eemingly more interested in boiled beef
than in the conversation that went on around him. But he would not have
been the keen and daring adventurer that he was if he did not all the
while keep his ears open for any fragment of news that the desultory
talk of his fellow-diners was likely to yield to him.

Politics were, of course, discussed; the tyranny of the sections, the
slavery that this free Republic had brought on its citizens. The
names of the chief personages of the day were all mentioned in turns
Focquier-Tinville, Santerre, Danton, Robespierre. Heron and his
sleuth-hounds were spoken of with execrations quickly suppressed, but of
little Capet not one word.

Blakeney could not help but infer that Chauvelin, Heron and the
commissaries in charge were keeping the escape of the child a secret for
as long as they could.

He could hear nothing of Armand's fate, of course. The arrest--if arrest
there had been--was not like to be bruited abroad just now. Blakeney
having last seen Armand in Chauvelin's company, whilst he himself was
moving the Simons' furniture, could not for a moment doubt that the
young man was imprisoned,--unless, indeed, he was being allowed a
certain measure of freedom, whilst his every step was being spied on, so
that he might act as a decoy for his chief.

At thought of that all weariness seemed to vanish from Blakeney's
powerful frame. He set his lips firmly together, and once again the
light of irresponsible gaiety danced in his eyes.

He had been in as tight a corner as this before now; at Boulogne his
beautiful Marguerite had been used as a decoy, and twenty-four hours
later he had held her in his arms on board his yacht the Day-Dream. As
he would have put it in his own forcible language:

"Those d--d murderers have not got me yet."

The battle mayhap would this time be against greater odds than before,
but Blakeney had no fear that they would prove overwhelming.

There was in life but one odd that was overwhelming, and that was
treachery.

But of that there could be no question.

In the afternoon Blakeney started off in search of lodgings for the
night. He found what would suit him in the Rue de l'Arcade, which
was equally far from the House of Justice as it was from his former
lodgings. Here he would be safe for at least twenty-four hours, after
which he might have to shift again. But for the moment the landlord
of the miserable apartment was over-willing to make no fuss and ask