ed save by the occasional glimmer from a lamp inside
a house.

But she did not heed any of these petty discomforts: "We may meet
Blakeney at the 'Chat Gris,'" Sir Andrew had said, when they landed, and
she was walking as if on a carpet of rose-leaves, for she was going to
meet him almost at once.

At last they reached their destination. Sir Andrew evidently knew the
road, for he had walked unerringly in the dark, and had not asked his
way from anyone. It was too dark then for Marguerite to notice the
outside aspect of this house. The "Chat Gris," as Sir Andrew had called
it, was evidently a small wayside inn on the outskirts of Calais, and on
the way to Gris Nez. It lay some little distance from the coast, for the
sound of the sea seemed to come from afar.

Sir Andrew knocked at the door with the knob of his cane, and from
within Marguerite heard a sort of grunt and the muttering of a number of
oaths. Sir Andrew knocked again, this time more peremptorily: more
oaths were heard, and then shuffling steps seemed to draw near the door.
Presently this was thrown open, and Marguerite found herself on the
threshold of the most dilapidated, most squalid room she had ever seen
in all her life.

The paper, such as it was, was hanging from the walls in strips; there
did not seem to be a single piece of furniture in the room that could,
by the wildest stretch of imagination, be called "whole." Most of the
chairs had broken backs, others had no seats to them, one corner of the
table was propped up with a bundle of faggots, there where the fourth
leg had been broken.

In one corner of the room there was a huge hearth, over which hung a
stock-pot, with a not altogether unpalatable odour of hot soup emanating
therefrom. On one side of the room, high up in the wall, there was a
species of loft, before which hung a tattered blue-and-white checked
curtain. A rickety set of steps led up to this loft.

On the great bare walls, with their colourless paper, all stained
with varied filth, there were chalked up at intervals in great bold
characters, the words: "Liberte--Egalite--Fraternite."

The whole of this sordid abode was dimly lighted by an evil-smelling
oil-lamp, which hung from the rickety rafters of the ceiling. It all
looked so horribly squalid, so dirty and uninviting, that Marguerite
hardly dared to cross the threshold.

Sir Andrew, however, had stepped unhesitatingly forward.

"English travellers, citoyen!" he said boldl