m
France to England and from England to France without asking the
leave of the authorities. I think it can be managed, mademoiselle,
especially, as you say, you can afford to pay, for if one won't take
you, another will. Trade is so bad that there are scores of men
would start in their fishing-boats for a voyage across the Channel
in the hope of getting food for their wives and families."

"I was sure it was so, Marthe, but it was so difficult to set about
it. Everyone is afraid of spies, and it needs some one to warrant
that we are not trying to draw them into a snare, before anyone
will listen. If your husband will but take the matter up, I have
no doubt it can be managed."

"Set your mind at ease; the thing is as good as done. I tell you
there are scores of men ready to undertake the job when they know
it is a straightforward one."

"That is good news indeed, Jeanne," Harry said, when the girl
told him of the conversation. "That does seem a way out of our
difficulties. I felt sure you would be able to manage it, sooner
or later, among the poor people you have been so good to. Hurry it
on as much as you can, Jeanne. I feel that our position is getting
more and more dangerous. I am afraid I do not play my part sufficiently
well. I am not forward enough in their violent councils. I cannot
bring myself to vote for proposals for massacre when there is any
division among them. I fear that some have suspicions. I have been
asked questions lately as to why I am staying here, and why I have
come. I have been thinking for the last few days whether it would
not be better for us to make our way down to the mouth of the river
and try and bribe some fishermen in the villages there who would
not have that feeling against me that the men here have, to take
us to sea, or if that could not be managed, to get on board some
little fishing-boat at night and sail off by ourselves in the hopes
of being picked up by an English cruiser."

Harry indeed had for some days been feeling that danger was
thickening round him. He had noticed angry glances cast at him by
the more violent of the committee, and had caught sentences expressing
doubt whether he had really been Robespierre's secretary. That
evening as he came out from the meeting he heard one man say to
another:

"I tell you he may have stolen it, and perhaps killed the citizen
who bore it. I believe he is a cursed aristocrat. I tell you I shall
watch him. He has got some women