ental
lock, and the next moment a breath of fresh air brought the sensation of
renewed life into her.

CHAPTER XXX. AFTERWARDS

"I am sorry, Lady Blakeney," said a harsh, dry voice close to her; "the
incident at the end of your visit was none of our making, remember."

She turned away, sickened with horror at thought of contact with this
wretch. She had heard the heavy oaken door swing to behind her on its
ponderous hinges, and the key once again turn in the lock. She felt as
if she had suddenly been thrust into a coffin, and that clods of earth
were being thrown upon her breast, oppressing her heart so that she
could not breathe.

Had she looked for the last time on the man whom she loved beyond
everything else on earth, whom she worshipped more ardently day by day?
Was she even now carrying within the folds of her kerchief a message
from a dying man to his comrades?

Mechanically she followed Chauvelin down the corridor and along the
passages which she had traversed a brief half-hour ago. From some
distant church tower a clock tolled the hour of ten. It had then really
only been little more than thirty brief minutes since first she had
entered this grim building, which seemed less stony than the monsters
who held authority within it; to her it seemed that centuries had gone
over her head during that time. She felt like an old woman, unable to
straighten her back or to steady her limbs; she could only dimly see
some few paces ahead the trim figure of Chauvelin walking with measured
steps, his hands held behind his back, his head thrown up with what
looked like triumphant defiance.

At the door of the cubicle where she had been forced to submit to the
indignity of being searched by a wardress, the latter was now standing,
waiting with characteristic stolidity. In her hand she held the steel
files, the dagger and the purse which, as Marguerite passed, she held
out to her.

"Your property, citizeness," she said placidly.

She emptied the purse into her own hand, and solemnly counted out the
twenty pieces of gold. She was about to replace them all into the purse,
when Marguerite pressed one of them back into her wrinkled hand.

"Nineteen will be enough, citizeness," she said; "keep one for yourself,
not only for me, but for all the poor women who come here with their
heart full of hope, and go hence with it full of despair."

The woman turned calm, lack-lustre eyes on her, and silently pocketed
the gold pi