ill prove a gallant defender of
your fair person, I have no doubt. At dawn I will send an escort for
you; until then, I feel sure that you will find him devoted, though
perhaps a trifle slow."

Marguerite only had the strength to turn her head away. Her heart was
broken with cruel anguish. One awful thought had returned to her mind,
together with gathering consciousness: "What had become of Percy?--What
of Armand?"

She knew nothing of what had happened after she heard the cheerful song,
"God save the King," which she believed to be the signal of death.

"I, myself," concluded Chauvelin, "must now very reluctantly leave you.
AU REVOIR, fair lady. We meet, I hope, soon in London. Shall I see
you at the Prince of Wales' garden party?--No?--Ah, well, AU
REVOIR!--Remember me, I pray, to Sir Percy Blakeney."

And, with a last ironical smile and bow, he once more kissed her hand,
and disappeared down the footpath in the wake of the soldiers, and
followed by the imperturbable Desgas.

CHAPTER XXXI THE ESCAPE

Marguerite listened--half-dazed as she was--to the fast-retreating, firm
footsteps of the four men.

All nature was so still that she, lying with her ear close to the
ground, could distinctly trace the sound of their tread, as they
ultimately turned into the road, and presently the faint echo of the old
cart-wheels, the halting gait of the lean nag, told her that her enemy
was a quarter of a league away. How long she lay there she knew not. She
had lost count of time; dreamily she looked up at the moonlit sky, and
listened to the monotonous roll of the waves.

The invigorating scent of the sea was nectar to her wearied body, the
immensity of the lonely cliffs was silent and dreamlike. Her brain
only remained conscious of its ceaseless, its intolerable torture of
uncertainty.

She did not know!--

She did not know whether Percy was even now, at this moment, in the
hands of the soldiers of the Republic, enduring--as she had done
herself--the gibes and jeers of his malicious enemy. She did not know,
on the other hand, whether Armand's lifeless body did not lie there, in
the hut, whilst Percy had escaped, only to hear that his wife's hands
had guided the human bloodhounds to the murder of Armand and his
friends.

The physical pain of utter weariness was so great, that she hoped
confidently her tired body could rest here for ever, after all the
turmoil, the passion, and the intrigues of the last few da