love, that for his young wife.

Suzanne was nervous for her husband's safety. She had sufficient
influence over him to keep him at home, when other members of the brave
little League of The Scarlet Pimpernel followed their leader with mad
zest, on some bold adventure.

Marguerite too at first had smiled in kindly derision when Suzanne
Ffoulkes, her large eyes filled with tears, had used her wiles to keep
Sir Andrew tied to her own dainty apronstrings. But somehow, lately,
with that gentle contempt which she felt for the weaker man, there had
mingled a half-acknowledged sense of envy.

How different 'twixt her and her husband.

Percy loved her truly and with a depth of passion proportionate to his
own curious dual personality: it were sacrilege, almost, to doubt the
intensity of his love. But nevertheless she had at all times a feeling
as if he were holding himself and his emotions in check, as if his love,
as if she, Marguerite, his wife, were but secondary matters in his life;
as if her anxieties, her sorrow when he left her, her fears for his
safety were but small episodes in the great book of life which he had
planned out and conceived for himself.

Then she would hate herself for such thoughts: they seemed like doubts
of him. Did any man ever love a woman, she asked herself, as Percy loved
her? He was difficult to understand, and perhaps--oh! that was an awful
"perhaps"--perhaps there lurked somewhere in his mind a slight mistrust
of her. She had betrayed him once! unwittingly 'tis true! did he fear
she might do so again?

And to-night after her guests had gone she threw open the great windows
that gave on the beautiful terrace, with its marble steps leading down
to the cool river beyond. Everything now seemed so peaceful and still;
the scent of the heliotrope made the midnight air swoon with its
intoxicating fragrance: the rhythmic murmur of the waters came gently
echoing from below, and from far away there came the melancholy cry of a
night-bird on the prowl.

That cry made Marguerite shudder: her thoughts flew back to the
episodes of this night and to Chauvelin, the dark bird of prey with his
mysterious death-dealing plans, his subtle intrigues which all tended
towards the destruction of one man: his enemy, the husband whom
Marguerite loved.

Oh! how she hated these wild adventures which took Percy away from her
side. Is not a woman who loves--be it husband or child--the most truly
selfish, the most cr