nwittingly--an awful and terrible thing--the very worst crime, in
her eyes, that woman ever committed--she saw it in all its horror. Her
very blindness in not having guessed her husband's secret seemed now
to her another deadly sin. She ought to have known! she ought to have
known!

How could she imagine that a man who could love with so much intensity
as Percy Blakeney had loved her from the first--how could such a man
be the brainless idiot he chose to appear? She, at least, ought to have
known that he was wearing a mask, and having found that out, she should
have torn it from his face, whenever they were alone together.

Her love for him had been paltry and weak, easily crushed by her own
pride; and she, too, had worn a mask in assuming a contempt for him,
whilst, as a matter of fact, she completely misunderstood him.

But there was no time now to go over the past. By her own blindness she
had sinned; now she must repay, not by empty remorse, but by prompt and
useful action.

Percy had started for Calais, utterly unconscious of the fact that
his most relentless enemy was on his heels. He had set sail early that
morning from London Bridge. Provided he had a favourable wind, he would
no doubt be in France within twenty-four hours; no doubt he had reckoned
on the wind and chosen this route.

Chauvelin, on the other hand, would post to Dover, charter a vessel
there, and undoubtedly reach Calais much about the same time. Once in
Calais, Percy would meet all those who were eagerly waiting for the
noble and brave Scarlet Pimpernel, who had come to rescue them from
horrible and unmerited death. With Chauvelin's eyes now fixed upon his
every movement, Percy would thus not only be endangering his own life,
but that of Suzanne's father, the old Comte de Tournay, and of those
other fugitives who were waiting for him and trusting in him. There was
also Armand, who had gone to meet de Tournay, secure in the knowledge
that the Scarlet Pimpernel was watching over his safety.

All these lives and that of her husband, lay in Marguerite's hands;
these she must save, if human pluck and ingenuity were equal to the
task.

Unfortunately, she could not do all this quite alone. Once in Calais she
would not know where to find her husband, whilst Chauvelin, in stealing
the papers at Dover, had obtained the whole itinerary. Above every
thing, she wished to warn Percy.

She knew enough about him by now to understand that he would never