. "But, in any case, Adrienne had best destroy every scrap of paper that Félicien was fool enough to leave about for our undoing."

Neither his wife nor his daughter made further comment on the matter, and for a while no sound disturbed the quietude of the cosy-looking room, save the hissing of the flames licking the loose bundles of papers, and the monotonous ticking of the old clock standing against the wall.

"I wish they would come," Madame St. Luc said presently. "It will be best when it is all over."

"They won't be here for another hour at least," Adrienne rejoined. "And we don't know how bad the worse may be," she added under her breath.

"I wish milord were here," Madame sighed plaintively.

An hour later a detachment of the revolutionary guard, belonging to the Sectional Committee of Public Safety, had assembled in the garden in front of Mon Abris. There were a dozen or more of them, dressed in the usual haphazzard attire which, in these days of penury and of prolonged war, did duty for military uniform: ragged breeches, odd coats that more often than not hung loosely upon thin, narrow shoulders; feet thrust bare into sabots or any old boots that might have been picked up in the course of a foraging expedition. The men were under the command of a big, burly ruffian known as Citizen Captain Courtain, who was standing before the front door, vociferating lustily the habitual "Open, in the name of the Republic!" And since he did not obtain the prompt answer to his summons which he required, he proceeded to kick against the door with the point of his boot.

"Hé là!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Open there, I say! Do not waste the time of the loyal servants of the Republic, or you'll have your doors and windows presently smashed about your heads."

He was about to put his sturdy shoulder to the door when it was opened from within. Marthe, neatly dressed and prim, trying to look brave at sight of those awful soldiers whom every peace-loving citizen had learned to dread, stood by, while the men filed through into the square hall in the wake of their captain. The latter then turned to the wench and demanded curtly:

"The Citizen St. Luc, his wife, and daughter---where are they?"

"In the boudoir, Citizen Captain," the girl replied quite readily. She appeared self-possessed and spoke as if she were repeating a lesson. The captain gave her a quick, searching look.

"How many of you live in the house?" he queried.

"Four of us altogether. The Citizen St. Luc, with his wife and their daughter, Adrienne Lézennes. I do the service of the house."

"And what does Félicien Lézennes, the husband of Adrienne, do?" the captain broke in abruptly.

This time the girl did not answer so glibly. There was an instant's hesitation of her voice--the mere fraction of a second, imperceptible no doubt to the bullying rascallion before here---ere she gave reply.

"Félicien Lézennes," she said quite steadily after awhile, "has been gone for some days. You know that well enough, Citizen Captain."

"I know nothing," he retorted, "save that this house stinks of aristos, and that an accursed English spy, who goes by the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel, is suspected of having been in and out of here."

The wench shrugged her shoulders.

"I know nothing about English spies," she riposted dryly. "Methinks you, Citizen Captain, have been led by the nose."

"We'll soon see about that," was the captain's curt rejoinder. "Now," he added peremptorily, "which is the room you call the boudoir?"

Marthe led the way to a door on the left of the hall and opened it without knocking.

"This way, Citizen Captain," she said simply, and was in the act of standing aside in order to let the soldiers file into the room, when she quickly put her hand up to her mouth as if to smother a sudden, involuntary cry.

In an instant, Courtain had her by the arm.

"What is it?" he queried roughly.

"The mutton stew!" she exclaimed glibly. "I have left it on the fire. It will burn for sure!"

She made as if to run out of the room, but Courtain held her tight.

"You stay here, Citizeness," he commanded. "Pierre Dumont there will see to yoru stew. His mother was an excellent cook and taught him all she knew."

He nodded to one of his men, who laughed and shrugged his shoulders, then went out of the room.

"Let go my arm, Citizen Captain," the girl said, apparently reassured as to the fate of her stew. "You are hurting me."

The incident was closed. Captain Courtain gave a comprehensive, searching look around. The two ladies had made no movement when first he had entered the room. The older one sat quite still in the high-backed armchair by the hearth, the younger one, on a low tabouret by her side, was busy with some sewing. Monsieur St. Luc rose to receive the soldiers of the Republic.

"Your name?" Courtain queried roughly.

"Adrien St. Luc, attorney-at-law," the old man replied with much dignity.

"Félicien Lézennes, where is he?"

"I do not know, Citizen Captain. We none of us have seen him this past week and more."

"You lie!" Courtain retorted. "He is a fugitive from justice. Where should he find shelter but with his relatives?"

"I know nothing of Félicien Lézennes's movements," Monsieur St. Luc reiterated firmly.

"Well for you if you do not! Give me your keys," the captain commanded.

"Nothing is locked," St. Luc replied. "We have nothing to hide."

Whereupon Courtain with a shrug of the shoulders turned to his men.

"You have heard me question the aristo," he said. "He denies everything. Now, there's a strong suspicion that a cursed traitor is in hiding in this house, as well as that abominable English spy who should have been hung on a lanthorn post long ago. Therefore, comrades, leave not a single piece of furniture in its place of a single door or drawer unopened. The house must be searched through and through; and there are outhouses and stables, too, in the ground. Understand?"

The men were ready enough to obey. There was a reward of forty sous for every man who brought an escaped suspect to justice; and there had been rumours of some English spies being about. Good reward was promised for their capture, too, whilst for the apprehension of the mysterious leader who was known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, a man might earn as much as ten thousand francs.

Courtain himself remained behind after his comrades had gone. He had apparently set himself the task of searching the boudoir and interrogating the inmates of the house.

"I always mistrust the place where women congregate," he had said in his own picturesque language, ere his men dispersed about the premises.

Indeed, no one understood that type of work better than did Captain Courtain. Not a cranny escaped his vigilant eye, not a nook where an aristo might lie concealed or compromising papers be stowed away. After he had been in the boudoir half an hour there was not one unbroken piece of furniture there. The upholstered chairs had been ripped and the carpets torn up from the floor; he had put his heel through every drawer of the desk, and his fist through every bit of panelling. He had even, in places, torn the paper from the walls.

The three women watched him, fascinated and motionless. Not a word of protest escaped them when they saw some of their most precious treasures ruthlessly destroyed. Monsieur St. Luc made no protest either. He had resumed his seat, was staring moodily before him, and replied in curt monosyllables whenever Courtain put a question to him. Anon the latter threw himself upon the sofa, which his rough handling had reduced to mere wreckage, and gave vent to his disappointment by a comprehensive curse. Then he curtly ordered Marthe to get him some wine. The girl turned to her master, asking for the key.

"I thought you said that nothing was locked in this house," Courtain remarked with a sneer. He was on his feet again in a moment, and turned to St. Luc. "Give me the cellar key," he commanded.

"It is at your service," St. Luc replied.

He took a key from his pocket and held it out to Courtain. "You are free to walk in, Citizen Captain," he said simply.

But Courtain would not take the key.

"Not without you, my friend," he riposted. "Do you take me for a nincompoop, ready to fall into a booby-trap? Allons!" he added roughly. "Marche!"

St. Luc obeyed without another word, walked out of the room in front of Courtain, who took the precaution of turning the key in the lock of the boudoir door behind him.

"We don't want our birds to fly away in our absence, eh?" he remarked with a leer.

The whole house appeared alive with noise: shouts and laughter, smashing of woodwork, and tramping of heavy feet. In the centre of the hall one of the men was brandishing a crowbar, whilst three or four others were apparently egging him on to some doughtly deed.

"What is that crowbar for?" Courtain queried curtly.

"The cellar door, Citizen Captain," one of the men replied. "We have searched every nook and corner of the house except the cellar, which is locked. The door has a deal of resistance in it. We thought this crowbar--"

"Throw it down, comrades," Courtain broke in jovially. "Citizen St. Luc will do the honours of his cellar for us in person."

There was no need to reiterate this order. In a moment the crowbar was thrown down and the little procession was formed, with St. Luc leading the way and Courtain treading hard on his heels. The citizen captain had quietly taken a pistol out of his breeches pocket.

"In case something happens that I don't like!" he remarked casually to St. Luc. "And remember that some of my men, if not all, have loaded pistols, too."

But St. Luc appeared quite placid, gave but a cursory glance at the pistol. He led the way across the hall, then down a flight of stairs which was faced at the bottom by a heavy oak door. St. Luc inserted the key in the lock and flung the door open.

"This is the cellar," he said curtly.

"Well!" riposted Courtain with affected jollity. "Go in, and we'll follow."

St. Luc, still placidly, led the way in. The cellar was vast and well ordered, with casks ranged around and an array of bottles and jars filled with the delicacies beloved of the French bourgeoisie. It derived some light from a small grated window set high in the wall. There were some empty wooden casks standing about, and a row of pewter mugs hung on hooks along the edge of a shelf.

"Quite cosy and inviting in here, eh, comrades?" Courtain remarked jauntily.

The soldiers were not long in getting to work. They helped themselves to the mugs, and one of them volunteered to draw the wine, as he had been a butler in an aristos house in pre-Revolution days. Soon each had a mugful of wine in his hand; one of them started to sing, the others joined in. The merry sound attracted their comrades, who were still busy in other parts of the house. They came helter-skelter, running down the stone staircase, and presently the vast cellar was filled with a merry-making throng, in the midst of which St. Luc's majestic figure in sober black, with stiff white stock and tie and iron-gray hair falling modishly down to his shoulders, had lost nothing of the dignity and sang-froid of the well-to-do attorney.

"You do not drink, Citizen St. Luc?" courtain asked him good-humouredly. Then, as the other made no reply, he added with stern significance: "If you are trying some hidden game, my friend, by making my men drunk, you will do yourself no good and aggravate your own case and that of the women upstairs. Drunk or sober, we stay in the house until we've found your precious son-in-law or that confounded Englishman, or both; and I may as well tell you that I have another eight or ten men outside in your garden. So even if these men do get drunk--"

"If they get drunk," broke in St. Luc impatiently, "they'll never rid me of that confounded Englishman or my daughter or that ne'er-do-well husband of hers."

"What?"

The shrill ejaculation had burst involuntarily from Courtain. He literally gave a jump as well as a gasp of astonishment at this wholly unexpected retort, and spilled a quarter of a litre of precious wine in the act. "What did you say?"

"I said that I wished to be rid of that confounded Englishman, a regular Fly-by-Night, who has led us into all this trouble," St. Luc rejoined, and a malicious, spiteful glitter lit up for a moment the even pallor of his face. "As for that fool Lézennes--!"

He paused and pressed his lips together, as if fearing to say too much.

Courtain gave a prolonged whistle.

"Oho!" he said, "so that's the way the wind blows, is it? Why did you not speak of this before?"

"How could I," retorted St. Luc sullenly, "in the presence of my daughter?"

"Then," Courtain went on significantly, "you are willing to--?"

He looked St. Luc straight in the eyes, and the latter nodded in response.

"Where are they?" the other continued. Then, as the old attorney was about to reply, Courtain suddenly gripped his arm and dragged him to a corner of the cellar where they could talk without fear of being overheard. He had just remembered that a reward of ten thousand francs was due to the man who captured the Scarlet Pimpernel. "Where are they?" he reiterated eagerly, dropping his voice to a whisper.

But St. Luc's manner had already undergone a change. That strange, malicious glitter had died out of his eyes. He looked sheepish and ashamed.

"I-I don't know," he stammered, "just where they are…If the men kept sober the could…"

"None of that!" retorted Courtain roughly. "You have gone too far now, Citizen, to draw back without risking your neck. Where are they?" he reiterated for the third time, and gripped St. Luc so fiercely by the arm that the older man could scarce keep back a cry of pain. "Well, are you going to speak, or shall I have you and your womankind placed under arrest until you do?"

"No, no!" said St. Luc weakly. "I'll tell you. I meant to tell you, only--"

"Only what?"

"The Englishman is very powerful. He is not easily captured. Many have tried and all have failed, remember. And my son-in-law, too, is young and vigorous."

"So much the better," retorted Courtain. "It will be the greater glory for me. Are they in the house?"

"No," replied St. Luc.

"Where then?"

"Not very far from here. Through the barrier. The empty house at the junction of the Rue du Bois. You know it, Citizen Captain? It used to belong to Lézennes's aunt and uncle--aristos who have had to fly the country."

"No, I don't know the house. Is it Clinchy way?" Courtain asked.

"More on the Levallois-Perret side. You can't miss it. Go straight up the Route d'Asnières and take the third turning on the left; then go on till you come to a forked road, when you want to bear to your right. You'll see a white gate--"

"Never mind about that!" Courtain broke in impatiently. "You had best come and show us the way."

"No, no!" St. Luc protested, and his voice had a note of plaintive entreaty in it now. "I couldn't face Lézennes or the Englishman! It would kill me! And my daughter! My wife! They would know…Oh, my God!" he added, and covered his face with his hands as if in abject shame.

The situation seemed vastly to amuse Courtain.

"Many people like to say 'A.'," he remarked dryly, "but don't care to say 'B.' Well, I'll be a good dog, Citizen. The traitors shan't see you. You'll put us on our way, then I'll leave you in charge of two of my men, who will bring you back while we go search the place."

St. Luc still appeared to hesitated, but only for a moment. Obviously, as Courtain had tersely put it, he had gone too far now to draw back. Nor did the captain take any notice of his scruples. There were ten thousand francs waiting for him at the end of a more or less hazardous expedition, and he had plenty of stalwart fellows under his command. He was not likely to abandon so splendid a chance for reward and advancement. But he took the opportunity before starting of having St. Luc thoroughly searched for any weapons he might have concealed about his person.

"I am taking no risks," he said dryly, when the old attorney tried to protest.

Satisfied on that point, he quickly organized the expedition, turned the men out of the cellar, and locked the door behind them, putting the key in his pocket.

"Do not relax your vigilance for one instant, Citizen Lavérie," he said to the soldier whom he was leaving in command of the party. "The women are, of course, safe under lock and key in the boudoir. See that no one has access to them. I am taking the men with me whom I left on guard outside the house. They have no had the opportunity of visiting the cellar," continued Courtain dryly, "and I shall find them mroe reliable. St. Luc is coming with us part of the way, but I'll send him back here presently under escort, and then you had better lock him up with the women in the boudoir. Any further orders I may have to give you I will send through the men who will bring St. Luc along. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly, Citizen Captain," Lavérie replied.

After which Courtain went toomuster the men whom he desired to accompany him to the empty house at Levallois-Perret. As he had remarked to Lavérie, they were men who had not tasted St. Luc's wines as yet. Besides taking on risks, he was leaving nothing to chance. He had heard tales of the marvellous prowess of that English spy who, from all accounts, was a kind of legendary athlete, endowed with supernatural cunning and strength. Well, this time he would have to reckon with Citizen Captain Courtain: a man whom nothing could daunt and whose courage was equal to his perspicacity.

His escort, too, looked fit and keen. It was then close on seven o'clock. The sun was slowly sinking down in the west behind a canopy of heavy clouds. Courtain placed himself at the head of his squad and ordered St. Luc to march by his side.

4

A quarter of an hour's brisk walk brought them to the Porte d'Asnières. The gates were closed for the night, but Courtain and his escort, besides being well known to the officer in command, had all the necessary passes, and the party was let through without any hindrance.

Half an hour afterward, at the top of the Route d'Asnières and its junction with the Rue du Bois, where the roads fork, St. Luc came to a halt.

"There is the house," he said, and pointed up the road to where a small building gleamed white in the midst of a clump of old and twisted acacia trees. But, despite his protestations, Courtain would not release him.

"You are coming a bit further along with us, my man," he said curtly. "I told you I was taking no risks."

It was only when they came to a low, broken-down fence which appeared to mark the boundary of the grounds around the house that Courtain finally detailed two of his men to remain on guard over St. Luc.

"Wait for me here," he commanded. "If you hear any fracas inside the house, come to my assistance."

"But the aristo--" suggested one of the men, nodding toward St. Luc.

"In case of trouble," retorted Courtain curtly, "stab him in the legs with your bayonets. Then he can't run far."

He found a rickety gate in the fence and, followed by his escort, proceeded to march up to the house. It lay a hundred mètres, or perhaps less, farther on. The ground around it had no doubt once been a garden; it was now nothing but a mass of overgrown shrubs and a wilderness of nettles. Courtain and his men could be seen for a time ploughing their way through the weeds. Anon they reached the house. The captain's voice of command rang out through the fast-gathering dusk. No answer came from within. The house appeared indeed deserted. Courtain then pushed open the door, which yielded quite easily, and he and his men disappeared inside the house.

Those who had remained on guard over St. Luc settled down for a long wait, sat down on the sloping ground with their backs against the fence, taking care to keep the aristo between them and their bayonets close to their hands.

How it all happened they could not afterward have said. The attack came from behind the fence, they thought, and began with a stunning blow on their heads. Before they could recover from the violence of this assault, thick scarves were wound round their faces; they felt smothered, blinded, unable to call for help. Both tried to reach out for their bayonets, but were almost simultaneously thrown flat to the ground, more securely gagged, pinioned, their pockets ransacked, and finally left to lie there, not even knowing whence the swift and vigorous blow had come that had reduced them to such absolute helplessness. All that they could hear was St. Luc's voice, sometimes moaning, at others cursing violently. But what had become of him they neither of them could say.

Certain it is that less than ten minutes later, two soldiers of the revolutionary guard, with a tall civilian between them who appeared to be their prisoner, presented themselves at the Porte de Clichy, which is next to that of Asnières. They had the required passes such as are supplied to the revolutionary guard in the exercise of their duty. Their papers being all in order, they were allowed to pass through into the city without any delay.

5

Lavérie and the men left behind at Mon Abris ahd not forgotten the crowbar which had been thrown down in the hall earlier in the afternoon. And this was very fortunate as it happened, because darkness soon began to draw in and at first no candles or lamps could be found anywhere. The serving maid, summoned from the boudoir, explained that lamps were always kept in the cellar on one of the shelves. Whereupon, since the citizen captain had chosen to lock the cellar door, there was nothing for it but to use the crowbar in the manner in which it was originally intended.

There was no disobedience or defiance of discipline in that. To remain in darkness in a house which reeked of aristos was not to be thought of, and Lavérie himself gave the order to break open the cellar door.

Subsequently, when the whole matter was inquired into and punishment duly meted out to the guilty, it was never suggested that Lavérie did anything more reprehensible than just omitting to have the lamps lighted then and there. But it seems that when they were found, it was discovered that they needed filling. The oil drum could not at once be found, and in the meanwhile a couple of tallow candles were made to do duty instead, one being placed on the trestle table in the cellar and the other in the hall.

The semi-darkness certainly left the house rather gloomy; but the evening light had not wholly faded out of the sky, and a pale, grayish streak still came peeping in through the windows and the wide-open door of the hall.

It was close on half-past nine when a couple of men's voices, in conjuction with that of St. Luc, first reached Lavérie's ears. He was then in the cellar with half-a-dozen comrades, and--yes, well! they were haivng a drink whilst the others remained on guard about the house. There was no harm in that. The entire premises ahd been literally turned inside out more than once in the course of the afternoon; the women were safe under lock and key, and all the men were well armed. No one could say that any of them had had too much to drink, but they were tired as well as hot, for the evening had turned sultry, and there was thunder in the air.

"Which of you is Citizen Lavérie?" a voice shouted down from above.

"Here, in the cellar," Lavérie replied. "We are busy with the lamps. Who are you?"

"Guard from the Porte d'Asnières," the voice gave answer. "We have brought St. Luc back with us and have a message for you from Citizen Captain Courtain. He has got the aristos."

"Where?" queried Lavérie eagerly, and ran helterskelter up the stairs. The others remained down below, straining their ears to listen.

Two soldiers, in the same haphazard uniforms that they were all wearing these days, were standing in the hall. Lavérie saw them vaguely through the gloom, with St. Luc's tall, funereal-looking figure between them, and his own comrades crowding excitedly around the newcomers.

"Over in the house at Levallois-Perret," one of the latter replied. "Citizen Courtain wants you to bring the women along to him at once."

Lavérie groaned.

"What for?"

"An important confrontation. Citizen Courtain has sent for the chief commissary of the section, and we are to pick up a couple more aristos who are being detained in a house in the Rue Legendre. It seems that the English spies have had their headquarters there recently. I tell you, comrade," continued the man, "there will be some fine doings at Levallois-Perret presently; and all of us who have had a share in the business are also to have a share in the reward."

But Lavérie was not to be cajoled with any promise of a reward. He gave another groan.

"We are dog-tired, all of us," he mumbled. "We've been on our feet since three o'clock this afternoon."

"And we've got a half-a-dozen horses outside," the newcomer riposted gilbly. "We borrowed them from the guard at the Porte d'Asnières. All we've got to do is to get some sort of vehicle from the neighbourhood for the aristos. By the way," he added, turning to his comrade, "did we unearth an old barouche when we were rummaging round the grounds this afternoon?"

"You did," assented Lavérie more cheerfully. "I saw it, too, and there were two horses and some harness in the stables. So, if we can have the mounts--"

"Four of you can have mounts," rejoined the other. "But two of the horses must be led, as they are for our two comrades who are guarding the aristos in the Rue Legendre. With them, and the two of us in the box of the barouche, we shall make an escort of eight: quite enough to be guard against any unpleasant surprise. You Citizen Lavérie," he concluded, "will, I presume, take command of the party?" Then he indicated St. Luc. "And in the meanwhile, perhaps you'll take charge of this old scarecrow, whilst I and my comrade here get out the barouche and put the horses to."

It all seemed so simple. There was really nothing to arouse any man's suspicions, however vigilant he might be. Perhaps, if there had been more light, Lavérie or one of the others would have noticed something strange about the newcomers. But they were in uniform and they had brought St. Luc back with them, together with a message from Courtain, just as Lavérie expected. Moreover, they themselves suggested that the latter should take command of the party. Anyone would have been deceived.

Be that as it may, the coach and pair were got ready in less than twenty minutes. Lavérie in the meanwhile had collected the three women and placed them with St. Luc in charge of some of the men. Now he ordered the aristos to be bundled into the barouche. They all obeyed with the same passive meekness which they had exhibited all along. The three women got in first, then the long-legged old attorney. The two soldiers were already on the box; but there was a little delay at the start, because some of the horses, notably the two in the carriage and a couple of saddled ones, were extremely restive. Lavérie and his men, feeling tired and not too sure of their seats after their prolonged visits to the cellar of Mon Abris, were at pains to select the four mounts that looked almost as sleepy as themselves.

However, the cavalcade was presently got into order. Lavérie gave the word of command, and the procession started at last on its way.

Midway down the Rue Legendre the man on the box drew rein, and Lavérie called a halt.

"This is where we pick up the aristos," the former said, and pointed to a house on his right.

"How shall we find them?" Lavérie asked.

"Two of our comrades are on guard right inside the door," the soldier replied. "Give the password," he added as Lavérie dismounted and called to one of his men to do likewise.

"What is it?" queried the latter.

"Fly-by-night," was the reply.

Everything still quite simple, Lavérie and his comrade found the door of the house wide open, and inside the dark and narrow passage two soldiers were on guard. Lavérie gave the password, whereupon one of them retired farther into the house and presently returned, pushing an elderly woman and an old man roughly before him.

"Are these the aristos?" Lavérie asked.

The soldier nodded.

"The citizen captain must be expecting them," he said.

At a command from Lavérie the two old people were now bundled into the barouche. But the women inside the carriage complained that there was no more room, whereupon St. Luc volunteered to get out and mount on the box. There was some argument over that; but Lavérie was really too sleepy to argue, nor did he protest when St. Luc took the reins in his hands. Perhaps he did not notice. The Rue Legendre was very dark.

Thus the procession was formed once more, the carriage leading the way this time and the mounted escort around.

"We'll go by the Porte de Clichy," the soldier on the box called out at last. "It is the better and quicker way, and the citizen captain will be getting impatient."

It was now quite dark. The party of horsemen, with the ponderous, lumbering vehicle, made a great clatter over the ill-paved streets. The Porte de Clichy was soon reached. There was no question of detaining a carriage escorted by a detachment of revolutionary guard. Lavérie, moreover, was a well-known figure in these parts, and he had all his passes in order.

"Aristos," he explained curtly to the officer in command at the gate, who peeped curiously into the carriage. "Orders of the Citizen Captain Courtain. Important business with the chief commissary of the section at Levallois-Perret."

"Pass on, Citizen!" the officer replied, and stood watching the barouche through the gate and until it was out of sight.

6

The first inkling that Lavérie had that something was wrong was when the driver of the carriage deliberately turned his horses' heads to the right after he had followed the Route de Clichy for about ten minutes. He turned up the Route de Pouchet, whereas Levallois-Perret was in just the opposite direction. Lavérie called the driver's attention to what he thought was merely an error, whereupon the latter whipped up his horses and literally tore up the Route de Pouchet at breakneck speed.

Lavérie dug his knees into his horse and, calling loudly to his men, started in pursuit. But he and the men were tired, and the horses they were riding felt anything but fresh. After a minute or two the carriage gained ground visibly: only two of the mounted men seemed able to keep up with it. Lavérie shouted to them to keep up, but they apparently needed no spur to their efforts. It become a neck to neck race between these two and the barouche, Lavérie and the other three dropping more and more behind every moment. Their horses were obviously spent; they themselves could scarcely sit in their saddles.

"Draw your pistols!" Lavérie shouted to those in front. "Fire at the horses or at the driver. Fire, curse you!" he reiterated, as the soldiers paid no heed to his orders but merely continued to gallop one on each side of the carriage.

He pulled out his own pistol, fired once or twice; but his hand was unsteady, and his eyesight suffered from the effects of Monsieur St. Luc's excellent wines.

Up on the box, the long-legged attorney and the two soldiers were enjoying one of the finest runs they ever remembered in their adventurous careers.

"If," St. Luc presently said, with a light-hearted laugh, "you remembered to give those poor horses the draught I prescribed, they'll drop in a few minutes. They'll come to no harm afterward, but they won't stand a forced gallop for long."

An exclamation from the man next him caused him to look over his shoulder.

"Ah, I thought so!" he went on gaily, for just at that moment Lavérie rolled over and over with his mount on the dusty road. Two minutes later another man followed suit. "If this old barouche were not so confoundedly heavy!" he added, and encouraged his horses with whip and tongue.

"You can slacken, Blakeney," the other exclaimed after awhile. "We are safe from pursuit now."

Indeed, Lavérie's two last comrades had also fallen away. Their horses, covered with sweat and shaking at the knees, had quietly rolled over in the dusty road.

Lord Anthony Dewhurst, one of London's most exquisite dandies, dressed in the haphazard uniform of a revolutionary, was surveying the spectacle from the top of the barouche. Soon the gloom and the distance hid Lavérie and his comrades from view. Then Lord Tony turned back to his chief.

"It was a difficult business this time," he said lightly.

"Yes," Sir Percy replied. "Because we could not trust that obstinate St. Luc to act his part himself. He would have given it all away, so I conveyed him and his wife to the Rue Legendre first, and had some difficulty, I assure you, in persuading him to come. Then I assumed the rôle of the elderly attorney myself and my dear Marguerite made an excellent Madame St. Luc, who kept the other two women up to their task of silence and obedience. At one moment she thought that the waiting-wench would betray us all."

"And if Courtain or one of his men happened to have known the real St. Luc by sight--"

"Then we should have had to devise something else," Blakeney retorted carelessly. "Unlike our friend Courtain, I believe in taking every risk."

"By the way, I wonder what Courtain is doing at the present moment in the lonely house at Levallois-Perret."

"Still waiting for the English spies and the aristos to turn up. He won't leave the house for at least an hour. When I was there about midday, I left every possible indication that the English spies had their headquarters in the house and would surely return before evening. The worthy citizen captain, anxious for the reward, is still calmly waiting for the birds to fly into his trap."

"It was very well managed," Sir Andrew Ffoulkes continued.

"By you two," Blakeney retorted. "Your attack on my two guardians from behind the fence was a masterpiece, and, of course, you rifled their pockets for their passes, but I have yet to hear where you got the horses from."

"We picked up one here and there. That was not very difficult; and everything else was so splendidly thought of," Lord Tony mused, and cast a look of profound admiration for his chief. "The wine and the empty lamps; the carriage and the restive horses. It would have taken a sharper man than poor Lavérie to suspect a trap."

Inside the carriage, Adrienne Lézennes had put her arms round her mother; her hand was on her father's knee. But her eyes and those of her companions in this exciting adventure were fixed upon the false Madame St. Luc.

