ne particle of anxiety or of tremor in it.

"Nay! m'dear!" he said, "but your ladyship is astonishing.... Close a
death-trap upon your humble servant?... Nay! the governing citizens
of France will have to be very active and mighty wide-awake ere they
succeed in stealing a march on me.... Zounds! but we'll give them an
exciting chase this time.... Nay! little woman, do not fear!" he said
with sudden infinite gentleness, "those demmed murderers have not got me
yet."

Oh! how often she had fought with him thus: with him, the adventurer,
the part of his dual nature that was her bitter enemy, and which took
him, the lover, away from her side. She knew so well the finality of
it all, the amazing hold which that unconquerable desire for these mad
adventures had upon him. Impulsive, ardent as she was, Marguerite
felt in her very soul an overwhelming fury against herself for her
own weakness, her own powerlessness in the face of that which forever
threatened to ruin her life and her happiness.

Yes! and his also! for he loved her! he loved her! he loved her! the
thought went on hammering in her mind, for she knew of its great truth!
He loved her and went away! And she, poor, puny weakling, was unable to
hold him back; the tendrils which fastened his soul to hers were not
so tenacious as those which made him cling to suffering humanity, over
there in France, where men and women were in fear of death and torture,
and looked upon the elusive and mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel as a
heaven-born hero sent to save them from their doom. To them at these
times his very heartstrings seemed to turn with unconquerable force, and
when, with all the ardour of her own passion, she tried to play upon
the cords of his love for her, he could not respond, for they--the
strangers--had the stronger claim.

And yet through it all she knew that this love of humanity, this mad
desire to serve and to help, in no way detracted from his love for her.
Nay, it intensified it, made it purer and better, adding to the joy of
perfect intercourse the poetic and subtle fragrance of ever-recurring
pain.

But now at last she felt weary of the fight: her heart was aching,
bruised and sore. An infinite fatigue seemed to weigh like lead upon
her very soul. This seemed so different to any other parting, that had
perforce been during the past year. The presence of Chauvelin in her
house, the obvious planning of this departure for France, had filled
her with a forebo