She looked round her quite aimlessly now: she was horribly puzzled, and
a nameless dread, before all this strange, unaccountable mystery, had
begun to seize upon her. She felt cold and uncomfortable suddenly in
this severe and dark room. There were no pictures on the wall, save the
fine Boucher portrait, only a couple of maps, both of parts of France,
one of the North coast and the other of the environs of Paris. What did
Sir Percy want with those, she wondered.

Her head began to ache, she turned away from this strange Blue Beard's
chamber, which she had entered, and which she did not understand. She
did not wish Frank to find her here, and with a fast look round, she
once more turned to the door. As she did so, her foot knocked against a
small object, which had apparently been lying close to the desk, on the
carpet, and which now went rolling, right across the room.

She stooped to pick it up. It was a solid gold ring, with a flat shield,
on which was engraved a small device.

Marguerite turned it over in her fingers, and then studied the engraving
on the shield. It represented a small star-shaped flower, of a shape she
had seen so distinctly twice before: once at the opera, and once at Lord
Grenville's ball.

CHAPTER XIX THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL

At what particular moment the strange doubt first crept into
Marguerite's mind, she could not herself have said. With the ring
tightly clutched in her hand, she had run out of the room, down the
stairs, and out into the garden, where, in complete seclusion, alone
with the flowers, and the river and the birds, she could look again at
the ring, and study that device more closely.

Stupidly, senselessly, now, sitting beneath the shade of an overhanging
sycamore, she was looking at the plain gold shield, with the star-shaped
little flower engraved upon it.

Bah! It was ridiculous! she was dreaming! her nerves were overwrought,
and she saw signs and mysteries in the most trivial coincidences. Had
not everybody about town recently made a point of affecting the device
of that mysterious and heroic Scarlet Pimpernel?

Did she herself wear it embroidered on her gowns? set in gems and enamel
in her hair? What was there strange in the fact that Sir Percy should
have chosen to use the device as a seal-ring? He might easily have
done that . . . yes . . . quite easily . . . and . . . besides . . . what
connection could there be between her exquisite dandy of a husband,
wit