"And it is you, milady, and your brave husband who have saved us all!" Monsieur St. Luc was saying ruefully.

"At peril of your lives," Adrienne added in a tear-choked voice.

"Ah! but you must not cry, little woman," Marguerite Blakeney said gaily. "We shall be meeting your Félicien at Pouchet, and he must not see you with red eyes!"

"And so we are going to England!" Madame St. Luc mused.

"A dull old country; but safe," Lady Blakeney replied.

CHAPTER V – THE LURE OF THE

CHATEAU

I

"You can't touch Malzieu! Whatever you do, you dare not touch him!"

And the speaker, a stout florid man with thick features and flaccid hanging mouth, brought his clenched fist down with a crash upon the table.

"And why not, if you please, Citizen Desor?" the other man retorted sharply. "Why should any traitor be inviolate, however popular he may be?"

This second speaker was a small spare man, with white, almost cadaverous face and pale, deep-set eyes that darted from time to time piercing, steel-like glances at his interlocutor. But Desor only shrugged his broad shoulders.

"Because," he said, and made a wide sweeping gesture with his thick grimy hand, "because of the whole neighbourhood, Citizen Chauvelin. St. Brieuc is not Paris you must remember: no man with a touch of genius gets lost in this town as he would in your big city. And you must admit that Malzieu is a genius. Did you ever see him in Molière? No? Or as Figaro? Name of a dog, he makes you die of laughter. And handsome, I tell you! The women just adore him, and all St. Brieuc is justly proud of him, for this is his birthplace. The Château de Maljovins close by here belonged to his grandfather and is now in the possession of his cousin Désiré. You can't touch him, I say, for if you do there will be riots in St. Brieuc, and not a single servant of the Republic, civil or military, would be left alive to take the tale as far as Paris."

Chauvelin remained silent after that with eyes closed and lips tightly as if he were striving to shut every ingress to his mind against the other's prying. Then presently he said with quiet emphasis:

"We can't allow a man to remain in such a position. Any man who is the idol of a rabble is a danger to the State."

"He will be a danger," Desor retorted, "if you arrest him."

"That would surely depend on the grounds for the arrest," Chauvelin rejoined blandly.

"I don't understand you," Desor muttered. "Malzieu has done nothing. He is a good patriot, he--"

"If Malzieu, for instance, were to commit a crime--"

Desor laughed. "Malzieu?" he exclaimed. "A crime? He wouldn't harm a cat."

Chauvelin uttered an ejaculation of impatience.

"You are obtuse, my friend," he said. "If Malzieu were to commit a crime--a brutal, cowardly crime--I imagine that the rabble who adore him now, discovering that their idol had feet of clay, would quickly enough hurl him down from his pedestal."

"Yes!" Desor admitted. "If!"

"Well, then!" Chauvelin rejoined significantly, and fixed those pale, scrutinizing eyes of his on his companion. Desor met those eyes, interrogated them for a second or two, until something in their cold, steely gaze mirrored the dark thoughts within.

"You mean--?" he murmured.

Chauvelin merely shrugged and retorted: "Why not?"

"A difficult problem, Citizen Chauvelin!" was Desor's dry remark.

"But not one above your powers, Citizen," Chauvelin concluded blandly.

II

It was on a cold, gusty day in late September that Citizen Fernand Malzieu received the visit of one Desor, a lawyer of somewhat shady antecedents, settled in St. Brieuc since poor Pégou, the old-established notary, had paid on the guillotine the price of his own loyalty to former clients. Desor brought some interesting news, none the less welcome because it came through such an unpleasant channel. Malzieu's cousin, Désiré, who owned the old château of Maljovins, had died, leaving the property to his next of kin, Fernand, the last of his name. Désiré Malzieu had all his life been an eccentric, not to say a maniac. For years he had lived in the old château, all alone, seeing no one, waited on by one old woman who ministered to all his wants. Nothing was known about his life, save that periodically he would go to Paris, taking his old servant Julie with him. Désiré kept an old horse and chaise: he would harness the one to the other and off he and old Julie would go: they would remain absent sometimes two months, sometimes as much as six; but no one knew when they went or when they came back. The old château appeared equally lonely, equally desolate whether the master was in residence or no: of late he had been absent for the best part of a year, and the news of his death had, it seems, come from Paris. For nearly a year the old château had been deserted: it stood perched high up on the cliffs, above the turbulent ocean, and the booming of the waves against the granite rocks had been the only sound that broke the silence of the grim solitude.

But Fernand, with the mercurial, artistic temperament of his class, had always loved Maljovins. As a boy, when Désiré's father and mother were still alive, he had been a constant visitor at the château, but of late he and his cousin had drifted apart. Désiré's eccentricities, his maniacal love of solitude, had kept Fernand's attempts at friendship at bay. And now he was dead and Fernand the rover, the mountebank, found himself in possession of what he had coveted more than anything else in the world: the old family château. It was dull and grey and lonely, but it was Maljovins. Fernand laughed when Desor reminded him of a somewhat curious condition attached to the legacy.

"The place is only yours, Citizen," the notary said, "as long as you make it your habitual dwelling-place. If you are ever absent from it more than three months in any one year, the estate and the château become the property of Julie Navet, the faithful servant of your late cousin, Désiré."

"I have no greater wish, Citizen Notary," Fernand retorted, "than to live at Maljovins for the rest of my days."

"And you are not afraid?"

"Afraid of what?"

"Oh, I don't know," the notary said, and he gave a shudder, as if a wave of cold had passed down his spine. "They say the place is haunted."

"I would love to see a ghost."

"It has been deserted for so long, they say, that malefactors have, before now, made it a place of refuge."

"They'll be welcome to anything I take there with me."

"You are determined, then, Citizen?"

"Certainly I am. Would you have me refuse so brilliant a legacy? I am a poor man, Citizen Notary," Malzieu continued with simple dignity, "and my marriage to the Citizeness Céleste Gambier is delayed through my lack of means."

"Ah!" concluded the notary, "that accounts for everything. Well, I wish you luck, Citizen! When do you go to Maljovins?"

"To-morrow."

Already the lawyer had collected his papers and stuffed them into a leather wallet which he carried under his arm. He now reached for his hat and took his leave.

"Good luck, Citizen," he said once more as Malzieu escorted him through the ante-room and there bade him good-bye.

III

A quarter of an hour later Fernand Malzieu was speeding through the streets of St. Brieuc. Daylight was quickly fading into dusk. The streets were ill-lighted, and in the shelter of doorways and obscure passages furtive figures crouched under cover of the darkness. But Malzieu paid no heed to these. He feared no one in this town, for he was conscious of his own popularity and of the love which his fellow-townsmen--even those of the underworld--had for him. For the past ten years Malzieu had made France laugh, and France had very great need of laughter these days; and he was handsome withal, and genial, spent as freely as he got, and, despite tempting offers to settle down permanently in Paris as a member of the Comédie française, he had continued to make St. Brieuc his headquarters and went on living there, in his native town, simply, unostentatiously, waiting for better times so that he might marry pretty Céleste, the daughter of Citizen Gambier, the municipal doctor.

Malzieu had come to a halt outside a low, narrow house in the Rue des Remparts. It was the house inhabited by the Citizen Gambier and his daughter Céleste. Fernand had just plied the knocker with his accustomed impatience when a tall man wearing a huge caped coat and chapeau-bras, which further enhanced his stature, accosted him by slapping him lustily on the back.

"Well, luckiest of mortals!" the new-comer said gaily, "how goes the world with you?"

"Milor!" Malzieu exclaimed with a thought of consternation in his voice, "what are you doing in this town?"

"Passing through St. Brieuc," the other replied, "on my way to Paris. Are you not rehearsing a new rôle? I must see you in that."

"Ye gods! Do you know Citizen Chauvelin is in St. Brieuc? He is here on some mission of mischief, you may be sure."

"To keep an eye on you probably, my friend," the stranger retorted dryly. "But you have never answered my first question yet."

"How the world goes with me?" Malzieu rejoined lightly. "Well! We produce the new play on Thursday, and I have just become the proprietor of my ancestral château."

"Two excellent bits of news," the Englishman said. "I shall hope to applaud you on Thursday. When do you take possession of your château?"

"To-morrow, if all's well. It is only mine, I must tell you on condition that I am never absent from it longer than three months at a time."

"Ah! An eccentric will, then? Whose was it?"

"My cousin, Désiré de Malzieu, left me the property."

The Englishman frowned. "Ah!" he said, "I did not know he was dead."

"You knew him?"

"I had heard of him--in Paris."

The two men were about to part, and Malzieu was already grasping his friend's hand, bidding him good night, when the Englishman suddenly said with grave earnestness:

"Don't go to Maljovins to-morrow, Fernand. Wait a week or two. You lose nothing by waiting and the whole affair sounds to me like a trap."

"A trap, milor?" Fernand retorted, with a merry laugh, "who should want to entrap me? I am not worth killing. I only possess a thousand livres in all the world, and I shan't have them in my pocket when I go to Maljovins."

"I know, I know," the Englishman rejoined with an impatient sigh. "But you'll admit that I have had some experience of these revolutionary devils over here, and of their methods, and there's something about this will--"

"Now, milor," Malzieu broke in lightly, "if you are going to warn me of danger, it is not to-morrow that I shall go to Maljovins, but to-night."

Whereupon the Englishman said no more, but went his way, whilst Fernand ran up the stone stairs of the house in the Rue des Remparts two at a time, for he was in a mighty hurry to tell his beloved Céleste of the good fortune that had just fallen to his lot.

That same evening, half an hour after Fernand had taken leave of Dr. Gambier and Céleste, and whilst the girl was tidying up the little apartment preparatory to going to bed, she saw that a slip of paper had been mysteriously inserted underneath the front door. Not being of a nervy disposition, she picked up the note and unfolded it. In it was written:

If you ever need a friend, ask advice from the public letter-writer at the angle of Passage Fontaine.

Céleste had been gravely puzzled when she read the note: but she had also been amused. Was it likely that she would be in need of a friend, when she had her father and Fernand in whom she could always confide? But two days had gone by since then, and now she was indeed badly in need of a friend. She did not want to worry her father, who had plenty of troubles and cares of his own; as for Fernand--well! The trouble was about Fernand. It took Céleste some little time to make up her mind: these were times when it was not prudent to trust anyone or anything. That note may have been a trap: and yet-—

A few moments later Céleste was speeding along the Rue des Remparts. She noticed that at the angle of the Passage Fontaine a public letter-writer had of late set up his wares. It was five o'clock of the afternoon: a thin drizzle was falling: Céleste wrapped her shawl close round her head and shoulders and looked cautiously about her. The evening was drawing in, and there were few passers-by: some fifty mètres on ahead the rickety awning that sheltered the letter-writer's table flapped dismally in the wind. The man himself appeared to be dozing under the awning: Céleste hesitated a second or two longer, then she went boldly up to the table.

"I am Céleste Gambier," she said softly, "and have need of a friend."

The letter-writer did not appear to move, but from somewhere out of the semi-darkness, a kindly voice murmured: "What is it?"

"Fernand Malzieu has not been at his lodgings for four days," she said in a hurried whisper. "Last Friday evening, he said good night to me, telling me that he was going to Maljovins the next day to explore the old château. No one has seen or heard anything of him since. This is Tuesday. There was a dress-rehearsal at the theatre this morning. He did not put in an appearance. People make light of this. They say Fernand is engrossed with his good fortune, and has forgotten his duties. They say he will not fail to put in an appearance on Thursday for the production of the play, but I know Fernand better than they do: I know that nothing would make him forget his duties. Something has happened to Fernand, and I am scared to death."

As soon as she had begun her tale, the public letter-writer had roused himself from slumber, and while she spoke he made as if he were writing from her dictation. He was a funny old fellow, with spectacles on his nose, and a shaggy mop of white hair above his high, wrinkled forehead. It was fortunate that the shades of evening were drawing in so quickly in this corner of the narrow street, and that the weather was too bad for clients of the letter-writer to be demanding his services. When Céleste had done speaking, the old man continued for awhile to scribble aimlessly upon the sheet of paper before him, then, when there was not a single passer-by in sight, he said:

"Go home now! Try not to appear anxious. I will bring you news of Fernand to-morrow."

Céleste wanted to ask him a question or two, but, very abruptly, the old man rose, and without paying any further heed to her, he began collecting his traps together and folding up his awning.

"It is getting dark, Citizeness," he said in a loud, gruff voice. "I am going home now and to bed. I advise you to do the same."

And Céleste perforce had to follow this advice.

IV

An hour later two men were speeding down the Chemin de la Digue which leads to the seashore. When they had reached the edge of the cliffs they turned sharply to the left toward the village of Maljovins.

"It is infernally dark," one of the men said impatiently. "Are you sure of the way?"

"Quite sure, Citizen," the other replied; "that sombre mass of building over there is the château."

"And you have provided for everything?"

"For everything, Citizen, and I know that you will be satisfied. Our men succeeded in capturing Fernand Malzieu in the courtyard of the château when he arrived there on Saturday: he has been under lock and key in one of the tower rooms ever since. His cousin Désiré returned from Paris this morning. My man is already there, ready to act if he has not done so already, and the old woman, Julie Navet, has agreed to my terms for giving the evidence which I require. In less than an hour we can have Fernand Malzieu under arrest for the peculiarly brutal murder of his aged cousin, and there will be two eye-witnesses to the crime. Directly afterwards, we will publish the will of Désiré Malzieu, which I have prepared and which I have already shown to Fernand. This will provide us with the motive for the murder and will render the assassin doubly odious to his former worshippers. No!" Desor concluded, with absolute complacence, "we have left nothing to chance, and the Committee of Public Safety will, I hope, give me due recognition for my work."

To this broad hint Chauvelin gave no direct reply, and after a moment's silence he asked abruptly:

"You are sure of your man, I imagine?"

"I could not have found a better," Desor replied. "Orgelet is a man who ought to have been guillotined ages ago, he has half a dozen crimes on his conscience and to-day would murder his own mother for a few francs. I have him in the hollow of my hand, as I hold proofs of certain forgeries and trafficking with our enemies which would send him to the guillotine to-morrow. He knows that, and knows, too, that if he ever played me false or betrayed us in any way, I would use those proofs without hesitation. He has a kind of rough intelligence, too, and will act his part rightly, you may be sure."

"And the woman--what is her name?"

"Julie Navet? Oh, with her, greed is master of all her actions. The way I have worded the will of Désiré Malzieu she becomes sole beneficiary under it, if Fernand does not comply with the conditions. And he cannot do that if we send him to the guillotine for murder."

"The signature to the will? Is that in order?"

"Quite in order, Citizen: and there are the signatures of the two witnesses. Indeed, indeed," the notary concluded emphatically, "you need have no fear on that score either. It is not the first time," he went on cynically, "that I have had to concoct a document of that sort, and I am not likely to bungle this one."

"No," was Chauvelin's equally cynical retort, "for it would not be to your interest, Citizen, to make an enemy of me. As for your reward," he added more lightly, "you need have no fear. It will be adequate: I promise you."

After which there was silence for a while between these two partners in the infamous plot. They walked on rapidly, bending their heads to the wind: soon an irregular mass of masonry, partially hidden by clumps of trees, loomed out of the fast-gathering darkness. It was the chateau of Maljovins. The two men, silently and cautiously, began by making a tour of inspection of the entire building.

The main body of the house consisted of two stories only, but in the centre of the façade an extra story had been added; it only consisted of one room, with a window and a balcony. The front of the house was approached by a paved courtyard, and it was ornamented by a colonnaded porch which gave support to another and larger balcony; under this porch was the main entrance into the château. To right and left the house was flanked by square, projecting towers, each of which had doors giving direct access into them from the courtyard. As the château was built on the side of the cliff, the upper story was on the level at the back: a broken-down veranda, covered with overgrown wild vine, gave access through glazed doors into this side of the house. Here, too, and to the left of the veranda there was an additional tower, taller than the others and octagonal in shape: this tower also had, a door which gave direct access into it. From this multiplicity of doors it was easy to infer that the rooms on the ground floor of the towers had no direct communication with other parts of the house, and that there was possibly only one staircase in the centre of the château.

The two men had completed the tour of the building: with their linen carefully concealed by the dark lapels of their coats, and their hats pulled well over the eyes, they moved about the darkness noiselessly, like ghosts. They had just reached the veranda and were cautiously peering about them, when a slight sound coming from the darkest angle caused Desor suddenly to dart forward with an angry oath: the next moment there was the sound of a sharp struggle, a smothered curse, a choking murmur, and the notary dragged a man out from under the veranda into the open.

"What is the meaning of this?" Chauvelin queried in a whisper.

"Name of a dog," came in a hoarse reply from the victim of Desor's sudden onslaught, "if that is the way you treat a patriot--"

"Citizen Orgelet--!" murmured the notary.

"Who else?" the other retorted. "A fine fright you gave me, I can tell you. And why do you interfere with my business, I'd like to know."

"It was a mistake, Citizen," Desor whispered apologetically. "I thought--"

"You have lost your nerve, Citizen Desor," Orgelet riposted, with a sneer. "Seeing ghosts, what? Well, am I to finish this business, or am I not?"

"I thought to find it all done--" grunted Desor.

"I had no opportunity," was Orgelet's gruff rejoinder, "the aristo arrived late in the afternoon. He bolted and barred all the doors and windows himself. It took me some time to get one undone."

"Why all this to-do?" Desor retorted roughly, "there is no one in the house but the old woman, and she won't interfere with you."

But apparently Orgelet was inclined to be truculent. "If you can find someone else to do the work for you," he began; but Chauvelin once again broke in impatiently:

"Stop this wrangling!" he commanded; "and you, Citizen Orgelet, get to business: we've wasted too much time already."

Orgelet shook himself like a big, shaggy dog: then, with hands in pocket, he shuffled back up the shallow steps of the veranda, Chauvelin and Desor following closely behind him.

"I have got these shutters undone," Orgelet whispered, and softly disengaged first the outside latch of one of the shutters, and then the bolt of the glazed doors. A moment later he had stepped cautiously into the house, whilst Desor and Chauvelin remained outside--watching. It was pitch dark. For a moment or two everything was as silent, as motionless as a grave--then from out of the darkness a soft shuffling sound made itself heard, the sound of stealthy footsteps creeping down some unseen stairs, and anon a voice came whispering through the gloom:

"Hist, is that you; Citizen Orgelet?"

"At your service, Citizeness," Orgelet replied.

The footsteps came nearer and suddenly a shaft of light pierced the darkness, and lit up the grotesque figure of an old woman, scantily dressed in a petticoat and shawl. Orgelet had opened the shutter of a small, dark lantern which he carried in his belt: the old woman only just succeeded in smothering the scream which had risen to her throat.

"How you frightened me, Citizen!" she murmured hoarsely.

"Too late now to think of fright," Orgelet retorted. "Is everything ready?"

"Yes!" the woman replied, "he has gone to bed, and there's no one in the house but me."

"Which is the bedroom?"

"Just up those steps, then turn sharply to your right. The door in front of you, at the end of the passage. I have left it on the latch."

"Then stay down here until I call you. I shall not be long," was Orgelet's final, cynical retort, as he tiptoed toward the stairs.

The old woman remained crouching somewhere in a dark angle of the room: Chauvelin, closely followed by Desor, had stepped noiselessly into the room. They watched, fascinated, the movements of the shaft of light that came from the lantern at Orgelet's belt. Up the stairs it travelled, then took a sharp turn to the left, and crept along a short passage: Orgelet's footsteps were noiseless, but presently the watchers heard the soft sound of a door being cautiously opened, followed almost immediately by a loud cry of "Qui va là"?

The old woman gave a smothered cry and buried her face in her hands. Desor, with hands that shook and dripped with moisture, gripped the edge of his companion's coat. Only Chauvelin remained motionless and unmoved. The first cry had been followed by another: "Voleur! Assassin!" The silent, deserted château seemed suddenly alive with noise: a tramping of feet overhead, a struggle, another cry, quickly smothered this time, then a dull thud. After that, silence again.

And a few minutes later the watchers from below saw the tell-tale shaft of light come creeping back, first along the passage, then down the stairs. Orgelet had done his work.

"Is he dead?" Chauvelin asked.

He had spoken quite calmly, hardly raising his voice, and yet the sound reverberated like dull thunder through the silence and the gloom.

"I believe you," Orgelet grunted in reply: then added with a cynical laugh: "It was tough work, I can tell you." He was intent on nursing one of his wrists, rubbing it with the palm of his other hand and muttering a coarse oath or else a groan from time to time. The bright eye of his lantern wandered aimlessly from point to point about the room with every movement that he made: one moment it lit up the huddled figure of the old woman, and the next it alighted on Desor's bloated face or on Chauvelin's shrunken figure and pale, thin hands. The room appeared large, running right through from the veranda at the back of the house to the balcony above the porch in front. The staircase was somewhere on the left encased in gloom. There was very little furniture about: a horse-hair sofa in one angle, a desk in another: in the centre, a round table, with three or four upright chairs around it.

The old woman had begun to whimper, her teeth could be heard chattering.

"Stop that snivelling," Chauvelin broke in impatiently.

"My poor, poor master," she moaned.

"You should have thought of that sooner, my good woman," Chauvelin retorted dryly. "Are you forgetting perchance, that Citizen Orgelet has just put you in possession of a very nice château and some valuable land?" he added with a sneer.

At once the sound of whimpering ceased

"You won't go back on that, Citizen?" she asked.

"Not unless you play me false."

"I won't play you false," the woman said more steadily, even though she could not quite stop the chattering of her teeth, "tell me what to do and I'll do it."

"It won't be difficult either," Desor grunted. "And what a reward!"

"It is close on nine o'clock now," Chauvelin resumed in curt, incisive tones. "At ten o'clock you will go upstairs into your master's room--"

"Saints in Heaven!" the woman broke in shrilly, "how shall I do that?"

"By thinking, I imagine, of the will which your master has made, leaving all his property to you," Chauvelin replied with a dry chuckle. "That ought to steady your knees as you go up those stairs. Well, you will carry a candle, and you need only go as far as the door, but you'll open the door wide and then let yourself sink down on the threshold, as if you were in a faint, and there you will remain until the Commissary of Police arrives on the scene. You understand?"

"Yes, yes!" she murmured, "but, my God, how shall I do it?"

"The Commissary of Police will question you, and you will tell him that Citizen Orgelet here is your nephew, that he had been doing some work in the stables for your master and had then come in to have supper with you: that your master went up to bed at nine o'clock, and that you and your nephew followed an hour later: that going up the stairs you both heard certain sounds that alarmed you: that you went to the door of your master's room, found it on the latch, pushed it open, and saw--you understand me?--saw Citizen Malzieu, whom you know well by sight, standing over your master with his two hands around his throat; that you screamed, and Citizen Orgelet rushed forward to apprehend the murderer, after which you must have fainted for you remember nothing more. Is that clear?"

"Quite--quite clear, Citizen," the woman muttered feebly.

"And what did I do," here broke in Orgelet, "with a dry cackle, whilst my respected aunt fainted on the doorstep?"

"You overpowered the assassin," replied Chauvelin curtly, "pinioned him to a chair by securing his hands with his belt and his feet with yours, wound your scarf around his mouth then you ascertained that poor Désiré Malzieu was dead, and finally ran to the nearest commissariat of police, like the good citizen that you are."

"Hm! And the assassin?"

"We have him under lock and key. He has been shut up in one of the tower-rooms since Saturday; he will be too hungry to struggle much."

"So long as it seems reasonable that I overpowered him and pinned him to a chair, single-handed---"

"What? A sturdy, big gossoon like you?--and Fernand Malzieu is an actor--puny--effete--"

"I am not objecting, Citizen, if you are satisfied!"

"Then go and fetch the fellow. You'll find him in the ground-floor room of the octagonal tower on this side of the château. We must get our mise-en-scène right, eh, Citizen Desor?"

But Desor did not seem over-inclined to talk. There was something ghoulish in the matter-of-fact way in which Citizen Chauvelin was directing the staging of this grizzly comedy of which he, Desor, was the principal author.

"Are you dreaming, Citizen," Chauvelin said abruptly in that trenchant voice of his which always seemed to contain a menace. "Give your friend Orgelet the key of the tower-room. After which we'll go and set up the scene for the last act of the play."

Silently Desor fumbled in the capacious pocket of his coat and silently he handed a key to Orgelet.

"The ground-floor room in the octagon tower, you said?" the ruffian remarked, and then shuffled across the room toward the veranda. The next moment he had disappeared through the glazed door; his lantern went with him, and the two men and the old woman remained in utter darkness. Orgelet's heavy, dragging footsteps could be heard quite distinctly, first on the wooden flooring of the veranda, then squelching the soft, rain-sodden ground of the pathway round the house. The silence around was death-like; way below the cliffs, the outgoing tide made no sound of breaking surf, or rattle of pebbles on the beach: the rain fell, soft and persistent; soundless, too. The darkness alone seemed to carry sounds within its folds--Orgelet's footsteps, and after awhile the grating of a rusty key in a lock, somewhere in the near distance, and a murmur as of a man's voice.

"Get a candle, woman," Desor said suddenly in a husky voice, "this darkness is enough to choke a man."

"No, no, leave it alone," Chauvelin riposted. "Orgelet will be back directly."

Somewhere close by a wooden shutter flapped, weirdly, persistently, like the knocking of ghostly knuckles seeking admittance into the house of death, then once again heavy footsteps squelched the muddy path. They sounded heavier, slower, than before. Soon a narrow shaft of light loomed through the darkness: it drew nearer, and presently fell across the veranda floor.

"Name of a name of a dog, this is work for beasts, not for man," came from a gruff voice, even as Orgelet reappeared under the lintel of the glazed door. A heavy burden lay right across his shoulders: a ray of light from the lantern in his belt caught the tip of his big nose and the point of his chin covered with a grimy stubble.

"Take him upstairs," Chauvelin commanded; "we'll follow."

Orgelet muttered a few more oaths, but never thought to disobey. He toiled laboriously up the narrow, winding stairs, with Chauvelin close on his heels, and Desor, dragging Julie Navet by the hand, following on behind.

Outside the door of the room where Désiré Malzieu lay lifeless, Orgelet paused and deposited his burden on the ground, propping it up against the wall.

"I thought I would lock our friend Désiré in," he said, with his coarse, callous laugh, "in case the dead took to walking."

He took a key out of his pocket, but before inserting it in the lock, he looked down on the burden which he had brought on his shoulders all this way from the tower-room. The light from his lantern fell on Fernand Malzieu's pale, wan face; his eyes were open and had a dull, feverish glow in them, his hair lay matted against his forehead, his mouth and chin were hidden by a woollen scarf wound loosely around his mouth.

"He doesn't look much like a desperate murderer now, does he?" Orgelet remarked sarcastically.

Then he turned the key in the lock and threw open the door. He took the lantern from his belt and held it high above his head, moving it to and fro to illumine different parts of the room. The light fell on the tumbled bed, the blankets dragged to the floor, the broken crockery and overturned chair, and in the centre of the room the motionless form of old Désiré Malzieu lying on his face with claw-like fingers clutching convulsively at the carpet.

"A pretty sight, what?" Orgelet remarked with a ghoulish cackle. "What do you think of it, Citizen Chauvelin?"

With a cry of impatience Chauvelin snatched the lantern from him and stepped briskly into the room; Desor still dragging the woman by the hand, was hard on his heels.

The next moment the door behind them fell to with a loud bang, and the key grated in the lock. A noise as of a hundred demons let loose issued from inside the room, whilst on the other side of the door Orgelet cautiously lifted the inanimate figure of Fernand Malzieu from the ground and once more hoisted him up on his shoulders. Quickly, but as swiftly as he could, guiding himself with one hand to the banisters, and steadying his burden with the other, he hurried down the stairs, across the room, out once more through the glazed door, then through the veranda back into the open. He skirted the house and crossed the courtyard: here he paused a moment to lend an ear to the shouting, the cursing and the banging that still issued from the top story of the château. Quietly chuckling to himself, he re-started on his way, and this time he did not halt until he had reached the path at the top of the cliffs. Here he came to a standstill, and gently laid his bundle down: then he gave a cry like that of a sea-mew, and thrice repeated it.

All around the same silence still held sway, only from below at this point the gentle murmur of the waves rose and fell in rhythmic cadence that was soothing and agreeable to the ear.

