n one of the
deep embrasures of the mullioned windows, there to carry on a long
conversation, which seemed very earnest and very pleasant on both sides.

Both the young men looked a little haggard and anxious, but otherwise
they were irreproachably dressed, and there was not the slightest sign,
about their courtly demeanour, of the terrible catastrophe, which they
must have felt hovering round them and round their chief.

That the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel had no intention of abandoning
its cause, she had gathered through little Suzanne herself, who spoke
openly of the assurance she and her mother had had that the Comte de
Tournay would be rescued from France by the league, within the next few
days. Vaguely she began to wonder, as she looked at the brilliant and
fashionable in the gaily-lighted ball-room, which of these worldly men
round her was the mysterious "Scarlet Pimpernel," who held the threads
of such daring plots, and the fate of valuable lives in his hands.

A burning curiosity seized her to know him: although for months she had
heard of him and had accepted his anonymity, as everyone else in society
had done; but now she longed to know--quite impersonally, quite apart
from Armand, and oh! quite apart from Chauvelin--only for her own sake,
for the sake of the enthusiastic admiration she had always bestowed on
his bravery and cunning.

He was at the ball, of course, somewhere, since Sir Andrew Ffoulkes
and Lord Antony Dewhurst were here, evidently expecting to meet their
chief--and perhaps to get a fresh MOT D'ORDRE from him.

Marguerite looked round at everyone, at the aristocratic high-typed
Norman faces, the squarely-built, fair-haired Saxon, the more gentle,
humorous caste of the Celt, wondering which of these betrayed the power,
the energy, the cunning which had imposed its will and its leadership
upon a number of high-born English gentlemen, among whom rumour asserted
was His Royal Highness himself.

Sir Andrew Ffoulkes? Surely not, with his gentle blue eyes, which were
looking so tenderly and longingly after little Suzanne, who was being
led away from the pleasant TETE-A-TETE by her stern mother. Marguerite
watched him across the room, as he finally turned away with a sigh, and
seemed to stand, aimless and lonely, now that Suzanne's dainty little
figure had disappeared in the crowd.

She watched him as he strolled towards the doorway, which led to a small
boudoir beyond, then paused and lean