can join us in the merry
bowl. Think you, Tony," he added, turning towards the Vicomte, "that the
jackanapes of yours will join us in a glass? Tell him that we drink in
token of reconciliation."

"In fact you are all such merry company," said Marguerite, "that I trust
you will forgive me if I bid my brother good-bye in another room."

It would have been bad form to protest. Both Lord Antony and Sir Andrew
felt that Lady Blakeney could not altogether be in tune with them at the
moment. Her love for her brother, Armand St. Just, was deep and touching
in the extreme. He had just spent a few weeks with her in her English
home, and was going back to serve his country, at the moment when death
was the usual reward for the most enduring devotion.

Sir Percy also made no attempt to detain his wife. With that perfect,
somewhat affected gallantry which characterised his every movement, he
opened the coffee-room door for her, and made her the most approved and
elaborate bow, which the fashion of the time dictated, as she sailed
out of the room without bestowing on him more than a passing, slightly
contemptuous glance. Only Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, whose every thought since
he had met Suzanne de Tournay seemed keener, more gentle, more innately
sympathetic, noted the curious look of intense longing, of deep and
hopeless passion, with which the inane and flippant Sir Percy followed
the retreating figure of his brilliant wife.

CHAPTER VII THE SECRET ORCHARD

Once outside the noisy coffee-room, alone in the dimly-lighted passage,
Marguerite Blakeney seemed to breathe more freely. She heaved a deep
sigh, like one who had long been oppressed with the heavy weight of
constant self-control, and she allowed a few tears to fall unheeded down
her cheeks.

Outside the rain had ceased, and through the swiftly passing clouds, the
pale rays of an after-storm sun shone upon the beautiful white coast of
Kent and the quaint, irregular houses that clustered round the Admiralty
Pier. Marguerite Blakeney stepped on to the porch and looked out to sea.
Silhouetted against the ever-changing sky, a graceful schooner, with
white sails set, was gently dancing in the breeze. The DAY DREAM it was,
Sir Percy Blakeney's yacht, which was ready to take Armand St. Just back
to France into the very midst of that seething, bloody Revolution which
was overthrowing a monarchy, attacking a religion, destroying a society,
in order to try and rebuild upon t