Two men emerged now out of the darkness, and Citizen Orgelet called out to them in an extraordinarily cultured and well-modulated voice and in amazingly perfect English:

"Hastings, is that you?"

"At your command," a pleasant voice gave reply. "Galveston is with me. Have you got your man?"

"You bet I have. But I fear me he cannot walk."

"We have a couple of horses not two hundred mètres from here," my lord Hastings explained, "and we can carry him so far."

"I'll leave him in your hands, then," the pseudo-Orgelet rejoined. "You can take him to his lodgings in the Rue des Moines, number 17, over against the jeweller's shop at the sign of the opal ring. Give him in charge of his man-of-all-work, and then go at once to the house of the Citizen Doctor Gambier, see Mademoiselle Céleste, his daughter, and tell her the news. After that, meet me at my lodgings. I must get some of this filth off me before I can think of anything else."

He watched my lord Hastings and Sir Richard Galveston while they lifted the still unconscious body of Fernand Malzieu in their arms, and then he waited until these two devoted followers had disappeared in the darkness with their precious burden. After which, he turned on his heel and walked back toward the old château.

V

An hour later in a dingy lodging situated not far from the one where Fernand Malzieu was slowly recovering consciousness under the loving eyes of Céleste Gambier, we men were delighting in the story of this latest adventure of their beloved chief.

"I could not resist going back to that old crow's nest," Blakeney was saying gaily, "just to see how that unsavoury rabble was getting on. I was just in time to see the elegant form of my ever-engaging friend Chauvelin silhouetted against the light behind him; he was apparently mentally gauging the distance from the top balcony to the one below and marvelling if he might venture on a jump. He had succeeded in opening the window and the shutter: the door, I imagine, holding fast; it was of oak, very stout, and the lock was good. He was silent as usual: but in the room behind him, his precious mate, Desor, as well as old Désiré Malzieu and that abominable hag, were making a noise fit to bring all the evil spirits out of Hades."

"Old Malzieu was not hurt, then?" one of the young men asked.

"Not he!" Sir Percy replied. "You see, what actually happened was this: after poor, little Céleste had confided her anxiety to me, and I had arranged to meet some of you on the cliffs, I put on some rags and set off at once, as you know, for the old château. I knew, of course, that poor, unsuspecting Fernand had walked straight into a trap which those devils had set for him. What that trap was I could only conjecture, but I had shot a guessing arrow into the air and it had not fallen wide of the mark. My only fear was that we should be too late, and that I should find the abominable deed already done. The château was all in darkness when I arrived, door and windows hermetically closed; but peeping through one of the shutters under the veranda I saw old Désiré sitting at the table, having some supper and waited on by that old hag Julie. Of Fernand I saw no sign. A moment or two later I became conscious that I was not the only night-bird prowling round the old château. A bulky, clumsy form was lurking in the shadows, obviously intent on mischief. He, too, like myself, peeped through the shutters of the veranda, then he ensconced himself in its darkest angle and waited. I, in the meanwhile, had found cover behind some rough shrubbery from whence I had observed his movements. I give you my word that the whole sinister plan invented by those fiends was by this time as clear as daylight to me. A lurking assassin! A will supposed to have been made in favour of Fernand whose popularity disturbed the complacence of the Terrorists! A charge of wilful murder! Odium cast on the popular actor! The idol of the people turned into an execrated criminal! Well, we had to put a spoke in that abominable wheel or shame the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel for ever."

"You know the rest," Blakeney went on lightly.

"Skirting the house, I succeeded in effecting an entrance into it by climbing by way of the two balconies up to the top floor window, which luckily was not so securely latched as those on the lower floors. The room which I entered was obviously the master's bedroom: everything was prepared for him for the night. Trusting to luck, I hid underneath the bed and waited. After awhile, Désiré Malzieu came upstairs. Then came the dramatic moment. What exactly happened in the room below I cannot, of course, tell you. I was just trusting to luck. But presently I heard shuffling footsteps, then voices from below, finally the opening of the bedroom door. You can easily guess the rest: whilst Orgelet feil on old Désiré Malzieu, who was shouting 'Voleur! Assassin!' fit to wake the dead, I fell on Orgelet, who was so taken by surprise that has never uttered a sound. What with his belt and my own and a length of rope which I had stuffed into my pockets, I managed to get him well trussed and silenced and stuffed underneath the bed: old Désiré was sprawling on the floor, but I did not think that he was very grievously hurt. From Orgelet I had taken the dark lantern which proved such a valuable friend, for it lit up everything round me and left my face in darkness. After that, the whole thing became child's play. I was sent by Desor to fetch poor Fernand: until that moment I did not know where he was and never had the time or opportunity to look for him. When I first saw him, he was more dead than alive, but we may take it at this moment, under the able ministrations of Mademoiselle Céleste, he is more alive than dead. And so, home, friends," the daring adventurer concluded with his merry, last laugh; "frankly, I am demmed fatigued. At dusk to-morrow we make for the Day-Dream and set sail for England, and unless the little party's obstinacy prove greater than our determination, we'll have Fernand Malzieu and his pretty Céleste and possibly old Doctor Gambier on board, too."

CHAPTER VI – IN THE TIGER'S DEN

I

Heavens above, the indignation! The entire commune of Bordet was outraged: its rampant patriotism was stirred to its depths.

Think of it! That abominable gang of English desperadoes had been at work in the region. Aye! within a stone's throw of Bordet itself. For Bordet is an important commune, look you! Situated less than half a dozen leagues from Paris, and possessing a fine château which might be termed a stronghold, it had the proud distinction of having harboured important prisoners at different times--aristos, awaiting condemnation and death--when the great prisons of the capital were, mayhap, over-full, or it was thought more expedient to erect a guillotine on the spot.

Thus it was that the ci-devant Bishop of Chenonceaux--a man of eighty who should have known better than to defy the law--and the equally old Curé de Venelle had been incarcerated in Fort St. Arc, and it was from there, and on the very eve of the arrival of Mme la Guillotine and her attendant executioner on a visit to Bordet, that those two old calotins were spirited away under the very nose of Citizen Sergeant Renault, one of the shrewdest soldiers in the department and more keen after spies than a terrier is after rats.

Sergeant Renault was soundly rebuked for what was mercifully termed his carelessness, and he was ordered off to defy Holland to rejoin his regiment, there to expiate his misdemeanour by fighting against the English. And good luck to him, if he came home with all his fingers and toes and the tip still on his nose. The authorities in Paris, on the other hand, despatched a special officer down to Bordet to take over the command of the detachment of National Guard stationed at Fort St. Arc, as well as to supervise the organization of the police in the district.

Now, if the English spies dared to show their ugly faces in Bordet they would have to deal with Citizen Papillon--a very different man to that fool Renault, whose popularity and reputation had effectually gone down with him. A day or two after the arrival of Papillon, a batch of prisoners were brought to Fort St. Arc: ci-devant priests--contumacious ones, so 'twas understood--from villages over Orléans way, whose crimes against the new laws regulating the administration of religion were too many to enumerate. No wonder that the authorities in Paris required a man of Papillon's shrewdness and enthusiasm to guard these against the possible interference of that master-spy--the mysterious Englishman, known throughout the country as the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Papillon, sitting in state in the Taverne des Trois Rats, surrounded by an admiring crowd of citizens, gave it as his opinion that not the devil himself--so be it there was a devil--could spirit the aristos out of St. Arc.

"And look you," he went on sententiously, "look you, citizens all! It has come to my ears, that there are those among you who, for filthy lucre, have actually lent a hand to those abominable English spies in their treacherous devices against the security of the State. Now, let me tell you this: if I catch any man of you thus trafficking with those devils I will shoot him on sight like a dog!"

And he looked so fierce when he said this, and rolled his eyes so ferociously that many a man felt an icy shiver coursing down his spine.

"Therefore," concluded Citizen Papillon, "if any one of you here know aught of the doings of that gang of malefactors, or of the place of their abode, let him come forward now like a man, and a patriot, and impart such information to me."

There was silence after that--silence all the more remarkable as the Taverne des Trois Rats was densely packed with men, all of whom hung spellbound on the irascible sergeant's lips. Citizen Papillon, having delivered himself of such sound patriotic principles, proceeded to quench his thirst, and whilst he did so, the silence gradually broke, firstly into a soft murmur, then into louder whispering; finally a few words were distinguishable above a general hum which sounded now like the buzzing inside a beehive.

"Tell him, Citizen Chapeau!" one or two men kept on repeating in a hoarse whisper. "It is thy duty to tell."

Thus admonished and egged on too by sundry prods from persuasive elbows and fists, a tall, ungainly youth slowly worked his way in and out of the forest of tables, chair, and intervening humanity, until he came within a few feet of the redoubtable Papillon, where he remained standing, obviously timid and undecided.

"Well, Citizen, what is it?" the Sergeant condescended to say in an encouraging tone of voice.

"It is--it is that--" the youth answered. Then he suddenly blurted out the whole astounding fact: "It is that I know where the English spies have their night quarters!" he said.

"What?" And Sergeant Papillon nearly fell off his chair, so staggered and excited was he. He appeared quite speechless for the moment, nor did Chapeau say anything more: his courage had once more sunk into his sabots. Then someone volunteered the remark:

"Citizen Glapeau lives on the outskirts of the commune. His father is a mender of boats."

"Well, what of that?" Papillon demanded.

"My father and I have seen strange forms of late prowling about the river bank o' nights," Chapeau said with a swift if transitory return to courage.

Papillon, with characteristic keenness, seized upon these scanty facts, and within a few minutes had dragged from the timid Chapeau all the information he needed.

Chapeau's story was simple enough. Close to the river bank, not a quarter of a league from his father's hut, there was a derelict cottage. Citizen Papillon would not know it, as he was a stranger in these parts, but everyone in Bordet knew the place and could go to it blindfolded. Eh bien! Chapeau could swear he had seen vague forms moving about inside the cottage and, in fact--in fact--well, he himself had taken wine and food there once or twice--oh, certainly not more than twice--at the command of a tall foreigner, who might have been an Englishman.

This was neither the place nor the time to deal with Chapeau's misdemeanour in the matter of parleying with and feeding the enemies of the country. Sergeant Papillon for the nonce contented himself with admonishing the delinquent and frightening him into a state bordering on imbecility. After which he turned to his subordinate, Corporal Joly, and fell to whispering with him. It was understood that measures were being taken for a nocturnal expedition against the English spies, and after awhile the agitated throng fled out of the Taverne des Trois Rats and men returned to their homes to ponder over the events which were about to plunge the peaceful commune of Bordet into a veritable hurricane of excitement.

II

The derelict cottage which stood with its back to the towpath had no roof; only two of its outside walls were whole, the others, built of mud and stone, had partially fallen in. Inside, the place was littered with debris of plaster and of lath: the front door had gone, leaving a wide, shapeless gap in its place: the inside walls were partly demolished, and there was no trace of any staircase.

In the shelter of these ruins vague forms were moving. The night was dark and very still after the rain. The moon was up, but invisible behind a thin veiling of clouds which tempered her light into a grey half-tone that lay over the river like a ghost-like pall and made the shadows appear almost solid upon the banks. The miscellaneous noises which during the day filled the immediate neighbourhood of the towpath with life and animation had long since died away: all sounds were stilled in the direction of the boat-mender's workshop some two hundred mètres away. All that could be heard now was the soughing of the night-breeze through the reeds or the monotonous drip-drip of lingering raindrops from the branches of the willow trees. Even the waterfowl and tiny, prowling beasts were at rest, and the lazy river made no sound as she lapped her flat banks with silent somnolence.

The men who were sheltering in the derelict cottage did not speak. They were of the type whom a life of adventure and of deadly perils constantly affronted, had endorsed with the capacity for perfect quietude and protracted silences. It is only the idle and shallow-witted who are for ever restless and discursive. Of time, they took no count: the whole of the night was before them, with its every moment mapped out for action and for thought.

Then suddenly one of them spoke:

"They should be here by now," he said in a soft whisper, scarce distinguishable from the soughing of the wind among the rushes, "unless the worthy Papillon has changed his mind. You'll have to hold them a good quarter of an hour when they do come," he added, with a pleasant laugh.

A happy chuckle came in response to this command.

He who had first spoken straightened out his tall figure and gazed above the low parapet of broken masonry toward the remote distance where the solid, irregular pile of Fort St. Arc stood out spectral, almost weird, against the midnight sky.

"When Ffoulkes and I have done our work," he resumed after awhile, "we'll meet as arranged. I don't know how many of us there will be, but we'll do our best."

"I believe that my information is correct," another voice put in quietly. "There are half a dozen old priests shut up in the topmost story of the tower they call Duchesse Anne."

"Nothing could be better," the chief went on, "as the tower is close to the river and very easy of access. I wonder, now," he added thoughtfully, "why they chose it."

"I wondered, too," the other assented. "It seems the prisoners were moved in there yesterday."

"Well, so long as we have the boats…"

"We have two: and Hastings is in charge of them, in the backwater just below the Venelle woods."

"Then there is nothing more to arrange," the chief concluded, "and so long as you, Tony, and Holte can keep that fool Papillon and his detachment off our hands until they are too tired to do more mischief, Ffoulkes and I will have ample time for our work and should certainly be at the back-water before dawn."

Before any of the others could give reply, however, he gave a peremptory: "Hush!" then added quickly: "Here they are! Come, Ffoulkes!"

To any but a practised ear, the silence of the night was still unbroken: only such men as these, whose senses were keyed up to the presence of danger, like the beasts in the desert or jungle, could have perceived that soft and subtle sound of men stirring far away. A detachment of the National Guard was in truth moving forward stealthily along the towpath and the adjacent fields from the direction of Bordet: their thinly-shod feet made no noise on the soft, rain-sodden earth. They crept along, their backs bent nearly double, they carried their muskets in their hands and each man had a pistol in his belt.

In the derelict cottage all was silence again. Of the four men who had been there, two had gone. These two were also creeping along under cover of the darkness, but their way lay in the direction of Bordet. They appeared as one with the shadows of the night, which enveloped them as in a shroud. At times they crawled flat on their faces, like reptiles in the ditches, at others they flitted like spectres across an intervening field.

When, after awhile, the body of Papillon's men was in their rear, they struck boldly across to the towpath, and thereafter, with elbows held to their sides, swiftly and with measured tread they ran along towards Fort St. Arc. At a distance of some two hundred mètres from the pile they halted. A spinney composed of alders, birch, and ash gave them shelter; the undergrowth below hid them from view.

"What disgusting objects we must look," one of the men said with a quaint, happy laugh. "I vow that confounded mud has even got into my teeth."

He drew a scented handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped his face and hands.

"I wonder," he said, musing, "if it is possible for any man to be quite such a fool as Papillon appears. Well, we shall see."

The other, in the meanwhile, had groped his way to a dense portion in the undergrowth, whence after some searching in the dark, he brought out a bundle of clothes.

"Hastings has not failed us," he said simply. "And the others will be waiting in the Venelle woods."

Whereupon the two men proceeded to divest themselves of the rough and mud-stained garments which they were wearing, and to don the clothes which their friend had laid ready for them. These consisted of uniforms of the National Guard, a disguise oft affected by members of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel: blue coats with red facings, white breeches and high, black gaiters reaching above the knee, all very much worn and stained.

"Excellent!" the taller of the two men said when he had fastened the last button. "Now, Ffoulkes, remember! You wait below until I give the signal. You have the rope, of course?"

He did not wait for a reply, but started to walk at a quick pace towards the fort. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, Bart., one of the smartest exquisites in London, followed close on his heels, with a heavy-knotted rope wound around his person.

Everything had been pre-arranged. Within a few minutes the two men had reached the edge of the spinney, and the irregular pile of the old fort, with the tower known as the Duchesse Anne in the foreground, rose grim and majestic above them. The Duchesse Anne was an irregular heptagonal tower surmounted by a battlement. There were only two small windows, one above the other, in the façade which fronted the spinney: they were perched high up, close to the battlemented room; one of these windows, the lower one of the two, showed a dim light.

Above it, to the immediate left, there was a square, flat projection which might have served as a look-out place or a concealing closet. A tiny window was cut into its face. To the right and left of the tower, the irregular roofs and battlements of the fort, some of them in ruins, all of them obviously neglected and disused, rose in irregular masses against the sky. Shallow, rocky slopes, covered with rough grasses and shrubs, led up to the foot of the fort, save where these had been cut into to form a bridge that led to the main entrance portal. The night had become very dark. Heavy clouds were rolling in from the south-west, completely obliterating the moon, and a few heavy raindrops had begun to fall.

Sir Andrew Ffoulkes now wound the knotted rope around his chief's body, and a minute later the latter began his ascent of the slopes. Immediately the darkness swallowed him up. Sir Percy Blakeney, one of the most powerful athletes of his time, was possessed of almost abnormal physique and was as agile as a cat. To him the climbing of a rough, stone wall did not present the slightest difficulty. Here, a century-old ivy and a stout iron pipe gave him all the help he needed. Within five minutes he was on a level with the lower of the two windows--the one which showed a dim light, like a sleepy, half-open eye, through the darkness clinging with one hand to the ivy and with the other to a stone projection, he peeped in through the window. It was innocent of glass. One bar of iron divided it vertically in two, leaving, so Sir Percy ascertained at once, sufficient space for the passage of a human body. The room on which it gave was large and bare. Blakeney, for the space of a second or two, thought it was empty. He seized the iron bar and limbed upon the sill; this gave him a commanding view of the room. It was innocent of furniture, save for one chair, and in the corner, on a level with the window, a table.

In front of this table, kneeling upon the floor, and with their heads buried in their hands, six men were kneeling. Sir Percy could only see their backs, clad in black soutanes, shiny at the seams, threadbare across the shoulders, and the worn soles of their shoes. The men were praying. One of them was reciting a Litany: the others gave the responses.

Without another thought, Sir Percy Blakeney threw one shapely leg over the window-sill, then the other, and dropped gently down into the room.

In one moment the six men were on their feet, with a loud cry of triumph which had nothing priestly in its ring, and through which one voice, hoarse with excitement, rang out commanding and distinct.

"My gallant Scarlet Pimpernel, so then we meet at last!"

III

In less time than that of a heart-beat Sir Percy realized the magnitude of the trap which had been laid for him. In less than one second he saw himself surrounded; at a call from his first assailants, half a dozen more men had rushed into the room; he felt a dozen pairs of hands laid about his person and heard the cries of exultation and the shouts of derision. He saw the pale eyes of his arch-enemy Chauvelin glistening with triumphant malice as they met his own across the room.

A dozen pairs of hands! No wonder that Chauvelin called to him with a complacent grin.

"I think we have fairly caught you this time, eh, my fine gentleman!"

He looked so evil just then, so cruel and withal so triumphant that Blakeney's imperturbable humour got the better of his grim sense of danger. He threw back his head and a loud, merry peal of laughter woke the echoes of the old fort.

"By Gad!" he said lightly. "I verily believe, sir, that you have."

They thought that he meant to sell his life dearly; one or two of them raised the butt-ends of their pistols, ready to strike the struggling lion on the head. But that struggle was brief. Just once he freed himself from them all. Just once did he send one or two of his assailants, with a mighty blow of his powerful fists, sprawling, half-senseless, against the wall. Just once did Hébert--Hébert who had a heavy score to settle against the Scarlet Pimpernel--raise a knife, and would have dealt a death-blow to the fighting giant in the back, but it was Chauvelin himself who struck the would-be assassin such a heavy blow on the wrist with his pistol, that the knife fell with a clatter to the ground.

"You fool," he said with a snarl, "this is not the time to kill him."

At that same moment Blakeney raised his hand, and before anyone could intervene he flung something white and heavy with unerring precision and lightning rapidity through the window. But what was one man's strength--even if it be almost superhuman--against the weight of numbers?

"You are caught, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel!" Chauvelin kept on repeating in a shrill, excited voice, and rubbed his thin, claw-like hands complacently one against the other "You are caught at last and this time…"

He left the sentence uncompleted, but there was a world of vengeful malice in those unspoken words. Quickly enough the end came. One man used the butt-end of his pistol and struck at the lion from behind. The blow caught him at the back of the head and for a moment his senses reeled: whereupon they got him down flat upon the table and tied him to it with the knotted rope which he had about him.

Even through half-swooning senses, he was aware of Chauvelin's thin, colourless face thrust close to his own.

"Fairly caught, eh, my gallant Pimpernel?" the Terrorist whispered with a malicious chortle; "there are four calotins in the room above and you have fallen like a bird into my trap this time."

"Aye! and been trussed like a fowl," Sir Percy gave cool reply. "The last time you trussed me like this was on the sands off Calais. On that occasion too you had donned clerical garb, my friend. 'Tis all of good augury."

Chauvelin laughed; he felt secure at last. No more bargaining with the Scarlet Pimpernel, no more parleyings. The guillotine here in the courtyard of the fort as soon as it could be brought down from Paris. He would send a courier for it at once. In less than twelve hours, it could be here. In the meanwhile, unless indeed supernatural agencies were at work, there was no fear that this trussed bundle of anguished humanity could escape out of this trap.

Blakeney securely tied to the table, with several mètres of rope wound about his body, was as helpless as his most bitter enemy could have wished. For the nonce he seemed to have lost consciousness. He lay quite still, with eyes closed, and slender hands--the hands of an idealist and of an exquisite--hanging limp and nerveless from the wrist.

That was the last vision which Chauvelin had of him as he finally went out of the room in the wake of his friends. They took the lantern away with them and left the captured giant in darkness. After which they filed out through the door and pushed the heavy bolts home. Even so half a dozen men were left on guard outside: the others quietly went their way, satisfied.

IV

How long Sir Percy remained thus pinioned in total darkness, he could not have told you. Time for him had ceased to be. That he had not been altogether blind to the possibility of this danger was proved by the fact that he had a message ready for Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, in his pocket, carefully weighted with a disc of lead. It contained less than half a dozen words and was characteristic both of the man and of his friends, in whom he trusted. The words were "Am helpless. Wait for signal." This message he had succeeded in flinging out of the window before he had been finally overpowered. He was quite convinced in his own mind that if Sir Andrew received the missile, nothing short of death itself would move him from his post. He would watch and wait.

All that prescience could accomplish had therefore been done; from henceforth luck, indomitable will and untiring pluck could alone save this reckless adventurer from the consequence of his own daring.

Indomitable will and pluck--the pluck to wait and to remain quiescent at this moment when the husbanding of strength perhaps meant ultimate safety. He did not struggle, nor did he waste his energies, great as they were, in futile attempts to free himself from his bonds. The men, who had set the cunning trap, were not likely to have bungled over the tying of knots; therefore Blakeney, pinioned and helpless, was content to wait and to watch--to watch for this swift passage of fortune--the quaint, old saying in which he had so often professed belief: "Of fortune the wayward god with the one hair upon his bald pate, the one hair which he, who is bold may seize and therewith enchain the god to his chariot."

He waited and listened. No sound came from the other side of the door: the soldiers on guard were probably asleep; but overhead men were stirring; shuffling footsteps moved to and fro across the floor. The old calotins were watching and praying, and he who had set out to rescue them lay like an insentient log, the victim of a clumsy feint. At thought of this Sir Percy swore inwardly, and his fine, sensitive lips broke into a self-deprecating smile.

But presently he fell asleep.

When he awoke, he did so because the darkness about him had become less dense. The moon had tom a rent in her mantle of clouds: she peeped in through the window; a shaft of her pale, cold light lay along the floor.

Pinioned as he was, Sir Percy could not do more than slightly raise his head and turn his eyes so as to search with cat-like glance the remotest angles of his prison. Then suddenly his roaming eyes alighted upon an object which lay on the floor just beneath the window. A knife! the one wherewith Hébert had tried to stab him and which Chauvelin had knocked out of his colleague's hand. There it had lain all this while--an unseen salvation.

Strength? of course it required strength! and pluck and determination! But here was a man who had all three in a more than a human degree. Tied to the table, his arms and legs helpless, he had just his powerful shoulders as a leverage, and to a certain extent his elbows. With their aid he started first a gentle oscillating movement of the table, which was a rickety one, the floor being old too, made of deal planks roughly put together and very uneven. Gradually by regular pressure first with one shoulder and elbow, then with the other, the table rocked more and more: presently it tottered, partly swung back again, staggered again and finally came down with a terrific clatter on the floor, bearing its human burden with it to the ground. A broken arm, leg, or shoulder? Perhaps! The adventurer would not think of that! If he did not succeed in getting out of this, he would be no worse off with a broken limb than he had been before. And there was always the chance! At this moment it meant life to him and to others.

The fraças had, of course, roused the soldiers on guard. Sir Percy lying prone now, with the table on top of him, heard them stirring the other side of the door. Anon the bolts were pushed open, the heavy latch lifted. The chance! my God, the chance! The chance of what those miserable soldiers would do when they found the prisoner in such a precarious position. And then there was the knife! My God, do not let them see that knife…and guess! Blakeney lying there, half-numb with the fall, bruised more than he knew, could just perceive its dim outline in the penumbra less than half a dozen feel: away. There followed a couple of minutes of suspense more agonizing perhaps than any through which the bold Scarlet Pimpernel had gone through this night. He heard the footsteps of the soldiers entering the room. One, two, three of them. One came up close to him, and laughed. Then the others laughed too. No doubt, the mysterious Englishman, endowed by popular superstition with supernatural powers, looked mightily ridiculous, lying there upon his face with table legs towering above him. Obviously the soldiers thought so too, looked upon his plight as a huge joke, and laughed and laughed; one of them adding to the joke by kicking the pinioned foe. Then they all retired, and went back to their interrupted sleep. Blakeney heard the violent closing of the door, the grating of the heavy bolts in their socket, then nothing more.

The knife still lay there on the ground, not half a dozen feet away, and the moon once more veiled her light behind a bank of grey clouds.

To drag himself along the ground with scarcely any noise was still a difficult task, but it was not a superhuman one. Slowly, painfully but surely Blakeney soon lessened the distance between himself and that weapon of salvation. Five minutes later his hand had closed on the knife, and he was rubbing its edge against that portion of the rope which he was able to reach. The labour was arduous and time was speeding on. Darkness had once more become absolute: through the open window there came the scent of moisture, and the faint sound of dripping rain upon the ivy-leaves. A distant church-clock struck three--two hours then before the break of dawn!--two hours and there was such a lot more to be done.

A quarter of an hour later the first piece of rope had given way, and the slow process of disentangling it had begun. It required an infinity of patience and above all absolute noiselessness. But it was done in time. At last the prisoner was free from the rope and he was able gently to crawl away from under the table. A moment later he was at the window peering out in the darkness. A thin drizzle was falling, and the soft, moist air of early morning cooled his burning forehead.

"By God!" he murmured to himself. "May I never be in so tight a hole again. All my compliments, my good M. Chauvelin. The trap was magnificently laid. But I was a fool to fall into it. I wonder if there is anyone down there now--"

Leaning out of the window, he detached a small piece of loose mortar from the outside wall and let it fall into the depth below. At once his keen ear detected the sound of men stirring down there, sitting up, mayhap, to listen, or merely turning over in their sleep.

"They've left nothing to chance," he murmured with a good-humoured chuckle. Fortunately, when his enemies brought him down they had not searched through his pockets, so now from an inner one he took a pencil and a tablet, and, blindly, for the darkness was complete, he wrote a long message to his friend. When he had finished, he listened for a moment; no sound now came from below; whereupon he gave a gentle call, like the melancholy hooting of an owl. It was answered immediately from out of the midst of the spinney, and Blakeney then flung the second message to Sir Andrew--a message of instructions, on the fulfilment of which depended not so much his own life, as that of four helpless, innocent priests.

After which he wound the precious, knotted rope once more around his person, threw one leg over the sill, and, a moment later, started to climb once more up the side of the ancient, ivy-covered wall.

V

Midnight had struck at the church tower of Ste Cunégonde when Sergeant Papillon returned from his expedition to the derelict cottage. After a siege lasting over a quarter of an hour, during which those satané Englishmen had kept up a wild fusillade from the ruined house and succeeded in putting half a dozen of Papillon's best men hors de combat, the Sergeant had given the order to charge, and the men had, indeed, boldly rushed into the place--only to find the cottage entirely deserted! It was scoured in every nook and cranny, but not a sign of human life could there be found, nothing but the usual heap of debris, the litter of broken laths, of masonry and scrap-iron. The Englishmen had vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up. Indeed, the silence and desolation appeared spectral and terrifying. And it was in very truth the earth that had swallowed up those mad Englishmen. They must have crept through a disused drain which gave from a back room of the cottage direct into the bank of the river. Here they must have lain perdu half-in and half-out of the water, hidden by the reeds, until the soldiers were busy searching the cottage, when no doubt they made their way, under cover of the reeds, and along the bank to a place of safety.

