nsult her
brother had suffered at the Marquis' hands, happened to hear--amongst
her own coterie--that the St. Cyrs were in treasonable correspondence
with Austria, hoping to obtain the Emperor's support to quell the
growing revolution in their own country.

In those days one denunciation was sufficient: Marguerite's few
thoughtless words anent the Marquis de St. Cyr bore fruit within
twenty-four hours. He was arrested. His papers were searched: letters
from the Austrian Emperor, promising to send troops against the Paris
populace, were found in his desk. He was arraigned for treason against
the nation, and sent to the guillotine, whilst his family, his wife and
his sons, shared in this awful fate.

Marguerite, horrified at the terrible consequences of her own
thoughtlessness, was powerless to save the Marquis: his own coterie, the
leaders of the revolutionary movement, all proclaimed her as a heroine:
and when she married Sir Percy Blakeney, she did not perhaps altogether
realise how severely he would look upon the sin, which she had so
inadvertently committed, and which still lay heavily upon her soul. She
made full confession of it to her husband, trusting his blind love for
her, her boundless power over him, to soon make him forget what might
have sounded unpleasant to an English ear.

Certainly at the moment he seemed to take it very quietly; hardly, in
fact, did he appear to understand the meaning of all she said; but what
was more certain still, was that never after that could she detect the
slightest sign of that love, which she once believed had been wholly
hers. Now they had drifted quite apart, and Sir Percy seemed to have
laid aside his love for her, as he would an ill-fitting glove. She tried
to rouse him by sharpening her ready wit against his dull intellect;
endeavouring to excite his jealousy, if she could not rouse his love;
tried to goad him to self-assertion, but all in vain. He remained the
same, always passive, drawling, sleepy, always courteous, invariably a
gentleman: she had all that the world and a wealthy husband can give to
a pretty woman, yet on this beautiful summer's evening, with the white
sails of the DAY DREAM finally hidden by the evening shadows, she felt
more lonely than that poor tramp who plodded his way wearily along the
rugged cliffs.

With another heavy sigh, Marguerite Blakeney turned her back upon the
sea and cliffs, and walked slowly back towards "The Fisherman's Rest."
As