rance, I must have a sufficiency of
money, to enable me to live in a costly style befitting a gentleman of
my rank. Were I to alter my mode of life I could not continue to mix in
that same social milieu to which all my friends belong and wherein, as
you are well aware, most of the royalist plots are hatched.

Trusting therefore to receive a favourable reply to my just demands
within the next twenty-four hours, whereupon the names in question shall
be furnished you forthwith,

I have the honour to remain, Citizen,

Your humble and obedient servant,

When he had finished reading, Chauvelin quietly folded the paper up
again, and then only did he look at the man and the woman before him.

Marguerite sat very erect, her head thrown back, her face very pale
and her hands tightly clutched in her lap. She had not stirred whilst
Chauvelin read out the infamous document, with which he desired to brand
a brave man with the ineradicable stigma of dishonour and of shame.
After she heard the first words, she looked up swiftly and questioningly
at her husband, but he stood at some little distance from her, right
out of the flickering circle of yellowish light made by the burning
tallow-candle. He was as rigid as a statue, standing in his usual
attitude with legs apart and hands buried in his breeches pockets.

She could not see his face.

Whatever she may have felt with regard to the letter, as the meaning of
it gradually penetrated into her brain, she was, of course, convinced
of one thing, and that was that never for a moment would Percy dream
of purchasing his life or even hers at such a price. But she would have
liked some sign from him, some look by which she could be guided as to
her immediate conduct: as, however, he gave neither look nor sign, she
preferred to assume an attitude of silent contempt.

But even before Chauvelin had had time to look from one face to the
other, a prolonged and merry laugh echoed across the squalid room.

Sir Percy, with head thrown back, was laughing whole-heartedly.

"A magnificent epistle, sir," he said gaily, "Lud love you, where
did you wield the pen so gracefully?... I vow that if I signed this
interesting document no one will believe I could have expressed myself
with perfect ease.. and in French too..."

"Nay, Sir Percy," rejoined Chauvelin drily, "I have thought of all that,
and lest in the future there should be any doubt as to whether your own
hand had or had not penned the wh