Papillon had been obliged to leave the wounded in the derelict cottage and had returned somewhat crestfallen, glad to find that his discomfiture was not counted against him. In very truth he could not guess that his expedition had succeeded over-well in its object, which was to throw dust in the eyes of that astute Scarlet Pimpernel by persuading him that here were a lot of louts and fools whom it was mighty easy to hoodwink. Since then the mysterious Englishman had been captured and was now lying a helpless prisoner in one of the topmost rooms of the Duchesse Anne. There was nothing to fear from him. The English spy, completely helpless, was so well guarded, that not a host of his hobgoblins could trick his warders now. A dozen men outside his door, he himself little more than an insentient log, and a good watch at the foot of the tower! What cabalistic power was there to free him from it all? Chauvelin, Hébert and the other Terrorists--all members of the Committee of Public Safety, who looked strangely out of the picture in their clerical garb, with the tricolour sash peeping out beneath their soutanes--finally retired satisfied, leaving Papillon and the men whom he had brought back with him on duty in the guard-room for the night. They would be relieved one hour before break of dawn.

It all occurred when the church-clock of Ste Cunégonde was striking four. Some of the soldiers had been relieving the tedium of the night by playing dominoes, others by recounting the legendary adventures which popular belief ascribed to the mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel. All around, the place was still. It was good to think of that turbulent Englishman lying so still and helpless in the room above. Then suddenly the voice of the sentry rang with a quick challenge through the silence of the night. It was immediately followed by the sharp report of a musket-shot, and before Papillon and his men could collect their somewhat sleepy senses the passage and vestibule outside the guard-room, as well as the courtyard beyond, were filled with awesome sounds of men shouting, of hoarse commands, of cries, objurgations and curses. Papillon stepped out of the guard-room. In a moment the confused hubbub was changed into the one terrifying phrase repeated by a number of rushing, gesticulating men: "The Englishman has escaped!"

"Where? How?"

But nobody could say for certain. The facts appeared to be that the sentry at the bridge-head had heard a sound, and seen a man running from the direction of the river. Both the sentinels fired, but in the darkness they missed their man. Just then the detachment of National Guard, who had come from their headquarters at Bordet to relieve Papillon, came into view at the bridge-head. With them was one of the members of the Committee of Public Safety, still in his clerical garb and with the tricolour scarf gleaming beneath his soutane. He shouted a peremptory order: "After him, Citizen Soldiers! or by Satan your heads shall pay for it, if the Englishman escapes!" This order the sentry dared not disobey, seeing whence it came, and both the men immediately gave chase, aided by those who had been on guard at the foot of Duchesse Anne.

But beyond that no one knew anything definite, and presently the question was raised: "Had the Englishman really escaped?"

This, Sergeant Papillon set out immediately to ascertain. A winding stone staircase leads from the vestibule into the tower. He went up, followed by his own men, while the relief guard remained in the vestibule.

No sooner, however, had the last of the Sergeant's men disappeared round the bend of the stairs, than these newcomers silently and without haste filed out of the vestibule, crossed the narrow courtyard, the entrance portal and the bridge, and a minute later had disappeared amidst the undergrowth of the spinney. Stealthily, warily, but with unerring certainty they made their way through the thick scrub, striking inland first then immediately behind St. Arc and back toward the river. They had thus walked in a complete semi-circle around the fort, and reached that portion of it which consists of a hollow, ruined tower rising sheer out of the water and abutting on the battlemented roof of the main building.

"Now," said one of the men in a quick whisper, "we should soon be seeing Blakeney up there, and those poor old priests being lowered by him from the roof."

Hardly were the words out of his mouth than the melancholy cry of an owl came softly sounding from the battlements above.

"And here he is! God bless him!" came fervently as if in unison from the hearts of the others.

Blakeney had succeeded in the task which he had set out to do. He had climbed into the room under the roof where four unfortunate priests had been imprisoned, preparatory to their being sent to death, for the crime of adhering to their religion and administering it in the way they believed the Divine Master had taught them to do. Their gallant rescuer had soon found a means of breaking through the ceiling and getting out upon the roof. With the help of the table, the chairs, and the precious rope, he contrived to aid these four unfortunates to escape from their hideous prison. They were sturdy country-folk, these old priests, and did not shrink from perilous adventure, encouraged as they were by a kindly voice and helped along by a sure and firm hand.

And whilst the Duchesse Anne tower, the staircases, vestibule and courtyard of the fort were singing from end to end with shouts, and words of command, with curses and derisive laughter, the Scarlet Pimpernel, in a remote corner of the fort which the tumult and confusion had not yet reached carefully lowered his four old protégés down from the roof into the arms of his friends. Quietly he did it, without haste and without delay, but aided by the members of his league not one whit less devoted, less resourceful than he. There were just five minutes in which the work of rescue had to be done; after which the confusion and the search would spread to this lonely spot, and the noble act of self-sacrifice would have been offered up in vain.

But it was all accomplished in the time, and soon the little party, under cover of that darkest moment which comes just before the dawn, were speeding up the river bank toward the Venelle woods, where in a lonely backwater one of their gallant band of heroes was waiting for them with the boats.

The chief was the last to step into the boat, and as the others began to row, and the four old priests reverently whispered a prayer of thanksgiving to God, he looked with eyes curiously filled with regret on the grim pile that stood out vaguely silhouetted against the dark sky.

"By Gad!" he murmured with an entirely happy little laugh. "I would not have missed this night's adventure for a fortune. I am quite sorry to go."

CHAPTER VII – "THE LITTLE DOCTOR"

On that late September evening two men stood upon the lonely shore of a picturesque corner of Brittany looking out to sea where a graceful schooner, catching upon her sails the last lingering glow of the setting sun, was fast disappearing behind the horizon line. One of these men was tall above the average, and his height and breadth of shoulders were accentuated not only by the dark many-caped coat which he wore but also by proximity to the small, wizened figure of his companion, an old man whose white hair was tossed about by the wind, and whose pale blue eyes had that half-vacant gaze peculiar by daylight to those who habitually burn the midnight oil. He it was who first broke the silence between the two of them, and he spoke as if in response to a quick, short sigh that had escaped the younger man's lips.

"I should be happier, milord," he said gently, "if you yourself were on board that schooner now."

The other made no reply, gave the signal for turning away from the shore, and anon the two men walked slowly back along the coast toward the distant town. They did not speak: each was buried in his own thoughts. It was only when the lights of the little city could be seen twinkling in the near distance that they came to a halt; the older man grasped his companion's slender hand with a gesture that was almost one of affection.

"Give it up, milord," he said earnestly. "God knows you have done more than enough in the defence of the innocent and the weak. The soil of France has been made purer and finer since your foot hath trodden it. But now it is enough. You have earned your rest, you deserve to enjoy your happiness in peace, and to think of your own precious life and of your own safety."

But the other shook his head and smiled somewhat wistfully.

"And," he said, "what about yourself, my dear Lescar?"

"Oh! I am safe enough," the old man replied. "They all know me for a harmless fool round about here. And my profession is my safeguard. Even the most hot-headed patriot knows that the country could not afford to send all its doctors to the guillotine."

"You are right there," the other assented. "Well, God guard you."

Dr. Lescar watched the tall, athletic figure until the fast-spreading gloom gathered it in its embrace, then he continued his way in the direction of St.-Jean. He lived in a little house just inside the city walls, and had in truth made a shrewd remark when he said that even the wildest revolutionaries in France would not think of sending all their doctors to the guillotine. Sickness, epidemics born of hunger and of cold had followed in the wake of all the other miseries which a set of self-seeking and cruel autocrats had brought upon the land, and in St.-Jean itself Dr. Lescar had been kept busy. No one thought of molesting him, no one hitherto had been fiendish enough to suspect or to denounce him. They knew well enough that death would take a far heavier toll in the city if it were not for his unremitting devotion and undoubted skill.

The old man had met the English milord on one of those errands of mercy the pursuit of which formed the life's business of both these men. They were destined to understand one another; the self-sacrifice of the gallant Scarlet Pimpernel found its counterpart in the unselfish herosim of the obscure country doctor, and friendship born of mutual esteem had sprung up between them over the alleviations of several miseries. It was an impoverished family of gentle birth, named La Forest, suspected of counter-revolutionary tendencies and recently denounced to the Committee of Public Safety, which was even at this hour on the way to England on board the schooner which Sir Percy Blakeney and Dr. Lescar had been watching till she was out of sight. The latter had befriended them whilst he had the power and the Scarlet Pimpernel had saved them from certain death; but the old man felt heartsick when he thought of the equally certain danger to which the noble-hearted English milord exposed himself by remaining even a day longer in this country where a hundred enemy eyes were on the watch for him.

Dr. Lescar saw nothing of his English friend for several days after the departure of the schooner; vaguely he hoped that milord had taken his earnest advice and had gone back to England. He himself was more than usually busy that autumn; in the wake of early frosts and heavy rains had come an epidemic of lung and throat trouble, and the doctor was up and about seeing patients all the day and half the night through. It was only in the evenings that he indulged in an hour or two's recreation in the Taverne des Trois Rats, where sundry worthy tradesmen of the city were wont to congregate and to gossip over a muddy cup of coffee and a rank pipe of stale tobacco and strive to forget for awhile the miseries which the high ideals of Liverty, Equality, and Fraternity had brought upon them all. It was a tavern that was much frequented by sailors and fisherfolk, not to mention the numerous smugglers who plied their dangerous trade with some immunity along the lonely bit of coast.

On this occasion there was a group of that fraternity engaged in animated conversation at one end of the room, whilst Dr. Lescar and his friends sat together over their coffee at the other. The talk here had drifted to the ever-interesting topic of the Scarlet Pimpernel. The rescue of the La Forests under the very nose of the local Revolutionary Tribunal was still a nine days' wonder. Dr. Lescar was known to have attended one of the children the very day before the entire family had been spirited away on board an English schooner that had brought in a cargo of smuggled Bradford cloth and never been suspected of belonging to the noted English spy and his amazing league of bravos.

"You must have seen the Scarlet Pimpernel, Doctor," one of the men said jovially; "you must have seen him! Come! there's no harm in seeing a spy--not for a man like you who would be too busy to trouble about denouncing anyone, as it would be the duty of an ordinary citizen to do."

"I may have seen the Scarlet Pimpernel," Dr. Lescar replied cooly, "or I may not. How can I tell? seeing that we none of us know what he is like, or who he is."

"You must know if an English aristo visited the La Forests," the other persisted, "you were in and out of their house."

"Citizen Bausset is right," here interposed a mean-looking, sharp-featured man who was sitting alone at a small table close by. "You must have seen or at least suspected something, Citizen Doctor."

He spoke sharply and with a certain indefinite air of authority which at once drew the eyes of all those present upon him.

"Do you not think it strange," he went on with a note of dry sarcasm in his thin, shrill voice and addressing the group of men who sat at the table nearest him, "Do you not think it strange, Citizens, that Dr. Lescar, who was an intimate of those traitors La Forest---"

"Who says he was an intimate?" interposed Bausset, throwing himself at once into the breach in order to defend his friend.

"I say so," the other retorted quickly. "He attended them without demanding his just fees--"

"More honour to him," one or two broke in warmly.

"Perhaps. I am not impugning him for that. I merely endeavour to prove that the citizen doctor was intimate enough with the La Forests to give them his time and his trouble for nothing; and I therefore assert that he must have been aware of the plot hatched by those English spies to cheat the laws of our country and to aid a set of damnable traitors to escape from justice."

The man never once raised his voice, nor did he make a single gesture of wrath or of authority; nevertheless, when he had finished speaking no one attempted to contradict him. A silence fell on them all, and furtive looks that spoke of hidden terrors were hastily exchanged, whilst---almost imperceptibly---those who had sat nearest to the little doctor edged their chairs away.

The only one in the room who appeared wholly unconcerned was Dr. Lescar himself. He continued to pull at his long-stemmed pipe and to sip his coffee with perfect quietude. After awhile he said simply:

"My country will judge of mine actions: I have done naught of which any true patriot need be ashamed." Then he turned and deliberately faced the man with the thin voice and added calmly: "Every man, woman, and child in and about this city knows me. You, Citizen, are a stranger here. Will you not tell us your name, and by whose authority you come here amongst us and impugn the loyalty of the citizens of St.-Jean?"

The other appeared to hesitate for a moment, then with quiet deliberation he unbuttoned his coat and displayed the tricolour scarf of officialdom which was wound around his waist. With his long, thin fingers he tapped the scarf and said dryly: "This is my authority, Citizen Doctor. My name is Péret, at your service."

"Then, Citizen Péret, I pray you be more explicit," Lescar rejoined calmly, "and frame your accusation against me in a manner that I can understand."

"I am not accusing you, Citizen Doctor," Péret retorted more amicably; "but you should understand how anxious the government is to get hold of that English spy whose machinations have fostered the spirit of rebellion and treachery in France. We cannot leave a stone unturned to track him to his hiding place. My accusations were not directed against you. I was only seeking for the truth."

This change of front, from truculence to conciliation, had at once a cheering influence upon the company; a general sense of relief loosened every tongue. Dr. Lescar was very popular in the city; there was scarce a family dwelling in it who did not owe him a debt of gratitude, and every man in the room was conscious of a vague feeling of satisfaction at the thought that the good doctor of St.-Jean was too important a personage to be dealt with summarily by the tyrannical Committees of Public Safety.

In the silence that ensued in the immediate entourage of Lescar and Péret the hum of conversation at the farther end of the room became more audible. Here a group of rough-looking customers had apparently lent an ear to the wordy passage of arms whilst continuing an exciting game of dominoes. They were an ugly crowd, unwashed and loud of speech, and al of them were drinking hard; some of them spoke French, with the throaty accent that hails from Spain or Portugal, others only spoke their own language amongst themselves---English, Dutch, Norwegian--whilst those who were obviously French, equally obviously hailed from Marseilles. All of them had that unmistakable air about them that proclaims the rough seafaring life, and not only that but also the unavowed trade, the traffic which calls for constant risks, perilous adventure, and familiarity with crime. Here, from out the general murmur made up of foreign oaths and truculent arguments, the voices of two or three Frenchmen detached themselves more clearly. They were mariners by profession and had the rich colouring, dark, crisp hair, and massive build peculiar to the sons of Provence. Fine, sturdy fellows they were and would in truth have been goodly to look at with their flashing eyes and full red lips and the gold earrings in their ears, were it not for the glowering, surly, at times coldly cruel expressions which would suddenly spread over their features if they were contradicted, or thought themselves insulted.

"I tell you, Pierre-Hercule," one of them said to the other, "that you'll gain far more by speaking than by holding your tongue."

"'Tis not for me to speak," Pierre-Hercule retorted with an oath. "Dieudonné here knows more about it than I do."

And he half turned to the third man who sat close beside him, a man whose face was disfigured by a scar that ran straight between his brows and gave his a peculiarly hard, obstinate expression; his watery eyes and hanging lips suggested that he had already drunk more than was good for him, and at Pierre-Hercule's words he indulged in a stream of meaningless oaths.

"I don't want to give that fool of a doctor away," he murmured thickly. "He was very good to my little wench once when she was sick; so hold thy tongue, Pierre-Hercule, and thou too, Jean-Paul, for I've a good mind to break thy jaw to stop thy cackling."

This was too good an opening for a quarrel and the beginnings for a fight to be lightly passed over and the next few minutes were taken up with fierce expletives and provocative cries on the one side and sundry attempts at peace-making on the part of those nigh.

At the other end of the room Citizen Péret was apparently asleep; it was only Lescar and his friend Bausset who had noted that at the last speech from the Marseillais, the representative of the Committee of Public Safety had opened one eye and then turned slightly toward the smugglers, the better to hear what next they would say.

"Thou'rt a fool, Dieudonné," Pierre-Hercule resumed after the quarrel had been hastily patched up. "Dost forget that thine own neck is in danger, all the while that thou choosest to hold thy tongue?"

Dieudonné put his hand to his throat and swallowed hard. The prospect was obviously an unpleasant one.

"Anyway," he said gruffly, "it is too late. The Englishman must be gone by now."

"Then 'tis ten thousand francs thou has lost, my friend," Jean-Paul retorted dryly, "for that is the reward for the capture of the Englishman."

"Not only ten thousand francs," here broke in the thin, shrill voice of Citizen Péret, "but most probably thy head as well."

Unseen and silent, he had edged up to the table around which the smugglers sat; at sound of his voice the three Provençals had jumped to their feet and hastily made the sign of the Cross---one may deal in illicit goods and be pious for all that. The foreigners gazed up at Péret in surly silence.

"Yes! thy head," Péret went on sharply. "Dost not know that to traffic with an enemy of thy country is treason and punishable by death?"

"How did I know that he was an enemy of my country?" Dieudonné retorted savagely.

"Every Englishman is an enemy of France. We are at war with England."

"Not every Englishman, Citizen," Dieudonné rejoined. "Our own government up in Paris has bought Bradford cloth from one or two English traders whom I could name, and--"

"That is beside the point," Péret interposed hastily. "According to thine own showing, thou didst meet an English spy and failed to denounce him."

"How should I know he was an English spy?"

"The description of that abominable Scarlet Pimpernel has been circulated far and wide. Every seafaring man, every coastguardsman, every loyal citizen should know him at a glance."

"That's just it," Dieudonné rejoined with a loud oath. "The Englishman of whom I speak could not possibly be the Scarlet Pimpernel. The Scarlet Pimpernel is tall; the Englishman I saw was short, wizened, a shrimp, what? He has a sick wife and two miserable brats whom Dr. Lescar over there has attended to my knowledge the last three days."

"Is this true?" Péret exclaimed with a snarl, and wheeled round abruptly to face the old doctor.

"I attend all those who are sick," Lescar replied, "but I have no recollection of the people of whom Citizen Dieudonné is speaking."

"We'll soon see about that," Péret retorted, sneering. "Where did that Englishman lodge?" he asked once more, turning to Dieudonné.

Dieudonné hesitated palpably for a moment or two. Murmurs of "shame on thee" came from various parts of the room, and Bausset, the friend of Lescar, swore a savage oath. But the authority of the tricolour scarf, the threat which it implied, the ever-present dread of accusations, of summary trials and of the guillotine, quickly smothered any generous impulse and after a second's pause Dieudonné replied sullenly:

"In the last house in the Rue des Pipots. The end house before you come to the edge of the cliff."

Whereupon Péret without further remark called out loudly:

"Citizen Corporal! Hey, there!"

A couple of soldiers immediately entered the room; unbeknown to the company, they had apparently all along been on guard somewhere close by. Behind them in the doorway worthy Citizen Liard, landlord of Les Trois Rats, stood wringing his hands, lamenting at this insult put upon his loyal house.

"Citizen Corporal," Péret commanded, "go at once to the barracks, and ask the captain to detail a dozen men to accompany you. Your orders are to go to the end house in the Rue des Pipots and to bring every person you find inside that house here to me. Go quickly!"

The soldiers saluted and went out of the room; their rapid, measured steps were heard to cross the narrow passage and then resounded down the cobbled road. In the public room an ominous silence had fallen over the assembly. Men had drawn their chairs closer together, casting obsequious glances on Péret, or servilely offering him food and drink. The fear of death was upon them; one or two had made a furtive attempt to sneak out of the room, but a peremptory word from the Terrorist glued them to the spot.

"Every man," he said curtly, "who goes out of this room without my permission will be a dead man to-morrow. Citizen Landlord, I make you responsible for everyone in this house."

Only the little doctor remained perfectly calm, sipping his coffee and now and again giving a pull at his long-stemmed pipe. But with the exception of Bausset no one spoke with him; they had edged their chairs away, as far from his as they could.

In the far corner of the room the company of smugglers had become singularly quiet. It seemed as if they felt the magnetism of the impending tragedy. Now and then a murmur from one of them would break the silence, but it was quickly suppressed by the others. Dieudonné, the unworthy hero of the drama, sat sullenly pulling away at the fragments of an old clay pipe. The others apparently were blaming him for what had happened, for a few injurious epithets were hurled at him between copious draughts of liquor.

Half an hour went by. Péret had been at pains to restrain his impatience; his fingers were drumming a devil's tattoo upon the table and his narrow, hawklike face was working as if a savage oath was forcing its way through his lips.

Then suddenly he jumped to his feet; quick, measured footsteps resounded on the cobblestones of the narrow street. A few seconds later the corporal entered the room. He appeared breathless with excitement.

"We went to the Rue des Pipots," he said, speaking rapidly, "the last house in the street---"

"Yes! Yes!" Péret broke in, in his shrill treble, "and whom did you find there?"

"No one, Citizen."

"What do you mean? No one?"

"No one, Citizen. The house was empty. But I left three of our men on guard, waiting your instructions, because in an outhouse in the waste ground adjoining we found a quantity of smuggled goods: English ale, cloth, steel files. It was quite by chance we lighted on them."

"Smuggled goods, eh?" Péret remarked, obviously disappointed. "We can see about those to-morrow. It was not worth while keeping three men to guard a few yards of cloth."

"It was not the cloth, Citizen, nor the English files that made me and my men anxious. It was this note which we found soiled and crumpled, forgotten amongst the goods."

And the soldier handed a dirty scrap of paper to Péret, who seized on it eagerly and quickly glanced over its contents. Then he turned back abruptly to the group of smugglers.

"This epistle," he said dryly, "is addressed to you, Citizen Dieudonné."

Dieudonné jumped to his feet.

"To me?" he queried with an oath.

"It suggests that you meet the writer at the usual trysting place at ten o'clock this evening. Where is that trysting place, Citizen Dieudonné?"

"I don't know what you mean," the smuggler replied gruffly. "The epistle is not addressed to me."

"Ah, but I think that it is," Péret rejoined blandly. "How can we assume that there is more than one Dieudonné who plies the nefarious trade smuggling in St.-Jean. The epistle is addressed to the Citizen Dieudonné at the sign of the Flying Bull in St.-Jean. Now my police happen to know, Citizen Dieudonné, that you are lodging at the sign of the Flying Bull. Where is the usual trysting place, Citizen Dieudonné?"

"It is all a lie," Dieudonné swore hotly. "Are you all fools or am I mad? I tell you that letter was not written to me. I know nothing of any trysting place."

"H'm," Péret retorted with affected urbanity, "that is a pity for you, Citizen. Because the device at the foot of this epistle---see, it is done in red ink and shaped like a small flower--suggests to me that it was written by that arch spy the Scarlet Pimpernel, and unless you can tell us what is the trysting place where he suggests that you meet him--"

He paused and looked intently on the smuggler, whose cheeks beneath the tan had taken on a leaden hue.

"It is all a lie," Deiudonné murmured, but those who heard him now could note a tone of hesitancy, aye, and of fear in his gruff voice.

"Unless," Péret reiterated very slowly, "you can tell us the whereabouts of that trysting place, you will be a dead man within the hour."

"Name of a dog!"

"Aye, name of a dog!" Péret retorted at the top of his high-pitched voice, "you dirty, miserable spy, who tried---clumsily enough---to save your pocket by telling us lies and denouncing a man whom this city respects. You hoped, I imagine, to keep me and these citizen soldiers busy whilst you removed your hoard and trafficked with that cursed Englishman. Well! the guillotine is set up in the market place conveniently, just outside this house. If within the next five minutes you do not put me on the track of the Scarlet Pimpernel your head will roll into the basket, my friend. And," he added with a vicious snarl, turning to the rest of the company, "whoever protests or interferes will go the same way too. Citizen Corporal, take this man out into the square. The sight of Madame Guillotine's outstretched arms will, mayhap, loosen his tongue."

The man---who was huge and powerful---fought desperately and with amazing vigour; but resistance was, of course, futile, and within half a minute he was over-powered and led out of the room, cursing viciously and shaking a clenched fist in the direction of the little doctor.

"You mealy mouthed reprobate," he shouted, "I'll be even with you yet!"

But after he had been made to cross the narrow hall and, the front door being wide open, he had caught sight of the hideous erection in the market place, dimly illumined by an overhead lanthorn, he gave a dismal howl like a terrified cur and blabbed half-incoherently:

"I'll tell you! I'll tell you where you can find the Englishman."

Péret, who had followed the small posse into the little hall, gave an exclamation of satisfaction; then he made a peremptory gesture in the direction of a door close by which bore the legend "Private" upon it.

"In there!" he said curtly.

He himself pushed the door open and went into what was apparently the landlord's private parlour. A pair of ragged curtains hung in front of the only window. In the centre of the room there was a table; on it a tattered cloth. Around the walls were ranged a sofa and a few chairs of black horsehair, adorned with soiled antimacassars, and upon the chimney shelf an old clock ticked monotonously. A smoky, evil-smelling oil lamp hung from the blackened ceiling and threw a dim circle of light around.

The soldiers pushed Dieudonné into the parlour.

"Two of you remain on guard in this room," Péret commanded, "the others at attention outside the front and back doors of this house, see that no one leaves it. Now then, Citizen Dieudonné," he went on, as soon as his orders had been obeyed, "we wait to hear what you have to tell us."

"It's simple enough," the smuggler murmured, cowed and browbeaten apparently into submission. "The Englishman is rich. He owns a schooner which you must have seen out to sea. When he comes ashore I give him shelter out of sight of the police; in exchange he brings me cargoes of English files, or cloth, what? There's not much harm in that."

"To traffick with an enemy of France," Péret broke in dryly, "to cheat your country of revenue, to harbour an English spy is black treason, punishable by death without trial."

"If I am to die whatever I do," Dieudonné broke out like an infuriated animal at bay, "then I'll not speak. Find the Englishman as best you can."

"Silence!" Péret thundered in response. "You are not here to argue with me, but to speak. But let me tell you this, my friend," he added with sudden urbanity, "as soon as we have captured the Englishman you shall have a full pardon for all your misdeeds and be free to go whithersoever you please."

"Then send your men to the house of Dr. Lescar; the Englishman was to meet me there at ten o'clock to-night."

"I don't believe it," Péret retorted. "It is another trick."

"A trick, is it?" Dieudonné cried hoarsely, "a trick? Let me tell you, Citizen Péret, that you and your committee are being fooled and tricked. Fooled by that sanctimonious doctor who lines his pockets and sells his country to the enemy. A trick? Go, send your soldiers to the doctor's house. You'll soon see if this is a trick."

For a moment after that there was complete silence in the dingy, ill-lit parlour. Péret's deep-set eyes were fixed upon the smuggler's face, as if he would drag the truth out of him by brute force. Then he glanced at the clock. It lacked twenty minutes to ten.

The soldiers at the door were waiting, immobile and mute.

"A full pardon, man, if you have spoken truly," Péret muttered between his teeth. "But if within an hour from now the guard have not returned with the Englishman, or if in some other way you have lied to me---well---it is not too late an hour to set Madame la Guillotine to work."

He went to the window and threw it open. It gave on to the side of the house.

"Citizen Corporal!" he shouted.

"Present, Citizen," came in quick response as the corporal hastened around the corner.

Péret leaned out of the window and, when the soldier was within whispering distance, he gave him rapid instructions:

"The house of Dr. Lescar---you know it?"

"Perfectly, Citizen."

"Go there at once with a dozen of your men. At ten o'clock, or soon after, a man will arrive. He is tall and powerful--will probably be disguised. Do not allow yourself to be tricked---seize any man you suspect and remember that your heads are at stake.

"Tell them to bring Dr. Lescar in here to me."

Then he turned back into the room. For the next few moments the silence of the night was broken by quick words of command; the measured tramp of the soldiers as they crossed the market square and the peremptory call for Dr. Lascar. Anon the little doctor was ushered into the parlour. He appeared as serene as before, asked no questions and barely looked at the smuggler, who at sight of him had broken into a jeering laugh and raised a menacing fist.

"Pray to your saints, Citizen Doctor," he said, "that the Englishman keeps the tryst which we made with him, else you and I, it seems, are to lose our heads within the hour."

After that all was still. The doctor sat down quietly beside the table and soon appeared absorbed in calm meditation. Outside, the little city was already asleep, or mayhap its inhabitants were cowering wide-awake in their beds, vaguely conscious of the tragedy that was being enacted in their peace-loving town.

