id.

An icy mantle seemed to have suddenly settled round Marguerite's
shoulders; though her cheeks glowed with fire, she felt chilled and
numbed. Oh, Armand! will you ever know the terrible sacrifice of pride,
of dignity, of womanliness a devoted sister is making for your sake?

"Nothing of importance," she said, staring mechanically before her, "but
it might prove a clue. I contrived--no matter how--to detect Sir Andrew
Ffoulkes in the very act of burning a paper at one of these candles, in
this very room. That paper I succeeded in holding between my fingers
for the space of two minutes, and to cast my eyes on it for that of ten
seconds."

"Time enough to learn its contents?" asked Chauvelin, quietly.

She nodded. Then continued in the same even, mechanical tone of voice--

"In the corner of the paper there was the usual rough device of a small
star-shaped flower. Above it I read two lines, everything else was
scorched and blackened by the flame."

"And what were the two lines?"

Her throat seemed suddenly to have contracted. For an instant she felt
that she could not speak the words, which might send a brave man to his
death.

"It is lucky that the whole paper was not burned," added Chauvelin, with
dry sarcasm, "for it might have fared ill with Armand St. Just. What
were the two lines citoyenne?"

"One was, 'I start myself to-morrow,'" she said quietly, "the other--'If
you wish to speak to me, I shall be in the supper-room at one o'clock
precisely.'"

Chauvelin looked up at the clock just above the mantelpiece.

"Then I have plenty of time," he said placidly.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

She was pale as a statue, her hands were icy cold, her head and heart
throbbed with the awful strain upon her nerves. Oh, this was cruel!
cruel! What had she done to have deserved all this? Her choice was made:
had she done a vile action or one that was sublime? The recording angel,
who writes in the book of gold, alone could give an answer.

"What are you going to do?" she repeated mechanically.

"Oh, nothing for the present. After that it will depend."

"On what?"

"On whom I shall see in the supper-room at one o'clock precisely."

"You will see the Scarlet Pimpernel, of course. But you do not know
him."

"No. But I shall presently."

"Sir Andrew will have warned him."

"I think not. When you parted from him after the minuet he stood
and watched you, for a moment or two, with a look which gave