frightened, and produced the scrap of paper
which the Englishman had left with her, together with the assurance that
when she showed it there would be no further trouble.

Tinville took it roughly out of her hand, but would not glance at it.
He crushed it into a ball and then Merlin snatched it from him with a
coarse laugh, smoothed out the creases on his knee and studied it for a
moment.

There were two lines of what looked like poetry, written in a language
which Merlin did not understand. English, no doubt.

But what was perfectly clear, and easily comprehended by any one, was
the little drawing in the corner, done in red ink and representing a
small star-shaped flower.

Then Tinville and Merlin both cursed loudly and volubly, and bidding
their men follow them, turned away from the house in the Rue de
l'Ancienne Comedie and left its toothless landlady on her own doorstep
still volubly protesting her patriotism and her desire to serve the
government of the Republic.

Tinville and Merlin, however, took the scrap of paper to Citizen
Robespierre, who smiled grimly as he in his turn crushed the offensive
little document in the palm of his well-washed hands.

Robespierre did not swear. He never wasted either words or oaths, but he
slipped the bit of paper inside the double lid of his silver snuff box
and then he sent a special messenger to Citizen Chauvelin in the Rue
Corneille, bidding him come that same evening after ten o'clock to room
No. 16 in the ci-devant Palace of the Tuileries.

It was now half-past ten, and Chauvelin and Robespierre sat opposite one
another in the ex-boudoir of Queen Marie Antoinette, and between them on
the table, just below the tallow-candle, was a much creased, exceedingly
grimy bit of paper.

It had passed through several unclean hands before Citizen Robespierre's
immaculately white fingers had smoothed it out and placed it before the
eyes of ex-Ambassador Chauvelin.

The latter, however, was not looking at the paper, he was not even
looking at the pale, cruel face before him. He had closed his eyes and
for a moment had lost sight of the small dark room, of Robespierre's
ruthless gaze, of the mud-stained walls and greasy floor. He was seeing,
as in a bright and sudden vision, the brilliantly-lighted salons of the
Foreign Office in London, with beautiful Marguerite Blakeney gliding
queenlike on the arm of the Prince of Wales.

He heard the flutter of many fans, the frou-frou of sil