The tavern itself seemed like the abode of wraiths. Inside the public room no one had stirred. No one dared stir. There were still soldiers on guard about the entrances and all those in the public rooms remembered Péret's orders and his threats.

In the private parlour the silence was electric; through it could only be heard the dismal, monotonous ticking of the clock and the gentle grating of metal against metal, as the curtain swayed upon its rod, blown by the breeze which came through the open window. Péret had sunk down on the sofa, with his elbows resting on his knees, his face buried in his hands, striving vainly to keep his excitement in check. The soldiers, alert and keen, kept close watch upon the smuggler and upon the doctor. Dieudonné stood close beside the table, one hand resting on the back of a chair; he was swaying slightly on his legs like a man drunk, and his glance, which had become unsteady, travelled incessantly from the calm face of the doctor to the crouching figure of the Terrorist.

Then it happened all in a moment: the soldiers themselves scarce knew how, so unexpected was it, like a sudden flash of lightening in a serene sky. All that they recollected was that Dieudonné at a stroke lifted the chair nearest to him and, swinging it up, struck the hanging lamp. There was a terrific clatter of broken glass and falling metal; one of the soldiers, on the very point of turning to pull open the door, felt his leg clutched by an unseen hand, and he fell against his comrade, dragging him down with him, even whilst Citizen Péret's calls and curses sounded muffled, almost inaudible.

Less than two seconds later the noise had attracted the attention of the guard outside The door was pulled open; soldiers came rushing in; the lanthorn from the hall threw some measure of light upon the confusion that reigned in the private parlour. There were some among the soldiers who, had they dared, would in truth have laughed aloud, so comical did the situation appear: their comrades struggling to their feet, the broken glass, the oil from the lamp flowing in an evil-smelling stream, and, funniest of all, Citizen Péret, the dreaded Terrorist, vainly striving to disentangle himself from the folds of the tablecloth which completely enveloped him, whilst the draught through the open window, now that the door was open, blew the curtains straight out into the room and somehow helped to make the situation appear more confused and more ludicrous.

Of the smuggler and the little doctor there was not a sign. In vain did Péret, as soon as he had found breath, shout himself hoarse with cries of: "After them! After them! Curse you for a set of fools! After them! They cannot have gone far!"

But, in truth, though mayhap they had not gone far, they had gone far enough to be out of reach. Indeed, such a pursuit was bound to be futile, as there were no indications whatever which ways the fugitive had gone and many seconds were lost by the pursuers in arguments as to which road to take. The darkness of the night favoured them, too, and suddenly even the heavens were on their side, when it began to rain heavily.

The records of St.-Jean in Brittany go to prove that the pursuit was carried on in spite of many drawbacks and endless heart-burnings and disappointments, until a posse of coastguardsmen sighted a rowing boat out to sea which was making for a graceful English schooner whose lights could be seen faintly glimmering through the veil of darkness and of rain. They sent a volley of musket shot after that boat, but whoever it was who wielded the oars easily baffled them.

And a couple of hours later, when from far away inland came the sound of church clocks of St.-Jean booming the midnight hour, Dr. Lescar was pacing up and down the deck of the Day-Dream beside the man to whom he owed his life.

"I wish I understood it all, milord," he said. "Indeed, it seems that my gratitude hath o'erclouded my brains, for it all seems an inextricable puzzle to me."

"Nay! my dear doctor," Sir Percy Blakeney replied, smiling pleasantly on the eager face of the little man. "Your generosity makes far too much of what was just a happy adventure for me, almost entirely due to chance."

"Chance! It could not have been chance, milord, else how came you to be in the public room of the tavern at the very hour when Péret made up his mind to have me arrested?"

"Ah, but that is where you are mistaken, doctor. You think that it was a sudden thought of Péret's tortuous brain that caused him to launch an accusation against you. But I who---alas for me---know these abominable Terrorists from old and varied experience, I guessed the moment that such an important personage came to St.-Jean that he had been sent in order to track down noble game. And who more important, more noble, more of a thorn in the flesh of all those reprobates, than you, my dear doctor, with your gentle, unselfish ways, your refinement, your learning, and your pity. Nay! do not protests! We all know how the people of St.-Jean love you, and to be loved of the people these days stinks in the nostrils of those arrogant demagogues. I knew that your arrest was a matter of a few hours, that it would need but a chance click of the tongue to send a pack of curs snarling at your heels, so I devised my little comedy. You know my belief, do you not? my belief in my own luck, my belief that that the Goddess of Chance is bald is save for one hair in her head, and that when she flies, unseen, before us, if we can grasp that hair we hold her a slave to our will; well! to-night I grasped that hair. I laid my scene in the outhouse of the Rue des Pipots, with smuggled goods and the epistle making the assignation for ten o'clock. Then, disguised as the smuggler Dieudonné and one or two members of my faithful league as Pierre-Hercule and Jean-Paul, we goaded Péret into accusing you then and there. It took time; but it was a mere juggling with words and phrases till we got him to send his soldiers off to the Rue des Pipots, where they found the epistle which I had prepared for them. From that point until we got him into a state of somewhat fuddled rage we had easy work. I wanted to get him and you into one private room with me; I did not care how many soldiers he had to guard him; the Goddess of Chance was ahead of me and I grasped her by the one hair. After that, to break a lamp, to plunge the room into darkness, to trip up the soldiers, to throw a heavy cloth over the head of Péret was work that any schoolboy would accomplish with zest. The window was already open as you know; I lifted you across my shoulders---you weigh more than a child, my dear doctor---and together we gave Citizen Péret's guard of bloodhounds a magnificent run, until we reached the secret cove, which was the rendezvous for my faithful lieutenants, and where one of them was waiting for us with a boat. Indeed, you and I had not long to wait either. During the wild chase after us, attention at the tavern had relaxed, the two members of my league had no difficulty in getting away. They too made straight for the cove, while our pursuers ran aimlessly about the town. And now," Sir Percy Blakeney concluded with a happy sigh, "please forgive me for this long disquisition. 'Tis you who wanted to know how the adventure was planned. To me and my league it was both simple and pleasant. Ask my friends Lord Anthony Dewhurst and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes if they would not greatly relish another such joyous adventure."

The little doctor was silent for a moment or two; when he spoke again his voice was veiled with tears.

"Ah, milord! you and your friends are English, and you have---I understand--as great a horror of sentiment as you have of cowardice: therefore I will make a great effort and keep back the words of gratitude and admiration which wellnigh choke me. But at evening when, mayhap, for awhile you rest from your labours of self-sacrifice and heroism and in the arms of your dear wife live only for her beauty and her love, then I beg of you to remember that at that hour there will always rise from an old man's lips a hymn of thanksgiving to God, in that He created men like you!"

CHAPTER VIII – THE CHIEF'S WAY

Part I

"Tell me all about it, boy!"

"It's damnable, damnable, damnable!"

"Of course it is---but how can I judge?"

"Blakeney, you will help me," the younger man pleaded. "You must." And his gray, rather shifty eyes, despite the frown between the brows, were fixed in a half-appealing, half-obstinate glance on his chief.

These were the early days of the League. The work of rescue to one or two of these young enthusiasts was still a novelty--exciting---but perhaps not quite so serious as it became later on. The chief was obeyed, reverenced by those who were most in earnest---but there were one or two---not more---who, full of zest at first, had found discipline and blind obedience irksome. There was Kulmsted, whom they all mistrusted, and who had not been allowed to join the present expedition. Marguerite had begged her husband not to take him along, and these were the early days of that marvellous recrudescence of love when Marguerite and Percy had found one another, after that terrible misunderstanding which had threatened to wreck both their lives. Therefore, her earnestly expressed wish could not be denied and Kulmsted was left to nurse disloyal thoughts in England. There were one or two members of the League, Lord Tony and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, my Lord Hastings and others, who would have liked to extend the prohibition to young Fanshawe. He was a keen sportsman and apparently a loyal friend. He had joined the League with an enthusiasm which scarcely had an equal, but he was wilful and obstinate---an inveterate gambler and apt to turn very nasty if matters did not go just the way he desired.

But Blakeney, with that marvellous cheerfulness and optimism which was his greatest charm and that inveterate belief in the loyalty of others, born of his own perfect rectitude, had dismissed with a light shrug the warnings of his friends.

"You do the boy an injustice," he declared. "Good God, man, Fanshawe is a Scotsman, a sportsman, and a gentleman---find me greater deterrents to any suspicion of treachery."

On this occasion some half-dozen members of the League had with their chief found refuge in a derelict cottage, which lay off the main Thiers-Roanne road. In ragged clothes, unkempt and covered with grime, they looked just what they pretended to be---miserable vagrants driven from home by penury, and striving to pick up a precarious existence by playing outside village cabarets. Even at this moment Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., the most perfect exquisite London society had ever known, the intimate friend of the Prince of Wales, the inimitable Squire of Dames, had stretched out his long legs, which were innocent of stockings and only partially covered by a ragged pair of breeches. In his hands---the Duchess of Flintshire had called them irresistably beautiful---which were coated with coal dust he had a violin and a bow; his hair, which looked lank and unkempt, hung in matted strands over his forehead.

He had been performing on his violin in a manner which had brought forth groans from his hearers and missiles of various kinds hurled admist shouts of laughter at his offending head.

In a remote corner of the hut young Lord Fanshawe had been talking in eager whispers to two of his companions who appeared too impatient to listen; and the young man had worked himself up into a state of exasperation until Blakeney's pleasant, if authoritative, voice suddenly put an end to laughter and focused everyone's attention on Fanshawe.

"Blakeney, you will help---you must!"

"We'll all help, my dear fellow," Blakeney replied, and his gently ironical glance rested for a moment on the flushed face and restless eyes of his friend. "Tell us all about it. We'll make no more music to-night."

And as Fanshawe remained silent, with that wilful, obstinate look more marked on his face, Sir Percy insisted more firmly:

"Tell us, my dear fellow, how it all began. And when."

"About four years ago," Lord Fanshawe began at last, "when I was on a visit to the D'Ercourts, at the Château Montbrison. Aline was lovely then…a mere child; not yet seventeen, I think but…"

The boy paused a moment. The obstinacy died out of his eyes and gave way to a look of softness. The others made no comment, they sat all round him silently; some of them on the floor with their knees drawn up to their chins, their hands clasped round their knees. After a while Fanshawe seemed to shake off the wave of sentiment that had gripped him by the throat and he went on in a more matter-of-fact tone of voice.

"We had a very gay time at the château, I remember. It was the season of the chasse---you know what that means in France---dancing, cavalcades, tournaments, everything to make life gay and beautiful. Aline was the life and soul of it all. Her brother François I did not care about; he was sullen and had a curious trait of arrogance and cruelty in him which, I must say, I never found in the other French friends whom I used to visit in those days. The old comte and comtesse, on the other hand, were perfectly charming, slightly artificial perhaps in their studied manners and ways of entertaining their guests, but marvellously hospitable and pleasant. As far as I could gather they were always kind to the people of the village, and during times of distress both the comtesse and Aline would sally forth with baskets of provisions on their arms, and I am sure kindly words on their lips, to see what was amiss and to succour where they could.

"But trouble was brewing already. News from the big cities used to filtrate down to this remote village, which lies off the main road between Thiers and Roanne. Men in black coats and cocked hats---you know the sort---would come down to the cabaret and hold meetings there to which the village lads crowded eagerly. I never heard any of those speeches but even we, in England, know something of these agitators, whose mission in life is to make trouble.

"All of us at the château had heard of this Paul Notara who was a young and good-looking fellow and kept the little village school. I strolled down with François D'Ercourt one day as far as the school building, which was also Notara's home. It was very neatly kept and very picturesque. It had a little bit of garden and a pond and Notara himself told me that he reared a few ducks and chickens and sold his eggs and poultry. We had a long talk, and I got on very well with him. As you know, I speak French fairly fluently. He struck me as a very highly educated man and cultured above his station. He told me that his mother and father used to keep the village cabaret, and when his father died Paul and his mother sold the business. He then applied for and obtained the post of schoolmaster in the village, settled down in the house attached to the schoolroom, and lived on there with his mother whom he idolized.

"Notara, it seems, had never thought of marrying then because his mother made him so happy and comfortable that the idea of bringing into the house a young woman who might prove a stormy petrel never entered his head. At least that was what he told me. But while I and others were guests at Montbrison---it was the first time I had been there---old Marianne, Notara's mother, died. Now, of course, I do not know the rights or wrongs of that story, but what Notara told me sounded credible enough. It appears that the old woman caught a chill one November night coming home from the castle where she had been summoned by Madame la Comtesse to help in the kitchen. I know that they had a houseful at the time and we certainly had a great to-do with banquetings and so on; I quite believe that extra hands were required in the kitchen, but it seems that this wretched old Marianne was already crippled with rheumatism, and Notara says that she was made to stand in the yard in the pouring rain doing some work for which there was no accommodation in the kitchen. Be that as it may, the old woman developed some chest trouble, and in three days she was dead. Well, of course, that was nobody's fault and I am quite convinced in my own mind that both Madame la Comtesse and Aline did all they could to help because it was in their nature so to do, but Notara assured me that he was quite alone at the time to look after his mother, that he entreated the leech of Montbrison to come and see her but that there happened to be an epidemic of mange among Madame le Comte's hounds and that the leech told him that these were far more important than old Marianne. Anyway, the death of his mother seems to have embittered Notara's soul, and probably did lay the seeds to his subsequent bitter resentment."

A murmur went round the small assembly who up to now had listened in complete silence to this simple enough narrative. The soft look in Fanshawe's eyes had quickly died down again. As soon as Notara's name came to his lips, that sullen, obstinate look which seemed the keyhole of his character returned to his comely young face.

Blakeney poured out a glass of water and handed it to him. "You are telling your tale most admirably, my dear fellow," he said lightly; "but do not lose your breath till you have quite finished. I can see the whole picture before me, so can the others I'm sure; and all that you tell us now will help us, of course, to decide what had best be done in the immediate future."

Fanshawe drank the water eagerly. He was not breathless but his throat was dry and his hand slightly shaky. After a while he resumed his story.

"It was François d'Ercourt who told me that, according to village gossip, Paul Notara was quickly enough consoled after the death of his mother. Six months or so later he had resumed his place among the young folk in the village. He was fond of dancing and of their beloved game of bowls on the village green. He drank, but not to excess, and had an eye for a pretty wench, but it seems that although he looked at this girl and that one, not one of them could boast of having received more than passing attention from Paul Notara. This strange indifference on his part was, of course, much commented on in the village, and presently when spring came along the idea began to get about that Paul had a secret passion gnawing at his heart. You may well imagine that after that these village folk put their heads together and decided that they would find out for themselves why it was that Paul Notara, who had quite a bit of money and a nice position, who was moreover good-looking and hard-working, was still a bachelor.

"I don't know how François and Monsieur le Comte got to hear of the facts, but certain it is that we all of us at the château used to make great fun of the village schoolmaster's hopeless passion for Mademoiselle Aline. For so it was: the village gossips had watched him, it seems, o'nights, and they declared that Notara was for ever haunting the purlieus of the castle and wandering beneath its walls; he had even been observed to linger in the one spot in the park from which he could spy the lighted windows and balcony which gave on Aline's room. Laughter and gossip in the village soon became general. Imagine a village schoolmaster daring to fall in love with a daughter of Monsieur le Comte! But that Paul Notara was in love with Aline was no longer a matter of conjecture; it was an established fact.

"As was only to be expected, this gossip came presently to the ears of the Comte d'Ercourt and of the comtesse and also of François d'Ercourt who, quite unnecessarily I thought, flew into a violent rage and declared that he would punish that impertinent schoolmaster with a sound thrashing, unless this abominable gossip died down within the next few weeks.

"It was soon after that that the tragedy occurred."

Again the young man paused. He rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. It had been easy enough to recount in an impersonal way the events which had occurred in a village, and in a castle inhabited by friends, but quite another matter to tell of the tragedy which had turned the whole tide of his destiny, and even warped his nature to the extent of changing his feelings of friendship and loyalty to his chief into incipient rebellion and treachery.

Blakeney said nothing, but more clearly than anyone else in the room he could read just what was going on in the young man's mind. He had such a capacity for sympathy and understanding that, where others would be ready to condemn, he could always find something to excuse and a great deal to pity. "Go on, Fanshawe," he said gently. "I think we ought to hear from you exactly what happened on that night. So far I have only heard a garbled and possibly a prejudiced account of that miserable tragedy."

Fanshawe raised his head and looked outward and into vacancy as if he were seeing again in a vision that exquisite autumn evening when on the heights the tall cypresses had thrust their velvety blackness above the sea of feathery pines, and down in the valley the leaves of the plane trees had turned from russet to gold and lay thickly on the ground like a soft, murmuring carpet that made a soft swishing sound under the feet of the passers-by. The waning moon cast mysterious lights and deep purple shadows across the avenue of the park, and in the darkness the white flowers alone gleamed ghostlike, while their coloured sisters hid their garish beauty in the mantle of the night.

"It is four years ago almost to a day," he resumed after a while. "Aline and I wandered out into the park one evening after supper, lured as we were by the beauty of the night. Unfortunately, she was never allowed outside the house unless accompanied by a maid. That, as you know, was the general custom in France in those days among young girls as well born and well bred as was Aline. But I can assure you that on this occasion the maid's presence was intensely irksome, both to Aline and to me. There was so much that I wished to say to her, and I could see that she was willing to listen. We both wanted to dream, and the swishing sound of the leaves under our feet was just the right accompaniment to all that I wanted to whisper in her ear.

"This was my second visit to the château, and my love for Aline had grown in intensity. The girl, I could see, was developing into an exquisitely beautiful woman. I felt that my happiness lay entirely in her hands; I knew the prejudicdes that existed---especially in those days---in the minds of French aristocrats against unions with foreigners, but I trusted in my name and my considerable fortune to overcome those prejudices in the minds of Aline's parents. Anyway, the thought of making Aline my wife haunted my mind by day and my dreams by night. She was exquisite, her eyes were like the mysterious ocean that bathes the rocky shore of our cliffs in Cornwall, and her lips had the velvety sheen which lies on the petal of a rose. I wanted to say all this to her, and by the light of the moon I could see her dear face soften and her eyes glowing when ever I was bold enough to take her hand."

"Oh, we had to be very careful in those days how we approached the daughter of a French aristocrat. No wonder, then, that both Aline and I found the maid's presence irksome, especially when at a given moment she interrupted one of my most passionate phrases with an impertinent: 'I am sure Mademoiselle should be going indoors, the night is chilly..' But Aline was not quite such a child as her maid and her mother supposed, and I had the joy of hearing her retort quite impatiently: 'Yes, it is chill; run, wench, and fetch me my shawl, the one which I left in the boudoir this afternoon.'"

"I could not help smiling to myself, for I knew that the boudoir was situated in a wing of the château at some distance from this avenue, and you may imagine the joy I felt when I realized that Aline's intention was to rid herself of the maid's company and to remain with me alone for some length of time."

"And so we wandered on down the avenue under the plane tree, and it would be useless for me to tell you how happy I was when I felt her yielding as I put my arm round her waist. I think I was on the point of snatching a kiss, when, from the distance, I heard François d'Ercourt's voice calling to me: he was in the stables which were close by, looking after one of his horses which was sick. Afraid that, if I did not respond at once, he might come and fetch me and, finding his sister alone with me, might make himself unpleasant, I gave Aline's dear little hand a last squeeze, pressed my lips on her fingers, and went to find François."

"Now, what happened after that I heard ultimately from Aline herself. It seems that she waited in the avenue for a moment or two, half-hoping now that her maid would not tarry; then suddenly, through the gloom, amongst the trees, she saw a figure moving toward her. She came to a halt, vaguely frightened: there were many marauders about these days, for discontent in the village was rife, stirred up as it was by those agitators from Paris. Aline was about to call for help; as I told you, the stables were not very far, and both her brother and I, as well as the grooms, were close by, but before she could utter a sound a voice which she declared was very soft and gentle begged her not to be alarmed. The mysterious figure moved out of the darkness into the light of the waning moon, and Aline recognized Paul Notara. She told me herself that she did not remember exactly what he said to her at the time. Certain it is that he declared his love for her, but assured her at the same time that he looked upon her with reverence as he would on the Virgin Mary, and went on talking just the sort of twaddle which men of his class, half-educated and possibly romantic, usually say under the circumstances. Aline was not frightened of him; I think, poor darling, she was slightly flustered by this declaration of love, which she said was very respectful and gentle. Anyway, the romantic little scene ended in Notara falling on his knees and kissing the hem of her gown. He also tried to get hold of her hand, but I do believe that nothing more serious would have happened ahd not Fate interevened in the shape of Aline's maid, who returning at that moment with the shawl upon her arm. She, seeing a man crouching beside her mistress, a man who she thought must be an evil-doer, set up a mighty scream of alarm."

"Notara jumped to his feet. I take it he was no fool, and realized that his position would be a very precarious one should he be discovered here by any of the grooms or perhaps by Monsieur le Vicomte himself. Aline was deeply distressed. She was a sweet nature, and was no doubt moved to pity for the man who was in love with her, and she really tried her best to get him away before François arrived on the scene. Notara, however, seems on this occasion to have behaved like an idiot. He made no attempt to get away, and a minute or two later a crowd of grooms and lackeys were all about him, his flight was cut off, and to make matters worse, François, who had heard the maid's scream, had come hurrying to the spot. I followed closely behind him, and we arrived just in time to see Notara brought down to his knees by the weight of the grooms' hands upon his shoulders. François, I must tell you, was in a furious rage, demanding an explanation, looking on Notara as if ready to kill the man. The maid, terrified lest she should be blamed for having been absent from her mistress gave an altogether wrong version of what she had seen. According to her, Notara had molested Aline, and she had screamed for help, being afraid lest a worse outrage should befall."

"Aline assured me subsequently that she did all she possibly could to pacify her brother. Paul Notara, she declared, had said nothing whatever to offend her. But there was no holding François then; his rage appeared to have cooled down outwardly, but he was in one of those white furies which are far more dangerous than the more violent sort. He reiterated more than once and always apparently with the greatest calm: 'What was this lout doing here at this hour? And why should he dare speak to you?' He had a riding whip in his hand, and suddenly I saw him turn to Notara and tighten his grip upon the whip. He addressed the wretched man quite coldly, and asked him two or three times: 'How dared you? How dared you?' and again: 'How dared you?' And before Notara could say one word, and before I had the chance of interfering, he raised his whip and struck him twice in the face."

"He would have done it a third time, only, fortunately, I was now near enough to take hold of his wrist and prevent a further blow. I really cannot tell you how Notara looked, what he did, or even what Aline said. I know that she gave a cry and hid her face in her hands, whilst I did my very best to control François, who seemed like a man who had seen red and wanted someone's blood. I take it that Notara was never a coward, and he certainly was a powerful, well-built man. I suppose that he succeeded in wrenching his arms free, although I did not see him struggle. What I did see was that he was about to raise his fist and, in his turn, to strike François in the face. Of course, that was nothing but blind and senseless rage, because, as you know, in France, for a man in his position to raise his hand against his seigneur was, in those days, punishable by death. Fortunately or unfortunately, I really don't know which, the lackeys were there to intercept the gesture: they seized Notara's arms again before he could actually raise his fist."

"By this time I had contrived to wrest the whip out of François's hand. His rage had entirely left him, he was as cool as you or I, and, turning to me, he said, laughing lightly: 'You English are as sentimental as our women. Why should I not thrash that cur, I should like to know?' And he said something about our men in the navy getting worse thrashings than he would have administered to Notara, and for lesser faults than his."

"I was thankful to see the grooms and lackeys dragging the man away. François went up to his sister: he took her by the hand and led her, willing and silent, back toward the château. I tried to get a last glance from her, but I think she was crying; and no wonder! She was little more than a child, and the scene had entirely upset her nerves. I remember next day hearing François and his father discussing the punishment that should be meted to Notara. François, of course, was for having him summarily hanged for having raised his hand against him and insulted Aline. But Monsieur le Comte himself decided otherwise. It seems that they looked upon Notara as a useful man in the village, well-to-do and industrious. He paid heavy taxes into the coffers of his seigneur and his government, and I suppose that it was doubtful whether another man of that same calibre could be found in this out-of-the-way village."

"I must say that at the time my sympathies were mostly with Notara, although I had thought him a ridiculous fool for making love to Aline. But he really had been so respectful and had kept his own counsel so completely that I never had cause to demean myself by jealousy. After that horrible scene of the night before I felt very sorry for him, as I was quite sure he had done nothing to irritate François to such a pitch of violence. Anyway, Monsieur le Comte, after he had heard the full story of the adventure, came to the conclusion that a sound thrashing would meet the case. In the light of to-day's events I am not quite sure whether François's idea of hanging the brute would not have been the wiser course, but at the time it was decided that there was nothing like a stout stick for breaking a man's spirit and humbling his pride. What we none of us reckoned with was that this breaking of spirit and of pride could only be a temporary affair and that resentment and bitterness would be far more difficult to combat than mere insolence."

"And so the next day I understood that Paul Notara had been duly thrashed and within an inch of his life. It was owing to one of the blows from François's whip that he lost the sight of one eye and his face became singularly ugly and almost grotesque. I can imagine him for days afterward, while he lay sick, nursing thoughts of bitter hatred against everyone at the château. I thought that probably his love for Aline would turn to hatred; I think in a way it has. I suppose he has had plenty of time to think over all his wrongs, both imaginary and real. Certain it is that as soon as he got better he threw himself blindly into politics."

"As you know, matters were already then moving fast in Paris. Notara, as soon as he got better, left his native village and wandered away, presumably to the capital. In the meanwhile, those devils up in Paris have kept on sending their agitators into all the villages of France, and particularly over here. They have stirred up these louts into a terrible state of resentment. The story of Notara, of course, leaked out, and he has been deified into a kind of village hero. When he returned, which was only a couple of months ago, and in the company of one of those agitators, he was tacitly chosen to be the leader of all the malcontents in the village. Most of the young men have been drafted into military service. There are only aged and crippled ones left, but they are the ones who remember the past; some of them have seen Notara grow up amongst them, and that is the chief cause, I think, which led to the horrible scene of this afternoon."

Lord Fanshawe paused. His narrative was at an end. The others had listened in silence, nor did they speak for some time. Blakeney, too, was silent. He was meditating on what he had heard. "There is no doubt," he said after a while, "that there are a good many innocents like Aline who will have to suffer for sins which they have not committed and which they abhor."

Part II

Four years had gone by since that memorable evening, the tragic events of which Lord Fanshawe had related to his friends. The old régime had been swept away. The king and queen were prisoners in the hands of their people, soon to pay with their lives the penalty incurred by their forbears. Men, women, and even children had expiated on the guillotine the ignorances, the faults, the crimes of which they themselves were often innocent.

And still the work of retribution went on. Nothing was forgotten of past injustice and past oppression, and in this death feud between caitiff and aristocrat worse crimes were committed than those it was sought to avenge. The Comte d'Ercourt had been among the first to suffer. Already in the earliest days of the Revolution, and even while Madame la Comtesse was lying ill with fever, brought on no doubt by worry and anxiety, an angry mob of peasants invaded the château---very much as another had done at Versailles---demanding speech of Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Comtesse, of Monsieur le Vicomte, and Mademoiselle Aline, and when the family refused to see them they forced their way into the private apartments, smashed in a door or two on their way, ripping up cushions and upholstery with the agricultural tools which they carried, and tearing down priceless pictures from the walls.

It seems that they had contemplated nothing more, once in the presence of Monsieur le Comte and his family, than to assert their right over Monsieur le Comte's domains, to shoot what game they chose, to ride his horses, or milk his cows and goats for their own benefit, and to empty his granaries, since bread in the district was scarce. But they also asserted their right of telling Monsieur le Comte and his family a few home truths. Many matters were raked up which no doubt both Comte d'Ercourt and his son would have wished to consign to oblivion. Of these, the tragic fate of Paul Notara was more bitterly resented than many another act of oppression or cruelty. Notara himself had left the village and had not been seen or heard of since. No one knew whither he had gone. But the picture of him when he wandered off on a chill December morning, with a bundle of goods slung over his shoulder, his face with that hideous scar over one eye turned for the last time on his native village, was one not easily forgotten. And Aline, only recently emerged out of childhood, listened wide-eyed and horror-stricken to all this vituperation. Malevolence and hatred had never touched her before. She knew nothing of the execration in which her father and brother and, in a lesser degree, she and her mother were held by these people whom she had been taught to regard as of less account than her horses and dogs.

