rambler roses twining themselves in her
hair.

He was sitting on the ground at her feet, his head pillowed in her lap,
lazily dreaming whilst at his feet the river wound its graceful curves
beneath overhanging willows and tall stately elms.

A swan came sailing majestically down the stream, and Marguerite, with
idle, delicate hands, threw some crumbs of bread into the water. Then
she laughed, for she was quite happy, and anon she stooped, and he felt
the fragrance of her lips as she bent over him and savoured the perfect
sweetness of her caress. She was happy because her husband was by her
side. He had done with adventures, with risking his life for others'
sake. He was living only for her.

The man, the dreamer, the idealist that lurked behind the adventurous
soul, lived an exquisite dream as he gazed upon that vision. He closed
his eyes so that it might last all the longer, so that through the
open window opposite he should not see the great gloomy walls of the
labyrinthine building packed to overflowing with innocent men, women,
and children waiting patiently and with a smile on their lips for a
cruel and unmerited death; so that he should not see even through the
vista of houses and of streets that grim Temple prison far away, and the
light in one of the tower windows, which illumined the final martyrdom
of a boy-king.

Thus he stood for fully five minutes, with eyes deliberately closed
and lips tightly set. Then the neighbouring tower-clock of St. Germain
l'Auxerrois slowly tolled the hour of midnight. Blakeney woke from his
dream. The walls of his lodging were once more around him, and through
the window the ruddy light of some torch in the street below fought with
that of the lamp.

He went deliberately up to the window and looked out into the night. On
the quay, a little to the left, the outdoor camp was just breaking tip
for the night. The people of France in arms against tyranny were allowed
to put away their work for the day and to go to their miserable homes
to gather rest in sleep for the morrow. A band of soldiers, rough and
brutal in their movements, were hustling the women and children. The
little ones, weary, sleepy, and cold, seemed too dazed to move. One
woman had two little children clinging to her skirts; a soldier suddenly
seized one of them by the shoulders and pushed it along roughly in front
of him to get it out of the way. The woman struck at the soldier in a
stupid, senseless, useless wa