e
thirty of them about--will seize St. Just, de Tournay, and their two
friends, and shoot them here--by my orders--before your eyes."

Marguerite had listened to her implacable enemy's speech with
ever-increasing terror. Numbed with physical pain, she yet had
sufficient mental vitality in her to realize the full horror of this
terrible "either--or" he was once more putting before her; "either--or"
ten thousand times more appalling and horrible, that the one he had
suggested to her that fatal night at the ball.

This time it meant that she should keep still, and allow the husband she
worshipped to walk unconsciously to his death, or that she should,
by trying to give him a word of warning, which perhaps might even be
unavailing, actually give the signal for her own brother's death, and
that of three other unsuspecting men.

She could not see Chauvelin, but she could almost feel those keen, pale
eyes of his fixed maliciously upon her helpless form, and his hurried,
whispered words reached her ear, as the death-knell of her last faint,
lingering hope.

"Nay, fair lady," he added urbanely, "you can have no interest in anyone
save in St. Just, and all you need do for his safety is to remain where
you are, and to keep silent. My men have strict orders to spare him in
every way. As for that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel, what is he to you?
Believe me, no warning from you could possibly save him. And now dear
lady, let me remove this unpleasant coercion, which has been placed
before your pretty mouth. You see I wish you to be perfectly free, in
the choice which you are about to make."

Her thoughts in a whirl, her temples aching, her nerves paralyzed,
her body numb with pain, Marguerite sat there, in the darkness which
surrounded her as with a pall. From where she sat she could not see the
sea, but she heard the incessant mournful murmur of the incoming tide,
which spoke of her dead hopes, her lost love, the husband she had with
her own hand betrayed, and sent to his death.

Chauvelin removed he handkerchief from her mouth. She certainly did not
scream: at that moment, she had no strength to do anything but barely to
hold herself upright, and to force herself to think.

Oh! think! think! think! of what she should do. The minutes flew on;
in this awful stillness she could not tell how fast or how slowly; she
heard nothing, she saw nothing: she did not feel the sweet-smelling
autumn air, scented with the briny odour of the