Now, when bitter words and angry curses were hurled at those she loved best, when one of the men in a fit of fury seized her pet dog and with a savage cry threw it out of the window onto the flagged terrace below, when a begrimed hand snatched the string of pearls from her neck and tore the lace ruffle from her brother's wrists, she could only stand there, trembling and speechless, not understanding what all this meant or why it had pleased God to inflict such an outrage upon her dear father and mother who had always led a pious life, fearing God and honouring the king.

But still darker days ensued. All the servants of the château, who used to be so diligent and well mannered, now became rough and overbearing. Impossible to give any one of them an order without receiving a rude reply---often a point-blank refusal. And presently they left, one by one---the men to seek employment in the cities, the women because they no longer had taste for domestic work. The château, once the scene of so much revelry, so many feasts, became silent and deserted. Only the family remained at last, with old Pierre and Yvonne to do what little service they could---Yvonne to cook scanty meals, and Pierre to try and keep Monsieur le Comte's and Monsieur le Vicomte's clothes as tidy as possible and to clean the three or four rooms which the family now occupied. The rest of the house was shut up, with sheets thrown over furniture and pictures to save them from the dust: and though the weather was bitterly cold only one or two fires were lighted occasionally, because wood was so scarce and dear. Men in rough clothes and sabots came from Thiers or Roanne and without saying "by your leave" carted away the provisions of fod and fuel that enriched the storerooms of the château. They would march through the deserted rooms, peer into drawers and cupboards, carry away anything portable they fancied, and smash or otherwise destroy priceless objects of art which had been the pride of the old château and its owners for many generations.

But the worst was yet to come. Aline, who was then just twenty-one, saw her mother die, untended by a leech. She knew nothing of the healing art herself, poor child! and Yvonne did what she could, but Madame d'Ercourt just faded out of life: content to go rather than see worse humiliations befall her children. And when Aline, half-distracted with grief, wept bitter tears because the leech from Thiers refused to come and see her mother, because, forsooth, the road was long and the weather cold, Yvonne just shrugged her shoulders, and said dryly: "I remember Paul Notara coming here, half-crazy, begging the leech to come to his dying mother. But the leech could not be troubled about old Marianne, because forsooth he had to tend Monsieur le Comte's dogs who were sick with the mange."

Hatred, bitterness everywhere. Oh, my God! when would it all cease?

Part III

Down in the village Paul Notara, recently back from Paris, taught his friends how to nurse thoughts of revenge. Day after day, night after night, the village folk would sit together, their stomachs empty and their brains seething with resentment, discussing the marvellous events up in Paris, where the people, tired of misery and want, and conscious of their newly found liberties, had begun by storming the Bastille, raiding that great monument which for centuries had stood as the embodiment of everything that was tyrannical and cruel in the old régime of France. Since then they had seized the persons of the king and his family and kept them prisoners, forcing the king to do their will under threat of worse to come. News filtered slowly through to this remote corner of the Lyonnais, but it did reach even these sleepy villages in time. Itinerant vendors of cheap wares, or vagrant musicians would bring tales of the great doings in the big cities, not only in Paris, but also in Orléans or in Bordeaux. Then why not in Thiers?

Paul Notara, blind in one eye, older than his years through mental and bodily suffering, was no longer the handsome young man of the past. His dreams had been shattered, even the memory of Aline seldom disturbed his thoughts. He had not forgotten her, but would not allow himself to think. Perhaps he wished to forget that it had been because of her that that terrible outrage had been laid upon him. He hated all her kindred and her friends, but the love of his youth prevented his feelings toward her to turn to bitterness. And while the other men from the village sat around the tables of the inn discussing the latest news from Paris, gloating over the tales of reprisals, of executions, of summary justice dealt out to those who had tyrannized over them in the past, Notara would often sit amongst them, brooding and silent, only putting in a word here and there, a word that would stir up their flagging interest on their smouldering hatred. Though blind in one eye and no longer the fine lad he used to be, Paul Notara, with his superior education and his forceful personality, was the acknowledged leader amongst them.

With their headquarters in Thiers, the agents of the new government were all over the neighbourhood urging the lads of the villages to find out who it was amongst the bourgeois and the ci-devants who trafficked with the enemies of the people of France. But the agents of the government soon enlightened them. The enemies of the people, they said, were all those who in the past had made the poor work while they feasted and enjoyed life. They were those who had luxuries of all kinds at their command while the people starved and while the poor had not even a leech to look after them when they were sick. Well, there were plenty of those all over France: the owners of the land, for the most part aristos or bourgeois. But, said the agents of the government, the land by right belonged to the people. What right had a few to monopolize it? To close up the woods and forests and declare that the beasts that were good to eat were their own inalienable property? Then there were others as well who owned no land but had made money by selling goods to the poor at exorbitant prices, whilst they themselves waxed rich in the process. Merchants and manufacturers, all of them tyrants. It was the turn of the people now to show their power over them.

And so the village lads sucked all those theories in as they would their mothers' milk. It was good to hear that it was their turn now to feast and to enjoy, whilst those others who had lived on the fat of the land would suffer poverty and even want.

They gloated over the idea. Every one of them had a grievance to record, an injustice to avenge. The old inn parlour was crowded most nights with hotheads and malcontents. An agitator had been over from Paris and had talked so forcefully and so eloquently that the whole countryside was now convinced that the millennium had come at last upon the earth, that everybody who had been poor would become rich, that everyone would have enough to eat and drink and ne'er a stroke of work to do--no other work, that is, except denouncing traitors to the justice of their country.

"Let not a single aristo remain," the agitator had entreated with fiery eloquence, "to continue those traditions of tyranny under which the people of France have groaned for centuries. Let but one of that brood be left to stalk the land and back you will all sink into that abyss of poverty out of which the government of the people, for the people, is striving now to drag you."

The fact that up to this hour the government of the people for the people had only succeeded in throwing the country into worse poverty than before was not brought home to these ignorant village folk. All they knew was that in the past they had often looked with envy on the stores of good things---game, fuel, fruit--that entered the château of the D'Ercourts while they themselves were left to munch rye bread and mouldy potatoes. So, quite naturally, poor things, they banged their fists upon the big vats that did duty for tables in the cabaret and shouted with one accord:

"Down with every aristo!"

"Down with D'Ercourt and his brood!"

"To hell with their château!"

The government agents made it clear that, in order to effect this admirable purpose of destroying all the enemies of the people, it was needful that the men of the village volunteer for service on the Gendarmerie Nationale. The pay was not much---a couple of sous a day---but there would be the glory of tracking and even arresting the enemies of France.

And they were willing enough to be so enrolled---life was dreary and dull and one got tired of hearing what others were doing in the big cities, in Paris and Orléans and even in Thiers---then why not have the same kind of excitement in Drumettaz? The women especially were keen. They could not be enrolled in the Gendarmerie Nationale, but they saw to it that their menfolk got the tricolour badge round their arm, the cockade in their caps, and that they learned how to use the bayonets which the government agent had brought for them from Paris.

"Down with D'Ercourt and his brood!" became their favourite cry. And the more they heard of ci-devant ducs and comtes being sent to the guillotine, the more they heard of the ci-devant king and his family being kept in prison, the more were they determined that their comte and vicomte, yea! and the girl, too, up at the château should be punished for their past wealth and arrogance as those others had been.

"Down with the D'Ercourts!" they cried.

"Down, I quite agree," the man from Paris went on, satisfied that the tares which he had sown were coming up plentifully; "but why delay? There is no time like the present, and if you wait too long…who knows? Those aristos might escape your just wrath and run away to that land of fogs and tyranny called England, where so many traitors have already found refuge."

"That would be a shame on us all, if those D'Ercourts were to escape."

The man who muttered this between his teeth, though loudly enough for those nearest him to hear, was André, the village smith. He had been crippled in his youth through a kick from one of Monsieur le Comte's horses. Like Notara, his physical sufferings had come to him--though indirectly---at the hands of those tyrants and oppressors up at the château, and they gave him a right to counsel and to lead, though not in so great a measure as Paul Notara.

"We'll not let them escape," one of the men declared emphatically.

"Then why not go up there to-day?" the man from Paris suggested. "They have a marvellous way, those aristos, of escaping punishment, just by slipping through your fingers."

"I have even heard tell," André the cripple put in dryly, "that more than one aristo has fled from justice aided by supernatural agency. There is talk of a sacré Englishman--"

"A devil--"

"Who just flicks his fingers like this and the aristo becomes at once invisible--vanishes into the air---even at the foot of the gallows."

"The guillotine, André--we don't talk of gallows now."

"Nor do we talk of devils---or supernatural agencies."

It was Notara who spoke. As was his wont, he had been sitting, silent and brooding, listening to all that wild talk with ill-concealed impatience.

"But you must have heard of the Englishman, Notara. They say that he is taller than any two men put end to end, that when he opens his eyes flames gush out from them, and when he speaks--"

"Name of a dog, stop that old woman's talk," Notara retorted with an oath. "Are we children that we are to be scared by tales of hobgoblins? Here!" he called, turning to where, in the far corner of the room, a small group of vagrant musicians stood humbly waiting for alms, "show us your mettle, brothers, and play a lively tune that will put heart into these cravens' breasts."

The suggestion was very welcome. In this remote village of the Lyonnais the advanced theories of reason and common sense had not yet chased superstition entirely away. And while André and his friends had discussed the supernatural attributes of the mysterious Englishman, more than one lad had felt a cold shudder running down his spine.

"Yes! Yes! A tune!" they called, with obvious relief. The musicians began to play. They were unkempt, dirty, clad in a few rags. One had a fiddle, another a clarinet, the third one a bassoon---old battered instruments that emitted wailing sounds under the trembling fingers of the players. They played the songs of old France, love songs, martial songs, the gay songs of the countryside, and while the voices rose in chorus, and the familiar words and tunes filled the overheated room, hatred and vengeance and cruelty were momentarily forgotten: the characteristic French spirit of gaiety had gained the upper hand."Au clair de la lune

Mon ami Pierrot."

and"J'aime Bachus, j'aime Manon

Tous deux partagent ma tendresse."

But this sane and softer mood did not suit the man in the black coat and tricolour sash who had, by his impassioned harangue, worked these lads up into a martial and virile temper. To hear them singing sentimental ditties did not suit his purpose at all. He had been sent down from Paris to create strife and resentment---he was paid, handsomely, too, to create them---to make trouble in fact, not to see it die down in a wave of sentimentality. Turning to the out-at-elbows musicians, he called to them with well-feigned indignation:

"Are ye milksops or chicken-livered cowards?" he demanded. "These old ditties are fit for old women, not for men. Have ye never heard the tune we, in Paris, call 'Marseillaise,' because the lads from Marseilles marched gaily against the enemies of their country to its inspiriting refrain? Cannot ye play that rather than these spiritless songs? I, for one, would of a certainty call any musician a traitor who could not strike up that patriotic tune."

Oh, that awful word "traitor"! It always had such an ominous ring. The leader of the musicians, a gentle fellow, bent nearly double with aching joints, his swollen fingers scarce able to touch the fiddle strings, cowered before the menacing glance of the man from Paris. And at first tentatively, then more boldly, he struck up the opening bars of the new "Marseillaise":

"Allons, enfants de la partrie…"

"Come, that's better," the man from Paris condescended. "Now, then, my lads. All together." Thus egged on, shamed out of their softer mood, the men bellowed in chorus:"Contre nous de la tyrannie

L'etendard sanglant est levé!"

Thus are the moods of a crowd swayed by deft manipulation. Within a few minutes the man from Paris, sent hither to make trouble, had all these wretched caitiffs in the hollow of his hand. He told them to bellow, and they bellowed. He told them that they had suffered untold wrongs at the hands of cruel tyrants, and they remembered every unpleasant incident that had ever occurred in their lives; he asked them who were those who had ground them down into poverty and humiliation, and with one accord they shouted in reply:

"D'Ercourt and his brood up at the château."

The man from Paris had, of a truth, stirred up all the trouble he wanted.

"Then why not storm their château now, as the people of Paris stormed the Bastille? Why not take the aristos prisoners, as the people of France even now hold the ci-devant king?"

Why not, indeed? Heads were put together---poor ignorant heads!---and the matter discussed. It would be good to see those D'Ercourts punished. The vicomte, now---what an arrogant taskmaster he had been---how rough with the men--how insolent with the women---and Monsieur le Comte--

"No, no!" said the man from Paris, "there are no comtes and vicomtes now. Ci-devants, if you like, and aristos. But we French men and women are just citizens of France. All of us, and all equal. Equality, Liberty, Fraternity---that is our motto and the 'Marseillaise' the tune to which we sing its praise. Allons, enfants de la patrie!" he went on lustily: "to the Château de Montbrison. If we do not find there proof and to spare that those D'Ercourts are all a set of traitors, then you can call me a traitor if you will and send me to the guillotine."

He had a ringing voice, had the man from Paris. These makers of strife in outlying villages were chosen for their oratory and their power to sway such tempers as were apt to become dormant. In most of the villages there still lurked a certain respect for the seigneurs. Habits not only of a lifetime but of generations cannot so easily be cast aside. Sometimes a certain amount of gratitude would also linger in the memory: gratitude for past kindnesses, sentiment for the younger generation born and grown to adolescence in the village. And the parish priest, not yet dispossessed, was still powerful enough to threaten with God's wrath those who were turbulent. Therefore, these men from Paris were well chosen and highly paid. Itinerant agitators, they had to earn their money by dint of shouting and inspiring gestures:

"Allons, enfants de la patrie! Le jours de gloire est arrivé!"

"Come, you old slow-coach," this stirrer of trouble in Drumettaz shouted to the musicians. "In the van! Ply your bassoon and your cracked fiddle, till the hills echo and reëcho with the martial tune."

The musicians, eager to please, picked up their instruments and marched out of the inn parlour, striking up as they did the first bar of the new song. Their leader, in ragged coat and torn breeches, hoseless, and with feet thrust into sabots, looked but a wreck of humanity as he plied his bow. Yet he must have been a fine figure of a man at one time, tall and broad-shouldered. It must be supposed that one of the many diseases attendant on poverty and insufficient food had bent his spine and twisted his limbs. Cowed before the lordly glance and menancing attitude of this black-coated dictator from Paris, he seemed still further to shrink into himself, even whilst his quivering fingers evoked the virile strain of the "Marseillaise." His three companions, one wielding a fiddle, another a bassoon, and the third a clarinet, followed in his wake.

Thus was the cortège formed. Behind the musicians marched the newly enrolled men of the Gendarmerie Nationale, six of them, carrying their bayonets. They bore themselves well, proud of their own martial air, their tricolour badges, and their vast importance. And after them came the other men of the village, the old and the crippled, all singing lustily. A few women were with them. Most of them had worked for Madame la Comtesse and Mademoiselle Aline in the past. They felt in a mood now to exult over those aristos who were feeling the pinch of want for the first time in their lives.

Not that either Madame la Comtesse or Mademoiselle Aline had ever been unkind: they had merely taken all the good things of this world as if these were theirs by right. They had also taken the work of the people in the same arrogant spirit: theirs by right. Because God had created them in a sphere above their fellows. And Jeanne and Marie, Anna and Joséphine had served them and worked for them, because they had done so all their lives and because their mothers had done it before them. It had never struck them that they also had rights and privileges and liberties. Not until these black-coated gentlemen with the tricolour scarves had explained to them that the earth was theirs and the fulness thereof and that if there was a God at all, which they declared was doubtful, He had of a certainty created all men and women to have equal rights in everything on the earth. And if any of those aristos dared to stand in the way, or tried with outside aid to cling to all the old fallacies of the past, why, then, there was a certain Madame la Guillotine up in Paris whose arms would receive all the ci-devants and aristos, bourgeois and priests who stood in the way of the liberties of the people.

Thus were the great gates of the château reached at last. A motley crowd of men and women in ragged clothes, panting and sweating after the long tramp along the muddy road. Unarmed, fortunately, save for those bayonets which the valiant Gendarmerie Nationale did not know how to wield. The shades of the evening were falling fast: only a gray and misty twilight lingered still in the clearings. A warm, boisterous wind blew from over the range of Forrez. The Garde Nationale, conscious of their importance, demanded admittance, but the gates were no longer kept locked these days. What had been the good? There was always a group of malcontents or mere mischief-makers to break them open if they had been locked. Musicians en tête, they marched in and swarmed into the courtyard: then up the perron steps to the front door. There was nothing to stop them. No bolts, no locks, no bars. So straight across the stately vestibule dimly lit by a single oil lamp which cast a faint, yellowish glow on the massive marble columns, making them seem like ghosts looming out of the darkness.

Then up the monumental staircase on which had passed such brilliant assemblies in the past. Now the marble treads were dull and cracked, the ormolu balustrade twisted and broken---the result of the former raid upon the old château. Monsieur d'Ercourt was in one of the small boudoirs with his son François when first he heard the noise of tramping feet, of hoarse singing and shouting approaching from the road. He knew what it all meant. He put down the book which he was reading and, walking erect and calm, he sought Pierre and Yvonne in the kitchen.

"We shall have trouble again here directly," he said coolly: "a crowd of villagers is invading the château. We must try and not get a repetition of what we went through before. Can I trust you both to look after Mademoiselle Aline?"

Pierre and Yvonne swore that they would do their best. They would see to it that Mademoiselle Aline remained quietly in one of the rooms on the top floor. Those rowdies from the village could easily be persuaded that she was from home visiting her aunt in Bordeaux.

Satisfied, or nearly so, the Comte d'Ercourt rejoined his son in the boudoir. Neither of them was afraid. With all their faults, the great French nobles of the time possessed an immense courage which amounted to virtue. They had been arrogant, and were now humbled, but they never cringed. The shadow of Death lurked around them all the time, but they were prepared for every fate, and as ready to meet death on the gallows as they had been in the past on the battlefield or in the cause of chivalry. They had learned their lesson of resignation and dignity from their king.

The crowd made noisy irruption into the boudoir; laughing, shouting, and singing, and pushing the musicians in front of them. The Gendarmerie Nationale lined up along the wall, guarding the door.

The room was dark: only faintly illumined by tallow candles guttering in the sconces of a tall, massive silver candelabra.

Monsieur d'Ercourt had ostentatiously taken up his book again. He did no more than look up when the first of the intruders pushed the door open and, panting with excitement, stood for a moment under the lintel, astonished because they had thought to find a family group cowering and clinging together in an agony of fear and only found Monsieur le Comte calmly reading a book and the vicomte examining the handle of his hunting crop.

"What is it you want?" Monsieur le Comte asked calmly.

There was no immediate reply. The intruders were hoping to see the black-coated man from Paris come to the fore and be their spokesman, as he had been their chosen orator. But the government agent, having fomented the mischief, was prudently keeping out of the way. Nor was Notara there. The villagers felt momentarily baffled. Fortunately, André the cripple was there. He elbowed his way to the front, and with his twisted legs set well apart, his hands thrust in the pockets of his ragged breeches, and chewing a length of straw, he addressed the Comte d'Ercourt, but not before he had spat on the Aubusson carpet just to show what a fine and independent citizen of the Republic he was.

"We have come, D'Ercourt," he said, "in an entirely friendly spirit, and only because we desire that you and your son there shall join us in singing that wonderful new tune called the 'Marseillaise,' which it is incumbent on every son of France to know and to sing. Isn't that it, comrades?" he concluded, half-turning to his friends.

A murmur of assent came in response.

"Well said, André!" some of them declared.

"Just in a friendly spirit…"

"A fine tune, D'Ercourt. Let's hear you sing it."

Monsieur d'Ercourt looked calmly on the hunched-up figure of the cripple and retorted quite simply: "A not unnatural desire. Let's hear the tune. My son and I are ready to listen."

The flickering flames of the tallow candles cast eerie lights and weird-looking shadows over the faces of André and the crowd, twisting them into grotesque shapes and drawing fantastic shadows on the wall of gnomelike faces with elongated noses and outstretched chins.

At a word from the cripple the musicians once more intoned the patriotic hymn:

"Contre nous de la tyrannie…"

"Sing! nom d'un chien, sing! All of you," André commanded, and they did sing both loudly and thoroughly out of tune. Alone Monsieur le Comte and his son sat there, silent and aloof. Monsieur le Comte had drawn his book and the light closer to him and, resting his elbow on the table, appeared once more absorbed in reading. The vicomte drummed his fingers against the table.

For the first few minutes André and the others glowered at the two aristos, whose calm attitude was distinctly exasperating. So much so, in fact, that André with a savage curse suddenly snatched the book out of the comte's hand and hurled it across the room against the wall.

"Did you not hear me say sing? Nom d'un chien," he demanded, and raised his fist, as if ready to strike. In a moment, François was on his feet and already stood between his father and the cripple.

"You dare touch Monsieur le Comte, you insolent…"

André had instinctively drawn back a step or two---the instincts of a lifetime are not easily ignored---but the very next moment he had recovered his aplomb and, looking the vicomte up and down, he indulged in loud ironical laughter:

"Dare?" he exclaimed. "Monsieur le Comte?--Insolent?---Did you hear those words, citizens of a free land?" And he flicked his fingers under the vicomte's nose. "This do I dare, my fine bird---and this--and--"

He untied the vicomte's cravat and the next moment was in the act of tweaking his nose when François hit out with clenched fist and struck him full in the mouth.

In an instant all was confusion. André had cried: "Malediction!" as he staggered under the blow. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A streak of blood appeared between his lips. "Murder! Outrage!" the women cried. The music had suddenly ceased; the leader of the band had fled from the room. Monsieur le Comte and his son were surrounded now by a crowd that meant mischief or worse. The men of the Gendarmerie Nationale pushed their way to the front and, wielding their bayonets as they would a bludgeon, they soon brought the Comte d'Ercourt to the ground. He was an old man, and though he fought valiantly to avert blows from every side, he was quickly rendered helpless while the vicomte vainly tried to come to his father's aid.

It was while confusion was at its height that an authoritative voice called out from the rear of the crowd:

"If any killing's to be done here, I have first call."

It was Paul Notara. He had not joined in with the crowd and the musicians when they started out for the château. The man from Paris, scenting in this powerful personality a valuable tool for his work of trouble, had engaged him in conversation. Notara listened to him for awhile: but in thought he followed the other men on their way to the château. He had not been within its boundary walls since that memorable night four years ago. He wondered how it looked now in its forlorn and neglected state. He wondered also if Aline were there, and if all those hotheads would molest her. And if she were molested, how she would act. There was also the hope of seeing that miserable vicomte cowed, perhaps maltreated---a pleasant sight for one who had suffered at his hands.

So Notara abruptly turned his back on the man from Paris and left him standing there, frowning and puzzled, while he made his way over to the château. He arrived there some fifteen minutes after the others, just in time to see the worst of the mêlée in the boudoir; Monsieur le Comte in a precarious position on the floor, and the vicomte seriously threatened by the infuriated cripple. He elbowed his way through the crowd, past the valiant gendarmes, and with a rough hand he dragged André aside and thrust him out of the way. Then he stood facing the vicomte.

"We've not met, François, have we, for four years?" he said. "I wonder if you have forgotten everything that I remember."

He brought his hand down heavily on the vicomte's shoulder. The latter tried to shake him off, but Notara tightened his grip and, peering into the other's face, he said slowly: "It is my turn now, François, and I am going to give myself the satisfaction of thrashing you--yes, thrashing you, my fine fellow, as one thrashes a cur---within an inch of your life--as you had me thrashed that time by your lackeys. Do you remember that?"

In his right hand he had a stout stick, and this he raised above his head with a flourish and uttered a long mirthless laugh, whilst the weight of his left hand on the vicomte's shoulder forced the latter down on his knees.

"Well said, Notara," some of the men shouted---aye! and some of the women, too. "The stick! That's what these aristos want to bring them to their sense."

And down came Notara's stick with a dull thud across the Victome François's shoulders. Monsieur le Comte had just sufficient strength to utter a cry of helpless rage, whilst the vicomte, manfully smothering a groan, put up his arms to ward the next blow from his head. Down came the stick again.

A shout of joy and derision went up from the crowd.

"Well done, Notara!" the men and women shouted.

"Le jour de gloire est arrivé!" some of them cried, full of excitement and of zest.

Up went Notara's stick once more. The flickering candlelight distorted his face, making it look like that of some demon of rage and of spite. He was deathly pale, but his movements were slow and deliberate. His was the calm fury, the white heat of an overwhelming passion. Even the most ignorant and loutish amongst that crowd knew that he meant to strike and to strike again until his victim had paid for past offences with his life.

It was during the tense silence which preceded that third blow that a portière which concealed a second door was pushed violently aside and a woman's piercing shriek rang out of the darkness:

"Holy Virgin! François! Father!"

The room on which this door and portière gave was on a higher level than the boudoir; two steps gave access to it. Aline, motionless with horror, stood on the top of those steps for the space of a second or two. From where she stood she could see everything---her father on the ground, her brother at Notara's feet, the upraised stick, Notara's face, distorted and grotesque.

Her father! her brother! The horror in her had turned her sweet young face as if to stone. With dilated eyes she stared down at the awful scene, and the men and women who were there, savage and lustful though they had been but a few seconds ago, were themselves aghast, or perhaps moved to pity at sight of the girl. Thus for a moment or two an awed silence held sway in the crowded room---a silence during which Paul Notara nad Aline looked into one another's eyes.

Four years had gone by since Paul had looked upon the woman whom he had so madly worshipped, and something of that reverence with which he had regarded her in the past seemed to struggle back into his heart. The vengeful hand which had brandished the stick dropped to his side, and his lips murmured a half-articulate word---her name--"Aline!"

Aline said nothing. After that first cry of horror not a sound had come to her lips. Only her eyes, when first they rested on Notara, told him that she, too, remembered. Did they plead, or did they command? Certain it is that after those few tense seconds Notara's glance fell away. With a muttered word of scorn he released François, and then turned to the crowd.

"Leave these people alone," he commanded; "it is better we let the government in Paris deal with them."

His words broke the spell which had so unaccountably descended upon them.

Murmurs of protest rose from the malcontents. They had not come all this way---had not worked themselves up into a passion of resentment---to be thus sent about their business, unsatisfied. No, not even by Paul Notara, their avowed friend and leader. He had not, it seems, forgotten his schoolmaster days, when he drilled little boys into submission. But they were men, not boys, and these D'Ercourts were aristos and enemies of France. Were they to be allowed to continue plotting against the liberties of the people?

And Notara himself? Was he turning traitor, too? It looked like it, when suddenly, at a word from that D'Ercourt girl, he robbed them all of their revenge.

Strangely enough, though they murmured and protested, they were on the whole inclined to let the matter drop for the moment---to go away quietly, and to wait until they had thought things over.

"We'll talk with the citizen agent from Paris," André the cripple had muttered audibly. "We'll see what he says."

And this semmed to satisfy them. They threw suspicious, glowering looks on Notara, who, however, paid no heed to them. He seemed like a man in a dream, with that one dark eye of his still fixed upon Aline--seeing nothing but her. Monsieur le Comte, in the meanwhile, aided by his daughter, had struggled to his feet. François d'Ercourt, with studied nonchalance, was readjusting the set of his cravat, striving the while with all his might to hide his face from Notara and the crowd, for in his eyes there glowed a flame of deadly rage and hatred.

The musicians ahd started to play the good old tune:

"Jeanne, Jeannette, et Jeanneton Toutes trois jeunes et jolies…"

This had a further effect in calming the turbulent spirits. Some of them nodded their heads sagely, and said:

"The citizen agent from Paris will know what to do."

And so, with the musicians once more in the van, they filed in an orderly fashion down the monumental staircase.

The men of the Gendarmerie Nationale, carrying their bayonets, followed the crowd.

Notara was last to leave.

Part IV

While men made the earth ugly with their hatred and their passions, Nature was in one of her lovely moods. Once more the autumn evenings were sweet and mellow, once more the velvety blackness of cypresses was thrust above the sea of feathery pines: once more the dead leaves of planes and elms made a soft swishing carpet beneath the feet of the passers-by.

Aline d'Ercourt, still under the influence of all the horror which she had experienced that afternoon, tried to find comfort and to soothe her nerves in the solitary avenues of the park. In the days that were gone, when she knew nothing of men and of their passions, she would have been frightened to wander out in the gloaming alone, but now that she had seen hatred and hardness of heart at such close quarters, she felt that in her heart there was no longer any room for cowardly fear. Men, even the most evil, seemed to have done their worst with her. When presently she saw a figure detach itself out of the gloom she was not afraid, not even when in that lurking figure she recognized Notara--the man whose hatred for those she cared for had killed all sense of mercy and humanity in him. Aline was not afraid of him, but to speak with him or to listen to him was the very last thing she could have wished, and so--quite instinctively she turned away at sight of him, ready to flee from him as she would from some powerful and mysterious enemy.

But already he was close beside her, so close that stretching out his hand he grasped her skirt and clung to it, so that she could not run away.

"I entreat you not to be afraid, Mlle Aline," he said, and his voice was soft and gentle: "and to grant me just a few words. Believe me, I …"

The moon was at her brightest, and the shadows long and purple. She could not see his face because it was in shadow--only one shoulder and the massive leg, slightly bending at the knee.

"I am not afraid," she said coldly. "Why should I be? It is not in your power to do me more harm than you have already done."

"Harm? Great God! And I who would sooner die than harm as much as one of your exquisite hands."

"Do not let us speak of that," she retorted. "I pray you, release my gown. I would like to call at least this part private and free from the presence of those who hate me and mine so bitterly. I have little to care for now," she added, "except my privacy."

She tried to disengage her skirt, but he clung to it so tightly that she was helpless.

"You cannot go, Mademoiselle Aline," he said, "until you have heard why I came out here this night. For the sake of your father and your brother, you must listen to me."

At these words she stood still. He had spoken very quietly and very softly, and his appeal in the name of her father and brother had been spoken with compelling earnestness.

"Will you listen!" he insisted.

She did not reply, but her silence gave consent, and after a moment or two he went on:

"I dare say you have seen, Mademoiselle, how the men listened to me this afternoon. They look upon me as a leader because of the wrong I suffered at your brother's hands. A few hours ago I was on the point of avenging upon his person the terrible wrong that he did to me… ." A quick intake of the breath, and Paul Notara went on more vehemently: "I am not speaking of physical wrongs. The wrong that he did me was an outrage to my manhood and to my pride. From that, I have never recovered. Through it, I have become less and more than a man; even the love that I had for you--and God knows that it was pure and holy--is no longer so now. But I still love you, and for the sake of that love, I am willing to forego my just desire for revenge. I can save our father, your brother, and yourself from the fate which has overtaken so many of your friends and kindred…."

At these words, which to Aline's ears sounded like a message of hope from Heaven, she gave a quick little cry:

"Notara," she said impulsively, "if you will do that…"

"I am not a saint, Mlle Aline," he broke in coolly, "anything but that. I am only a man with feelings, a man with hatred in his heart just as much as with love. Your people before then had looked on me as little better than a beast of burden, created for the sole purpose of toiling so that they might rest, of labouring and suffering so that they might enjoy. But we won't go back on that now. As I have told you, I am willing to forgo my revenge, I am willing to help those whom you love for the sake of the past love which I bore you, but it is on one condition." He paused, and Aline made no reply. A silence seemed to have fallen over Nature, only the tender murmuring of the wind in the dying leaves of the planes broke the mysterious hush which held sway in the park. For two or three minutes these two stood there, silent, facing one another, each knowing that the other understood. Aline felt the tears come to her eyes, she marvelled if God willed her to make this sacrifice for the sake of those she cared for. She knew well enough what Notara meant when he spoke of a condition, and she wondered whether she had it in her to give up everything which she held most dear--her honour, her pride, her love--to this creature who was her enemy. And while every thought in her brain seemed annihilated save that one--the power of sacrifice--her ears caught the far-off sound of a sweet instrument, the gentle murmuring strain of a song of old France--plaintive and appealing--one that spoke of home and joy and love. The sound was so sweet and sad that Aline but her hands to her face and allowed the tears to trickle through her fingers.

Notara shrugged his shoulders. He was long past the time when women's tears had the power to move him. "I think those tears mean consent," was all that he said. "I think you will be wise to accept. I have a great deal of influence in this neighbourhood, I can find the means to convey your father and your brother from here to Grenoble and thence over the Swiss frontier, but that will only be if you will pledge yourself to be my wife and come with me to-morrow before the maire of Thiers, when I shall pass a ring over your finger. Whether you will be happy with me will be a matter for yourself to decide. My love for you may have undergone a change, but it is not dead, and I will do my best that you do not regret the step which you will have taken for the sake of your father and your brother."

Aline's hands dropped from her face, she looked straight at Notara. By the light of the moon she could see his pale, ugly face, with the empty socket caused by her brother's blow. Somehow there was something in that terrible wound which told her more plainly than words could do, that to appeal to this man who had suffered so much at her brother's hands, would indeed be useless. He had so obviously spoken his last word. Was the sacrifice beyond her power, she wondered?

"I must think," she murmured feebly.

"Yes," he said, "you can think until to-morrow. But only until then. The whole village--the women as well as the men--are incensed against your people. With great difficulty I held them back to-day. In a day or two I might be powerless and we might all of us perish together. You must do as you think best. We have twenty-four hours before us, perhaps less: but if within that time you have become my wife, I will see to it that your father and your brother are safely over the frontier. You, of course, will be safe with me…always."

He allowed her skirt to slip out of his hand. For a moment it seemed as if he would raise it to his lips--as he had done that evening four years ago. Aline wanted to say something to him--what, she knew not--but something kind, for he seemed so gentle now and looked so sad.

He had suffered--God in Heaven! how he must have suffered! And at her brother's hands. Aline remembered everything now--that night in this same dark and solitary avenue, how gentle he had been then, how almost reverential, and for that avowal of love which could not have been an insult, even to a queen, he had been punished like a dog! An overwhelming feeling of pity welled up in her heart for him--pity the tender, and kinsman of love. She wanted to keep him back, to hear him speak again, to hear him tell her that he forgave her for what her brother had done. But already the shades of the evening had enfolded his tall, massive figure. Soon he disappeared out of her sight. From far away the plaintive song still reached her ear.

Silent and thoughtful--not altogether unhappy--Aline went slowly back to the château.

Part V

It was on this same evening, after the turbulent expedition to the château, and about an hour after Aline d'Ercourt's interview with Paul Notara in the park, that Sir Percy Blakeney and his friends--all of this still in the ragged coats and breeches of itinerant musicians--had met in the derelict cottage off the main Thiers-Roanne Road and listened to Lord Fanshawe's story of his early acquaintance with the d'Ercourts and with Paul Notara.

Something in the young man's attitude, ever since the members of the league had turned their activities to this corner of the Lyonnais, had induced the chief to ask for this explanation. He only knew vaguely that Fanshawe had in the past been acquainted with the d'Ercourts, that he even had been, and still was, in love with Aline: it was, in fact, owing to rumours transmitted to him by Fanshawe that he decided to turn his attention to Thiers and its neighbourhood, here to seek out those who might need his help and that of the League. There were those in these remote districts of France--men and women, young and old--who, have led a secluded life, God-fearing and simple-minded, had for some unexplainable reason been singled out by the revolutionary government for persecution. In the desire to enlist the support of agriculturists and peasants, the Terrorists had done their best to arouse the cupidity of these ignorant people by wild promises of untold wealth to be derived from expropriation of the land.

It was always the business of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel to discover where such persecution was rife, where there were innocents likely to suffer, and where active help would be most needed. Fanshawe had spoken of the neighborhood of Thiers, of the d'Ercourts and others, and had said quite enough to arouse the sympathy of his chief.

But Blakeney was too shrewd an observer of human nature to be satisfied with Fanshawe's vague hints of former acquaintanceship with the d'Ercourt family. As soon as he and his followers arrived in the neighbourhood he scented the hatred and resentment which existed in the village against the d'Ercourts. He heard various scraps of gossip about this Paul Notara, about the Vicomte François and about Aline, a young girl, who obviously was one of those innocents on whom injustice, born of blind resentment, would fall most heavily.

He questioned Fanshawe who, pressed to tell the whole story, poured out into the sympathetic ear of his chief and his friends the epic of his love for Aline, of Notara's wrongs and of the fears and jealousies which wrought such havoc in his own soul.

A quarter of an hour or so after the young man had concluded his story, Blakeney rose and went out of the cottage. Lord Anthony Dewhurst was on guard outside, in case night hawks with prying eyes and ears came too near to the derelict cottage.

"Go inside, Tony," Blakeney said to him. "I'll stay out here. I want to think things over for awhile. Fanshawe's story…you heard it?"

"Only fragments," Lord Tony replied. "But I can piece them together easily enough….Blakeney, I wish you wouldn't…"

"What?"

"I mistrust that boy…more than ever after I heard his tale… ."

"Only fragments, Tony…"

"Enough to know that he is half-crazy with jealousy. If I have read your intentions aright, Blakeney…"

"You have, Tony."

"You mean to get this man Notara away as well as the d'Ercourts?"

"Of course. If he and Aline stay here, their life would not be worth a week's purchase. She has by now made up her mind to accept the bargain. I heard and saw her an hour ago in the park. The moment I struck up a love ditty on this cracked old fiddle she burst into tears. I know those symptoms," Sir Percy went on with a gentle snigger. "She is half in love with the brute already. A fine fellow, in a way. Too fine to be thrown to the wolves."

"Whilst that young Fanshawe is just a despicable young mole," Lord Tony concluded as in response to a mute command from his chief he turned to go into the cottage.

"Between ourselves, that is also my opinion," Blakeney assented lightly. "That is why I don't want him to marry Aline d'Ercourt. She is too fine a woman to risk getting her heart broken by his future infidelities…and he'd commit so many!…"

The interior of the cottage was in almost total darkness. Only in one corner of the bare, half-empty room, a tallow candle guttered in a pewter sconce. Through the tiny window, innocent of frame or glass, the slanting rays of the moon entered mysterious and ghost-like. There were six of them there--fine English gentlemen, all of them, exquisites in London Society of the most engaging type, keen riders to hounds, adepts at all the graceful arts that make a man popular with his own sex, and admired by the women. Yet here they were now, grimy and unkempt, dressed in a few rags, heedless of the cool October evening and the freshening wind that blew over the range of Forrez--and all of them as keen after this new altruistic sport as they ever were at home after stag or fox. They squatted on the bare boards of the floor, or paced up and down the room eagerly discussing the position as revealed to them by Lord Fanshawe--but only in whispers, because these were the days when spying and anonymous denunciations were encouraged and highly paid by the revolutionary Government.

Alone Lord Fanshawe sat, somewhat apart from the others, in the darkest corner of the room on one of the few wooden chairs that furnished this derelict cottage.

"I cannot understand Blakeney…" he said at one moment: and his voice sounded harsh, with a rasping note of discontent and obstinacy.

"How do you mean, you don't understand him?" one of the others retorted. "A more single-minded man never lived. He never seems to think of anything else but how to help someone, and if he cannot help, then how to comfort. My God! and with such a happy home as he's got, such a marvellous wife…money, position…he's got everything …and look at him…."

"Well," Fanshawe put in sullenly, "don't we all…"

"Yes, now and again," the other insisted, "but Blakeney practically lives in this God-forsaken country now…and with a whole pack of these wolves lying in wait for him all the time. And when there is work to be done, he never thinks of himself, only of us…all the time."

How they loved their chief, all these young men! It was Sir Andrew Ffoulkes who had spoken, and he was the most enthusiastic, the most trusted amongst the members of the League. It was only young Fanshawe …

"He would do well to take counsel from some of us sometimes," the latter muttered, but only half-audibly. He was still almost ashamed of his own disloyalty, and half-afraid to betray himself before the others.

It was at this point that Lord Anthony Dewhurst came into the room. He usually was the gayest of the party. A regular sportsman. Perhaps not quite so sentimentally attached to Sir Percy as was Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, for instance, and some of the others, but the truest of the true, and with boundless admiration not to say reverence for the chief, to whom he gave implicit obedience and trust.

"What counsel would you be giving the chief on this occasion, Fanshawe?" he asked lightly. "Blakeney, as you know, is always ready to listen."

"Well," Fanshawe retorted in a tone of obvious exasperation, "we all know that this afternoon Blakeney had a hand in letting poor little Aline know what was going on downstairs when Notara was giving the vicomte his well-deserved punishment. She was safe enough, I imagine, in one of the remote wings of the château, and why a young and sensitive girl should have been dragged into that dirty business…" He checked himself, and as the others made no comment, he went on sullenly:

"I knew at once that it was Blakeney who had found her and brought her down, because, if you remember, he disappeared from the room just when the fun was about to begin, and a few minutes later there was poor little Aline…"

"Blakeney did right, as usual, for Aline was the only person who could have stopped that abominable murder just then….Notara was seeing red…and we could not have interfered without…"

"And the best thing that could have happened," young Fanshawe broke in vehemently. "Why should not Notara have killed that miserable François, he well deserved it and would have been off our hands. We could have concentrated on Aline and perhaps her old father…"

"I don't understand you, Fanshawe," my Lord Hastings put in earnestly. "I thought this Vicomte François was your friend. On which side are you exactly?"

"I care nothing about any of them," the young man replied, "my one thought is Aline, and I feel that by worrying about the rest of them we are minimizing our chance of saving her."

It was while Fanshawe said this that Sir Percy Blakeney re-entered the room though none of them noticed him at once, and he stood for awhile in the doorway, listening.

"We are going to worry, my dear fellow," he now said, "and quite considerably, too, about all of them. I have a plan in my head which, with luck, will answer very well. I should certainly be afraid that even if Notara's scheme came off…"

"Oh, he has a scheme, too, has he?" Fanshawe broke in with a sneer.

"I should have called it a bargain," Sir Percy said quietly.

"The devil!" Fanshawe exclaimed. "What bargain?"

"To get the d'Ercourt family out of the country on condition that Mademoiselle Aline becomes his wife."

"And do you mean to tell me…?" Fanshawe almost shrieked out in an excess of rage, and his face reddened to the roots of his hair. But he made a violent effort to regain control over himself, and went on more coolly: "How do you know that this bargain was proposed?"

"I heard Notara and Aline together in the park, about an hour ago."

"Aline, of course, rejected this with scorn."

"Not she," Blakeney replied. "She burst into tears--that was all."

"She loathes and hates Notara."

"She did, but she pities him now, and we all know that pity in a woman's heart soon turns to love."

"Never while I live--" Fanshawe cried, but Blakeney put up a quietly restraining hand.

"We are not here to discuss love idylls, my dear fellow," he said, with just the first suspicion of authority in his voice: "neither yours, nor Notara's. We are here to drag four innocents out of the clutches of these murdering wolves."

"Four?"

"Perhaps I should have said three, for your friend François is not innocent like the others. But we could not in all humanity leave him behind and so--"

"But who are the four?"

"The Comte d'Ercourt, his son and daughter--and the man Notara."

"Notara? Surely you do not mean--?"

"What?"

"Risk our lives for that brute--?"

"Not for a brute," Blakeney replied quietly, "for a man who has suffered biter wrongs innocently--wrongs so bitter that for a time his whole nature became warped--but a fine fellow for all that. Already those murdering wolves are lying in wait for him. His return to his finer self is not understood by them, and they are already planning to destroy him. That is why we must get him out of their clutches--as for risking our lives…"

He laughed, and shrugged his shoulders, his deep-set lazy eyes wandered lovingly--proudly--to those half-dozen men who were his willing helpmates in the tasks of mercy and self-sacrifice which he spent his life in accomplishing.

"I have a plan in my mind," Sir Percy continued, after a slight pause, "which will work very well and will be ridiculously easy, once we can get the d'Ercourts and Notara away from this village and on the road to Thiers. My plan works from there, and for it our headquarters will be the half-derelict Maison Gaglio, which you all know. The d'Ercourts we could get away straight from him, because they would follow us readily enough: but how to get Notara away at the same time puzzles me a little for the moment--he certainly would not come with us willingly, so we shall have to…"

He broke off abruptly and paced up and down the narrow room for a while, frowning and thinking. One of those daring plans of which he alone possessed the secret was taking shape in his fertile brain. The others hung on his lips. They knew they could trust their chief to find a means to save those four people from the cruel fate which without his help would surely overtake them: presently they would each be told their task on the morrow and what share each would have in the exciting sport. Fanshawe alone did not look at the chief. He sat on one of the rickety chairs with his hands buried in the pockets of his ragged breeches, pondering sullenly.

"I think, I have the glimmer of an idea," Blakeney said suddenly, "and, by God! I can promise you all more exciting sport than you have ever had in all your lives. As for Paul Notara, I reserve for him the surprise of his life."

"Whatever your scheme may be, Blakeney," Fanshawe said firmly and coolly, "you must not reckon on me to help you with it."

At these words, spoken with the obstinacy of a contumacious schoolboy, all eyes were turned instinctively on the chief. Such words had never been spoken by any of them since the first inception of the League, and even those who knew Blakeney most intimately marvelled how he would take this outburst of rebellion on the part of one of his youngest followers.

Thus an absolute silence fell upon them all, whilst Blakeney from his full magnificent height looked down upon the flushed, sullen face of young Fanshawe. He said nothing. Only to the keen eyes of his two most intimate friends did there appear a very slight drawing up of his fine figure, a drooping of the heavy lids over the deep-set blue eyes, and a tightening of the firm lips. The silence after a while became oppressive.

Fanshawe had not moved, and the look of sullen obstinacy on his face became more marked. And suddenly the silence was broken in an unexpected way by a ripple of merry laughter. Blakeney threw back his head and laughed: the novelty of the situation had tickled his sense of humour. This boy standing up to him, defying him, looking like a sulky schoolboy daring his master to lay hands on him!…It seemed as if a magic spell had been broken, and Blakeney said lightly:

"Do you mind telling us exactly what you mean, my dear fellow? I don't think any of us quite understood you when you said…What exactly did you say, by the way?"

"I meant just what I said," Fanshawe replied dryly. "You may formulate any scheme you please for the d'Ercourts; I think that François is a miserable worm, but he is Aline's brother, and I will do all I can to help you and the others to see the family safely over the frontier: but I'll not be party to any such scheme if it includes Notara."

"And how do you propose to take up that attitude of…what shall I call it?--independence?" Blakeney queried, still speaking lightly and with a gentle, ironical smile upon his lips.

"I will see Aline and…" Fanshawe began.

But Blakeney put up a gently restraining hand. "We'll talk of that presently, my dear fellow; for the moment, I think, it is your turn to keep watch outside. You will find the night cold and soothing."

Fanshawe seemed to hesitate for a moment. He had tasted the first sweets of rebellion and felt extraordinarily valiant and important. He was prepared to follow up his advantage: but somehow he had become conscious of an atmosphere of hostility about him: perhaps, too, he felt a desire to be alone for awhile to think matters over more deliberately. Certain it is that he appeared willing to obey this minor command from his chief. He rose, but gave no look to the others, and without another word went out into the night.

After a second or two Blakeney followed him; he closed the cottage door behind him lest the others should hear what he wished to say. Once outside and alone with the boy, he put a kindly hand on his shoulder, and by sheer force of will compelled those sullen-looking eyes to look straight into his own.

"Now, listen to me, my boy," he said, speaking in a whisper and with infinite kindness. "I am always ready to make any allowance for jealousy. We are all friends together, and some of us have suffered more than others in our affections: for these, and for you, I have the utmost sympathy, but you must understand that there is one thing I'll never tolerate and that is insubordination. We have banded ourselves together in order to help suffering humanity, in order to right wrongs and redress injustice. There is only one way by which we can succeed in our work and that is by working willingly and wholeheartedly together. You understood that, when you joined the League in its very early days. More than that: you, like the others, swore a solemn oath and gave me your word of honour that you would follow me and obey me in all things. Think all that over, my dear lad. You have got your two hours' watch before you now. During those two hours, while you perform this duty, the safety of us all is practically in your hands: so you see how completely I trust you." After which, Sir Percy Blakeney gave the young man's shoulder an affectionate pat, and then, with a quickly suppressed sigh, he turned and went back into the cottage.

Part VI

For half an hour did young Fanshawe wrestle with the demon of treachery--this much to his credit--one half-hour, while a thousand mischievous imps seemed to be whispering in his ear.

He tried to persuade himself that there was nothing disloyal in what he contemplated--rebellion, perhaps, against arbitrary rules of conduct--but treachery, no! The chief was not infallible, and in this case to risk valuable lives for that brute Notara, was nothing short of madness. Fanshawe hated Notara, with that most deadly hatred which is born of jealousy. Vaguely he suspected a rival in that beggarly schoolmaster, who had dared to make love to Aline--Aline was young--sensitive--romantic. Woman-like, she might…Great God! the very thought caused Fanshawe's nerves to tingle and send his pulses beating. Anything rather than that. Jealousy had reawakened his dormant love for Aline. She looked lovely, standing under the lintel of the door, her small hand holding back the heavy portière, her marvellous eyes fixed on that brute-beast, till they had cowed him into showing mercy. At all risks, at all costs she must be forcibly torn away from any possible influence which Notara, through his very ruthlessness, might exert over her. Women were such strange untamed creatures: the primeval cave-man stood a far better chance with them than the most polished gentleman.

Fanshawe cursed and swore under his breath--he swore to himself that Notara should remain in France amidst the wolves, and if the guillotine was to be his lot, he, Fanshawe, would not grieve. But Aline must be got away…at all risks…at all costs….

After half an hour of this fight with all the demons of jealousy and wounded vanity, he finally gave in to them. By the light of the moon he tore a page out of his pocket-book; on this he scribbled rapidly, in French, with a hand that trembled visibly:

I am close by you Aline; for days I have planned how to be of service to you. I am writing this by the light of the moon. To-morrow, at dawn, you will receive this message of love and hope. Do you remember this afternoon, when that ferocious brute raised his hand against François, there were four vagrant musicians there; I was one of them. Ragged and unkempt, I was even then watching over you and planning how to serve you. Now my plans have matured. One hour after sunset I will be waiting for you at the postern gate beside the old stables. Trust yourself to me, and I will not only see you safely out of the country, but I swear to you by our love, which dwells in my heart more strongly than ever, that your father and François will join us in Switzerland within the week. You and I will make straight for Chambéry where Monseigneur Barco, Bishop of Savoy, will unite us in marriage. In the name of our love, Aline, I entreat you to trust me. Deadly danger threatens you and yours if you do not.

He signed this with the pet name which Aline herself had bestowed on him when first he made love to her: "Martin Pêchur." He then folded the paper carefully and thrust it into the pocket of his ragged breeches. Then he waited, pacing up and down outside the cottage until a bank of clouds which had gathered over in the west obscured the face of the moon. He reckoned that he had just a little over an hour in which to accomplish his errand and to be back here before the end of his watch, when one of the others would come to relieve him.

There was, of course, the possible danger of one of them--the chief perhaps--calling to him while he was not there to respond. But that risk he had made up his mind to run. After all, he was not a schoolboy fearing punishment for playing truant. Anyway, he did take the risk, and when presently the bank of clouds veiled the light of the moon, he stole noiselessly away.

The village was no more than a ten minutes' walk, if he stepped out. The bank of clouds had gathered volume, and the night now was very dark. But Fanshawe knew his way well. With luck he would find the man he wanted.

As soon as he reached the village he made his way to the cabaret; the outer door was wide open, and he was able to peep in. Despite the lateness of the hour the place was still crowded. The events of the day had been so numerous and so exciting that they had not yet been discussed in all their bearings. The women had gone back to their homes, but the men stood or sat around the big barrels that did duty for tables, talking volubly and drinking the thin local wine. As usual there were the beggars, two or three cripples, one with one leg, the other with one eye, the third with an empty sleeve, going the round of the customers to pick up either a sou or a drink.

Paul Notara was not there, but the man from Paris was very much to the fore, sitting on a bench at the further end of the room, with half a dozen privileged companions with whom he was talking eagerly.

Fanshawe, looking as grimy and unkempt as any of the beggars, leaned against the framework of the doorway for a moment of two surveying the scene. One or two of the customers looked up at him, but recognizing in the slouching, bedraggled figure one of the itinerant musicians of this afternoon, paid no further heed to him. One kindly person offered him a drink which he refused. A few moments later a wretched, maimed creature, who had collected a few sous and been given a mug of wine, hobbled out of the cabaret. Fanshawe followed him, at some distance, until the cripple reached the top of the village, well away from likely spies. Then Fanshawe accosted him.

"Hey, mon ami."

The beggar halted, turned, and vaguely perceiving the approaching figure through the gloom, muttered at once his habitual, entirely mechanical: "Alms, kind friend. Alms for a poor cripple, who…"

"Alms and more will you get from me, my friend," Fanshawe said to him in a whisper: "if you will do what I ask."

"There's nothing I can do…how can I earn?…I can only beg, I am maimed…helpless…."

"You can go up to the château for me…."

"It is far…and the hour late….They'll all be abed there…"

"Tomorrow morning…in the early hours…you will find Mademoiselle Aline…."

"Yes, sometimes she gives me alms, if Pierre or Yvonne…"

"You need not ask for alms. You will tell Pierre or Yvonne that you have brought a message for Mademoiselle Aline, which will mean life or death to her and her father and brother…."

"A message?"

"A letter which you will give her."

"And what'll I get if I do?"

"One piece of gold to-night, and another when you bring me back the answer."

"Give me the letter," the cripple said eagerly. "Gold!…I have not seen a piece of gold since…"

Fanshawe took a coin out of his pocket, also the letter.

"As soon as you have given this to Mademoiselle Aline you will come here--to this spot--and sit on that corner stone, begging as you always do until I come."

"Yes, yes. I'll do it," the cripple assented and put out his maimed hand for the gold. "It is a terrible risk…for there are spies…everywhere…but gold!…Name of a name…Gold!"

Fanshawe gave him the letter and the money. They had spoken in whispers, and the night enclosed them as in a dark shroud. The cripple, he knew, was wont to spend nights under the stars, under shelter of a hedge or a haystack, or if the weather was unkind, then inside some derelict barn or cow-byre. Even now as soon as he had hidden the coin and paper somewhere inside his rags he hobbled away, leaning on his crutch. Fanshawe soon lost sight of him: the darkness seemed to close in around him like a mantle. A few drops of rain fell, and a moaning, sighing wind came from over the mountain tops. The young man shivered under his scanty rags: but neither doubt nor remorse assailed him: "For Aline's sake," he repeated under his breath once or twice. "Once she has pledged herself to me, I shall know how to guard her against the wiles of that brute Notara."

It never entered Fanshawe's head that he was behaving like a traitor and a fool His jealousy had blinded him. Notara in his eyes had become a rival--a dangerous rival--with a strange, compelling power to wrest Aline's affections and force her to his will, then how could it be treacherous or wrong to guard her against such a destiny?

Never once did the young man look back upon the scene of his crime. Had he done so he would even through the gloom have perceived a crouching figure slowly lifting itself to its knees, then to its feet and with stealthy steps follow in the wake of the cripple. There was neither struggle nor noise--hardly a smothered cry from the cripple when he felt himself seized from behind, held tightly with one arm round his thin shoulders, while a quick and sure hand sought and found the paper beneath his rags.

The whole incident had lasted less than two minutes. After that, silence and darkness held sway once more: only the patter of the rain on the withered leaves of the planes broke the stillness of the night. The cripple had started to whimper; under his rags found the gold coin which still lay snugly there. He gave a sigh of regret for the second coin which would not be his on the morrow, but after all, the night had not been unprofitable and it was a long tramp up to the château. With a final shrug of satisfaction he made his way towards a thatched barn where he with a boon companion were wont to find shelter on a wet night.

Lord Fanshawe in the meanwhile made his way back quickly to the derelict cottage. Considerably less than an hour had gone by since he left his post of duty. Everything appeared unchanged, and yet… the young man was conscious of a feeling of aversion or of awe, which? when first through the gloom he spied the square block inside whose tumble-down walls sat the friends--the chief--whom he had betrayed. Not a sound came from within. Fanshawe found his way to a broken tree-stump just outside the cottage door. Here he sat down and waited.

Part VII

In the village cabaret the flickering tallow candles were burning low. Some of the men had already paid for their drinks and gone, others stood about preparatory to going. In the further corner of the room the black-coated man from Paris was still talking earnestly to André the smith, and to a few of his chosen friends. All the beggars and hangers-on had long since departed.

It was just at the moment when the man from Paris finally made up his mind to say good night and to retire to the miserable little room which the innkeeper's wife had got ready for him upstairs, that a hunched-up figure of a man appeared in the doorway. He stood under the lintel for a moment or two casting anxious eyes around.

"Who are you? And what do you want?" Jacques the innkeeper asked him roughly. "There's nothing more to be got here to-day."

Then looking more closely at the man he added:

"Have I seen your ugly face before?…"

The man did not answer, nor did he go away, and when Jacques tried to push him off the doorstep he stood as firm as a rock.

The man from Paris hearing the slight scuffle looked round. "What's all this?" he asked.

The man thrust out his long arm: in his clenched fist he held what looked like a very dirty scrap of paper. "For you," he said laconically.

After a second's hesitation the man from Paris came across the room and took the paper from him. The others watched him while he unfolded it, then drawing as near as he could to one of the guttering candles he read what was written from his pocket, handed them to Jacques and said:

"Give these to the man, also a drink of wine and a crust."

Jacques took the coins, poured out the wine, picked up a crust from the table where the provisions were kept and then went to seek the ragged messenger, whom he thought to find on the other side of the door. But the man had vanished.

Then it was that Jacques suddenly recollected where he had seen the man before.

"Why, if it wasn't that old musician of this afternoon…" he said.

"Musician of this afternoon?" the man from Paris exclaimed. In the letter which the beggar had handed to him there occurred the words: "Do you remember this afternoon…there were four vagrant musicians there. I was one of them."

"After him one of you," he cried. "Name of a dog, Jacques, you should not have let the man go."

The night by now had waxed very dark, rain was falling: one or two of the men went out and tried to peer through the gloom, to listen to any footfall dying away in the distance.

But nothing could be seen or heard of the ragged fiddler who had brought the mysterious letter. Crestfallen they came back to the cabaret parlour. The man from Paris appeared terribly upset.

"Close the door, Jacques," he said impatiently, "and listen all of you."

Jacques closed the outer door; he and the other men gathered round the man from Paris who looked even more solemn and commanding than was his wont.

"Matters here in Drumetaz," he began gravely, "have suddenly assumed national importance, and it is my duty to warn you that great events will occur within the next twenty-four hours. Listen to this letter."

He unfolded the letter which the mysterious musician had brought him and read it through carefully and aloud to the men. They listened in silence.

When he had finished one of them asked: "What does it mean?"

"It means," the man from Paris replied, "that we are on the track of that gang of English spies who your government have tried to run to earth for over two years. They are some of the most dangerous enemies of France, for they make it their business to assist traitors in escaping from justice. It also means that that d'Ercourt brood is up to the neck in treachery and in league with the English spies, for this letter is addressed by one of those devils to the girl Aline."

A murmur of horror went round the room. The poor ignorant caitiffs did indeed believe every word the man from Paris said to them. The latter continued to talk at great length, telling them of all the misdeeds perpetrated by that abominable Englishman who was a very devil incarnate; for his capture, dead or alive, the revolutionary Government was prepared to give his entire weight in gold. The murmur that went round the room was no longer one of horror.

"What are we to do to get him?" they asked eagerly.

"Two things you can do," the man from Paris replied. "Firstly you can arrest the whole of the d'Ercourt crowd, and that immediately before your intentions are bruited about in the village. This letter is sufficient witness to their treachery: doth it not prove that they are in league with the enemies of France?"

They nodded their heads sagely:

"Aye, aye, they are traitors all of them," they murmured to one another.

"And so is Paul Notara a traitor, in my opinion," André the cripple put in spitefully. He had never liked Notara and was jealous of his superior influence over the village folk. What a chance to put such a rival out of the way.

"I promise you," the man from Paris rejoined, "that Notara will also be dealt with according to his deserts. But we can always get hold of him; the English devils only trouble about aristos, it seems. For the moment we must concentrate on the d'Ercourt crowd. And it is up to you, patriots all, to watch over them and see that they do not escape the just punishment which awaits them in Paris."

"Tell us what to do and we'll do it," they said with one accord, through André the cripple who had become their spokesman.

"You will proceed to the château and effect the arrest of the ci-devant d'Ercourt, his son and daughter. All night through you will guard them on sight, but you will not answer any questions they may put to you, nor enter into any explanations. At daybreak you will bring them hither. I, in the meanwhile, will requisition from the local farmers a couple of covered carts in which you will convey the prisoners to Thiers. I, of course, have my own coach. In Thiers the representatives of the government will deal with the ci-devant as they think best."

"But what of the English devils?" they asked. "There's the reward… ."

"Which I make no doubt you will secure by capturing the noted Scarlet Pimpernel--"

"But how?"

"There's the writer of this letter. He will have received no reply, but even so he is certain to hang about the purlieus of the château and try and communicate with the d'Ercourt woman. He won't know that she will be on her way to Thiers by then. Anyway, two of you just remain on the watch round about the walls of the château. Any suspicious person you see loitering about there, you will arrest and bring hither to await my return. Is that clear?"

They swore that it was, and nodded their heads eagerly: they were all thinking of the reward.

"Straight to the château, then," the man from Paris said in conclusion, "and make sure of your birds. But remember to guard every possible ingress and egress, every possible way of escape. Before the sun is high in the heavens we'll have three traitors on the way which leads to the guillotine. As for the others…we shall see."

They obeyed in silence and one by one filed out of the cabaret. The man from Paris nodded quietly to himself, and gave a sigh of satisfaction. He was pleased with his day's work. Few patriots had ever fomented so much trouble in so short a time.

An hour later the arrest was effected in the château de Montbrison. The Comte d'Ercourt, his son and daughter, roused from their first sleep, accepted their fate with that stoicism and dignity which did so much to awaken sympathy for their caste in foreign countries. Even François showed neither the rage nor the contempt which he felt. After the first question or two had been met by studied silence on the part of this impoverished gendarmerie, he and M. le Comte did not condescend to utter another word. The terrible events of the afternoon had already proved how useless any attempt at resistance would be. It could only have ended once again in a disastrous loss of dignity.

The men who had come on this preposterous errand were men who in the past had worked for wages in or about the château. Most if not all of them had received many a kindness at the hands of Madame la Comtesse and Mademoiselle Aline. But all that was now forgotten. In these days of excitement and recriminations there was no time for gratitude, no time to glance back into the past.

Aided by Pierre and Yvonne, M. le Comte and his family were soon dressed. Yvonne had had the charity or merely the good sense to brew some hot coffee. She and Pierre stood by, silent and inscrutable, while their employers whom they had served all these years were subject to the indignity of a constant watch by the men all through the night. The hours went by leaden-footed. M. le Comte was the only one who from time to time snatched a few moments' sleep. Aline's glance travelled over the familiar objects, and in that glance there dwelt the pathos of an everlasting farewell.

Part VIII

Down in the derelict cottage there was in truth nothing in the manner of any of his friends or of the chief to rouse in Fanshawe the fear that his escapade had been discovered. When his two hours' watch were at an end, and he was relieved by my lord Hastings he went back into the cottage, and although both Blakeney and the others seemed somewhat curt and silent, Fanshawe was too deeply preoccupied with his own affairs to pay more than passing heed to this.

"Seek shelter where you can," Sir Percy now commanded to his followers. "We have been too long in this cottage to risk spending another night in it. Disperse for the night and we'll met to-morrow as arranged soon after daybreak. Good night all, think of nothing for the moment. The four people whom we have taken under our wing will be safely in Switzerland or Belgium within the next forty-eight hours, to this I pledge you all my word, and as you know with your help we have never failed yet."

And so, despite the rain, despite their scanty clothing, these six English gentlemen wandered out into the night to seek what shelter they could under hedges or protecting barns. Fanshawe, silent and sullen, went out with the rest. This was not the first time that he, like the others, had wandered out like any vagrant to seek shelter for the night, but on this occasion, with rebellion in his heart and treachery already accomplished, he hated all these discomforts which his own adherence to the League had imposed upon him. He nodded a curt good night to the others and, like them, was soon lost in the gloom.

But the next morning early he was at the cross-roads where he had arranged to meet the cripple. As soon as the grey light of an autumn morning had picked out the tips of feathery pine-trees on the mountain-side he spied the hunched-up figure hobbling toward him through the mist. Eagerly, he stepped along. The cripple had a scrap of paper in his hand, Fanshawe almost tore it out of his grasp.

It was a mere scrap and contained only half a dozen words: "I will do as you wish," but to the young man it meant the realization of all the dreams which had haunted him through the past sleepless night. Aline would come away with him. She would meet him at the postern gate to-night. Aline, lovely Aline loved him, or she could not so readily have agreed to his wish. Never for a moment did remorse touch him. What plans the chief had made he did not know, but let the intrepid Scarlet Pimpernel and the others look to themselves, and to the three men--unworthy all of them--whom they had elected to protect. And if he, Fanshawe, had by his action thwarted those plans, let their failure lie at the door of him who had conceived them.

As for Notara, Fanshawe no longer feared him. Aline, once his, would no longer think of that loutish schoolmaster, even if in far-off England they met once more through the agency of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Aye! let the others play their own game. What cared he, Fanshawe, since he had got Aline.

The cripple stood by, waiting patiently until the young man finally gave him the promised coin. Then the two men--the young and the old, the crippled beggar and the wealthy lord--each went their way and disappeared out of one another's sight in the autumn mist.

It was about the same time that the unfortunate d'Ercourts were marched down to the castle gates where two covered carts already awaited them. M. le Comte and Aline were ordered to mount into one of the carts, and François d'Ercourt in the other. Three men of the Gendarmerie Nationale took their seats in each of the carts.

The morning was raw and cold. Aline sat under the hood looking for the last time on the land where her whole life had been spent. The château perched on a hillock, surrounded by its age-old trees, by its avenues and its park, already to her eyes appeared remote, unreal, as it slowly faded away in the hazy distance.

Nothing was known in the village of what had happened in the château. The secret of the arrest and of the mysterious letter had been well-kept. Paul Notara, whose house lay some little way away from the main block of cottages, had heard nothing. A few labourers--men and women--out in the fields did perceive the two covered carts winding their way slowly along the road. But there did not seem anything very exciting in that, and after a cursory glance in that direction they bent once more to their work, whilst the farmers from whom the carts had been requisitioned had been told to ask no questions and to hold their tongues: and in those days, silence was more golden than it had ever been before.

The halt at the cabaret was short. The coach in which the government agent had arrived from Paris was ready and waiting when the carts drew up at the door. A brief colloquy between the self-constituted captain of the gendarmerie and the agent, and then the latter gave the order to start. M. le Comte and François had made an attempt to ask a few leading questions: they had, they declared, the right to know by what right and what authority their persons had been seized.

"By mine as representing the people of France and their chosen government," the man from Paris had replied curtly.

To no further questions would he give an answer and here again M. le Comte and even François quickly realized their own helplessness and the loss of dignity which argument or resistance would carry in their wake. What was happening to them had happened to many of their friends and kindred, had happened even to their King, their Queen, the royal family of Bourbons, who to them were beings second only to their God. Then why not to themselves? Had it not been for Aline, their resignation would have been even more stoical.

It was close on ten o'clock when the cortège, now reinforced by the coach from Paris, set out on the main Thiers Road. Aline sat close to her father, and he had his arm round her shoulders. Of the three men who were with them in the cart, one was driving the two starved-looking nags, the other two sat in the bottom of the cart, hugging their bayonets, the use of which they did not quite understand. The coach, in which the man from Paris sat by himself, led the way, the two wagons followed in its wake close by.

About half-way between Drumetaz and Thiers and some three leagues from the latter town, there stands a house which had once been the property of a certain Marius Holmes, a rich citizen of Thiers, one of the early victims of the Revolution. The house which had been appropriated by the State stood forlorn and derelict: nominally it had been sold to a servant of the former owners, who eked out a miserable existence in the lonely house by selling an occasional glass of sour wine to the passers-by or giving a handful of mouldy corn to their nags. It was a usual halting-place for travellers, between Roanne and Thiers.

Soon after midday that house came in sight. The man from Paris put his head out of the window, and called to his coachman:

"We will not halt, Pierre: I want to make Courpière, where we can dine."

Pierre whipped up his horses, and the small cortège continued to rattle at full speed along the road when suddenly Pierre spied in the near distance a group of men advancing towards him. There were some half-dozen of them, and they held the whole width of the road. They were dressed in military uniform, with feathers in their hats: this much did Pierre see in the distance. As they came nearer he saw that they wore tricolour sashes round their waist, and cockades in their hats, also that they carried swords, and that the buttons on their uniforms were beautifully polished and shone like gold.

When they were within fifty paces of Pierre's horses, one who appeared to be their captain put up his hand and cried in a loud voice:

"Halte! Au nom de la République, une et indivisible!"

That, of course, was a command which could not be disobeyed. Pierre pulled up his horses. The drivers of the covered carts did likewise.

The man from Paris put his head out of the window once more:

"What is it? he asked, ready to pulverize with his wrath whoever interfered with his progress. But he recognized the uniform of the Garde Nationale, and his tone was quite conciliatory as he reiterated:

"What is it, Citizen Soldier? My name is Rollon. I am on a mission here for the government. I have my papers to show--"

The captain of the Garde Nationale had ordered his men to halt. He himself came up to the coach and respectfully saluted the agent of the government.

"Not necessary, Citizen," he said. "My orders are to look out for you, and to see to your safety if necessary."

"I thank you, Citizen Soldiers. Then may we proceed? Everything is in order. We have not been molested."

"And you have your prisoners safely under surveillance, Citizen Rollon. Your pardon if I seem interfering. But my orders--"

"Do not apologize, I pray you, Citizen. We are all of us soldiers these days, and know the value of orders. My prisoners are safe, I think you, and under guard--"

The captain took a rolled parchment from inside his tunic and appeared to study its contents for a minute or two:

"I have orders," he said, referring to the scroll, from which dangled a heavy seal, "to inquire if you have effected the arrest of one Paul Notara, at one time schoolmaster in the village of Drumetaz, now suspected of treasonable traffic with the enemies of the people."

"Paul Notara?" the man from Paris ejaculated, "but he--"

"He is one of the blackest traitors known to the agents of the government," the captain of the Garde Nationale rejoined coolly. "My orders are that you, Citizen Rollon, will be escorting him from his native village to Thiers, where you will hand him over to the proper authority."

"He is known to have many sympathizers in the neighbourhood, who might mediate a coup in his favour. That is why I and my men have been ordered out to meet you and watch over your safety."

"I thank you, Citizen Captain," the man from Paris said, slightly upset by this contretemps, "but Notara has not been arrested--"

"Not been arrested?" the other ejaculated with a frown. "Then whom have you got here under escort, Citizen Rollon?" he asked in a loud, distinctly authoritative tone, and drew up his tall figure to look down disapprovingly on the agent from Paris.

"A ci-devant d'Ercourt with his son and daughter," replied the latter in a very much subdued voice---"traitors and aristos. We have proof--"

"That is all very well," the captain of the guard broke in impatiently. "But it is Notara whom you have been ordered to arrest."

"I had no such orders--"

"You will find it difficult to substantiate this statement, Citizen Rollon," the soldier remarked dryly. "You know what they are up in Paris. They send out an order--if it is not executed, there is trouble for someone, and--"

And he made a significant gesture with his hand across his neck. The man from Paris felt a cold shiver running down his spine.

"If we could get fresh horses," he said, "some of the men, or you yourself, Citizen Captain, could go back to Drumetaz. Paul Notara is easily found--"

"Not he. He will have slipped through your fingers by now--"

"Wouldn't you, Citizen Captain--?"

"What? Go after him? Those are not my orders. And I don't know the fellow. I might arrest the wrong man."

"If only we could get fresh horses--" the man from Paris reiterated anxiously. "It is only a matter of three leagues--"

"Is that all?" the captain of the guard remarked. "I don't know the country, but three leagues--why that is only a matter of two or three hours there and back. There are a couple of horses in the house yonder. We can requisition those." And he indicated the lonely house by the side of the road.

"I have half a dozen men here," the man from Paris explained eagerly, "whom I enrolled into our new Gendarmerie Nationale. With fresh horses--as you say we can requisition them--they can be here with Paul Notara in less than three hours, allowing for every contingency."

"Well," the soldier rejoined, "in my opinion you will do wisely to send some men along. I can lend you two of my own, and in the meanwhile if you will honour me, Citizen Rollon, by drinking a glass of our wine with me in yonder house, you will not perhaps find time hang too heavily on your hands. Your volunteers can join up with my men over a few litres of that same sour wine. As for your prisoners," he concluded with a pleasant laugh, "methinks we are in sufficient numbers to see that they do not escape."

The agent form Paris felt very much relieved in his mind. There had been a moment during his conversation with the captain of the guard when he feared that there might be trouble for him over this Notara affair. Not that he had been guilty of negligence. He had not received any orders, and though he intended to keep an eye on Paul Notara, he did not think that the time was yet ripe for his arrest, but apparently the authorities in Paris thought otherwise.

It was finally decided that three of the men from Drumetaz, accompanied by two soldiers of the Garde Nationale, should go back to the village in one of the covered carts, and bring back Paul Notara with them. The horses were duly requisitioned from the caretaker of the Holmes' house, no questions being asked as to where these horses came from--stolen, no doubt--but anyway they were fresh and well-fed. The man from Paris gave all instructions to his volunteers. The prisoners were ordered to get out of the wagons: they were conveyed into the house: a room was found for them to sit in from which escape would be impossible, and finally the covered cart with its fresh pair of horses was sent merrily on its way.

Part IX

Paul Notara, the village schoolmaster, who had not age-old traditions of dignity and caste to keep up, put up a strenuous fight when in the afternoon of that same day three of his own friends, together with a couple of men wearing the uniform of the Garde Nationale, invaded his little home and demanded possession of his person. Two of the men from the village, who had tricolour badges on their arms, and carried bayonets which they did not know how to use, laid hands on him, and he knocked them down. He fought like a lion and like a lion was powerful, but in the end he was brought to the ground by the men in uniform: his arms were strapped together behind his back, and he was flung somewhat roughly into the bottom of a covered cart. His friends from the village had no feelings of tenderness for him just then. To keep him from kicking, which he persistently did, they put their feet on him, and as he was still showing fight one of the men in uniform gave him a crack on the head which eventually calmed him, and partly deprived him of consciousness.

It was half-past four in the afternoon when the driver of the cart finally pulled up outside the Holmes' house. Here he and the two other valiant gendarmes had made sure to find their comrades and also the black-coated man from Paris. But instead of these familiar faces, they saw before them the captain of the Garde Nationale who, taking no notice of them or of the prisoner, at once spoke some sort of gibberish to the two men in uniform who had jumped down lightly from the cart. Before they had time to recover from their surprise they were seized and pushed and dragged into the house. In the struggle they quite forgot to use their bayonets: they were bewildered, helpless, and as the interior of the house was very gloomy, they could not even see exactly what was happening, nor whither they were being led. But after a moment or so they were conscious that they were being unceremoniously dragged down some stairs, thrust into a room which smelt of wine and which was very nearly pitch dark. They were thrown rather violently forward and this caused them to stumble and fall on their knees. Whilst they struggled to their feet they heard the door slammed behind them, and a key turned in the lock: then loud and merry laughter, retreating footsteps and nothing more.

A wan, grey light was peeping in shyly through a grated window high up in the wall. Gradually the eyes of these valiant gendarmes because accustomed to the gloom. They saw that they were shut into what looked like a cellar, and that in a distant corner of the place there was a litter of straw. On this litter reclined their three comrades. They were fast asleep, and the sound of their stertorous breathing broke what otherwise would have been an unpleasant silence. The smell of sour wine was very insistent, and there were three empty mugs lying on the floor, all of which went to prove that these other three valiant gendarmes had been prisoners here for some time and had employed that time pleasantly for themselves. The three new-comers therefore felt it incumbent upon them to follow so good an example, and we may take it that in a very short while they, too, after copious libations of sour wine, had found a rest on the litter of straw, and mingled their melodious snores with those of their companions.

On the floor above, on the other hand, events and incidents were of an entirely different nature. Paul Notara, still rather dazed from the crack on the head which he had received, and the airless drive beneath the feet of the gendarmes, allowed himself to be dragged out of the cart quietly enough. He was then conveyed into a sparsely furnished room, where he was left to meditate in quietude on the strange events of which he had been the unwilling hero. In an adjoining room the two men who wore the uniform of the Garde Nationale, and who had helped to bring Notara hither were plying their captain with questions. They were speaking English: a strange enough proceeding on the part of men who wore the uniforms of the newly created French Republic.

"I suppose he put up a fight?" the captain was asking.

"Like the very devil," one of the men replied.

"We had to knock him down, before we got him," added the other.

"But what happened here?" they both asked, almost simultaneously.

"Everything that we foresaw," the chief replied gaily. "As soon as your wagon was out of earshot we seized hold of that villainous agent, and of the three valiant pseudo-gendarmes. These three we locked up in the cellar down below, where their three companions have just joined them as you know. The black-coated villain I've got locked up in an attic room upstairs. You should have seen him. I don't think I ever saw a more ridiculous, futile, and ponderous rage."

"But what about the owner of this tumble-down place?"

"A good sort," the chief replied: "but ground down by poverty. I couldn't make him see the humour of the situation, but he liked the colour of my money. Poor wretch, he would have sold his soul for less. Anyway, he has agreed to release all the prisoners early to-morrow morning. They might burst themselves with rage before then, but will not die of inanition."

"And what about the d'Ercourts?"

The chief was silent for a moment of two: his earnest, deep-set eyes reflected the sympathy which he felt for that sorely-stricken family.

"Poor people," he said, "I don't think they quite realize yet that they have found a haven at last. For three years and more they have lived on the brink of a volcano, not knowing what day, what hour, death would claim them. Aline, if you will believe me, had, I am sure, made up her mind to accept Notara's proposals, and to barter herself against safety for her brother and father. How short-lived her own and Notara's safety would have been she doesn't quite realize even now, and my impression is that in her heart she already regrets that that bargain did not come off."

"You think that she has fallen in love with Notara?"

"I am sure of it. You should have seen the anxiety with which she inquired after him. I tested her by hinting at the danger that threatened him, and she turned grey to the lips.

"What an idyll!"

"Do not laugh, Tony: Notara has much good in him, and he worships Aline d'Ercourt. Over in England he'll find some employment as a teacher. He will marry Aline in spite of her father's protests, and her brother's wrath, and they will be as happy as two children whom resentment and hatred have never touched. What think you, Ffoulkes, of the idyll?"

"That it shall have my blessing. I never trusted Fanshawe myself: and he would have made such a bad husband for poor Aline."

"By the way," Lord Tony put in, "what has become of Fanshawe?"

"He is at the moment, I imagine, looking forward to meeting Aline at the postern gate: I scribbled a few words which I gave to his crippled messenger to give to him, because I wanted him to be just where I could find him. There are two or three self-constituted gendarmes lying in wait for him--"

"Poor brute--but in that case--"

"Don't say poor brute," the chief put in quietly. "I am going straight back now to look after him. No harm shall come to him--I'll see to that."

"You are going back?" Ffoulkes ejaculated. "Percy, you don't mean that?"

"Why, of course I do. You don't think that I'm going to let that boy perish here in this foreign land, just because he suffered from a super-access of jealousy. Do you?"

Neither Lord Tony nor Sir Anthony Ffoulkes replied to that. They knew the indomitable Scarlet Pimpernel far too well to argue with him, where a question of mercy and self-sacrifice was on the tapis. Fanshawe had sinned and grievously sinned, and by his action had not only wellnigh ruined the plan which had for its object the safety of the d'Ercourt family, but he had also jeopardized the safety of his chief, and of his friends. Had he been seen by one of the government spies giving the letter and the money to the cripple on the previous night, the very lives of his chief and his friends would have been in jeopardy, and at best all would have been up with the plan for the safety of the d'Ercourts and of Notara. Fortunately Blakeney had kept an eye on him and followed him as far as the cabaret first, and then to the crossroads.

"The great difficulty--the only real difficulty in fact," Blakeney went on, explaining to his friends, "was getting the d'Ercourts first, and then Notara away from their own village, where eyes made keen by hatred and cupidity were intent upon their every movement. The only way to accomplish this was to make those village idiots and that blatant government agent bring them along here themselves. Now that we have them well away from Drumetaz we can convey them easily enough to the Swiss frontier, by way of Grenoble. All you have to do now is to march as far as Courpière. You know the farmhouse where we spent a couple of days last week?"

"Yes."

"The man is keeping eight or ten horses in readiness there for you: also a few more of these uniforms. I will explain to our friends, and also to Mlle Aline, that they will have to don the uniforms. Ffoulkes will act as your captain, and I will in any event be with you before noon to-morrow with young Fanshawe. I have got the passports and necessary papers from our usual source, but I don't think we shall require them, for we'll make such a fine cavalcade and carry ourselves so boldly that no one will dare interfere with a platoon of the Garde Nationale out on the road, in the execution of duty. It won't be the first time," he went on with his infections laugh, "that we have carried such a situation off successfully, and I'll warrant ye that we are over the Swiss frontier within forty-eight hours."

"And now," he concluded, "I'll have a little talk with our friend Notara. In half an hour I'll have him as gentle as a lamb. When he knows that Aline is of the party--well! I put it to you all--how would you take the situation?"

And it did not take Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., more than half an hour to make the unfortunate schoolmaster understand what a blessing from Heaven had descended upon him. The prospect of journeying to Switzerland and thence through Belgium to distant England, all in the company of Aline d'Ercourt, was one which appeared to him like a journey through Elysian fields. Nor, it must be admitted, was Aline averse to the prospect either. Ugly, embittered as was Paul Notara, there was something about him, his constant love, his gentleness allied to his just resentment which had aroused her pity already, and in the heart of a woman of Aline's temperament there is but a short step from pity to love.

M. le Comte d'Ercourt took all the bewildering events of his rescue and proposed journey to England with the same stoic calm with which he had accepted his journey to a likely death. As to Notara, he was still of very little account in his sight, so he gave the ex-schoolmaster but few of his thoughts. But his gratitude to his rescuers was real, dignified, and without bounds.

"The English," he said, "are the traditional enemies of my country: but you, milor, have shown me to-day the most perfect type of a gentleman and a sportsman it has ever been my good fortune to meet. I thank you for the lesson as much as for what you have done for me and mine."

After which the little party was ready to make a start for Courpière: the prisoners entered one of the covered wagons: Notara took the reins, and the six English gentlemen in the uniform of the Garde Nationale marched alongside, as their escort.

Aline was the last to step into the cart. Just before she did so, and when her father, her brother and Paul Notara were already installed, she turned with a whole-hearted impulse to the man to whom she owed so much.

"Milor," she said sweetly in the little bit of broken English which she knew, "will you let me--?"

"I will let you do nothing," Sir Percy broke in gaily, "but give me a kiss."

She flew into his arms and kissed him on both cheeks.

"Be kind to my friend Paul," he whispered in her ear.

"Oh--but milor--" she retorted, while a deep blush spread over her cheeks.

She sprang lightly up into the cart, and her eyes remained fixed on his tall, elegant figure as it gradually receded from her sight. She thought he would be coming, too. When she realized that he was remaining behind she called impulsively to Lord Tony who was marching close beside the cart.

"Let us go back! Oh, Holy Virgin! We must not leave him here. Milor, milor! how could you leave your friend--? I'll not go--Holy Virgin, protect him--"

She would have jumped out of the cart, only that her father held her back.

"God will protect him, Aline," he said. "It is not for us to question the actions of such a fine and gallant gentleman."

"He would not listen to you, if you did, sir," Lord Tony said with a laugh.

"But when will we see him again?" Aline cried.

"Did you not hear him say that he will join us at Courpière to-morrow--?"

"But how do you know that he will be able to come? How do you know--?"

"Because he said so," Lord Tony replied simply. "The Scarlet Pimpernel never fails in what he has set himself to do."

Nor did he in the matter of Lord Fanshawe, who that same evening lurked around the purlieu of the château de Montbrison, forgetful of his friends, of his chief and of the oath which bound him to the fortunes. The watchful eyes of two members of the Garde Nationale were upon him--and so were those of the chief whom he had betrayed.

But that is another story.

THE END

This file was created with BookDesigner program bookdesigner@the-ebook.org 12/18/2007

LRS to LRF parser v.0.9; Mikhail Sharonov, 2006; msh-tools.com/ebook/