iking nine. Armand slipped
through the half-open porte cochere, crossed the narrow dark courtyard,
and ran up two flights of winding stone stairs. At the top of these, a
door on his right allowed a thin streak of light to filtrate between its
two folds. An iron bell handle hung beside it; Armand gave it a pull.

Two minutes later he was amongst his friends. He heaved a great sigh of
content and relief. The very atmosphere here seemed to be different. As
far as the lodging itself was concerned, it was as bare, as devoid of
comfort as those sort of places--so-called chambres garnies--usually
were in these days. The chairs looked rickety and uninviting, the sofa
was of black horsehair, the carpet was threadbare, and in places
in actual holes; but there was a certain something in the air which
revealed, in the midst of all this squalor, the presence of a man of
fastidious taste.

To begin with, the place was spotlessly clean; the stove, highly
polished, gave forth a pleasing warm glow, even whilst the window,
slightly open, allowed a modicum of fresh air to enter the room. In
a rough earthenware jug on the table stood a large bunch of Christmas
roses, and to the educated nostril the slight scent of perfumes that
hovered in the air was doubly pleasing after the fetid air of the narrow
streets.

Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was there, also my Lord Tony, and Lord Hastings.
They greeted Armand with whole-hearted cheeriness.

"Where is Blakeney?" asked the young man as soon as he had shaken his
friends by the hand.

"Present!" came in loud, pleasant accents from the door of an inner room
on the right.

And there he stood under the lintel of the door, the man against whom
was raised the giant hand of an entire nation--the man for whose head
the revolutionary government of France would gladly pay out all the
savings of its Treasury--the man whom human bloodhounds were tracking,
hot on the scent--for whom the nets of a bitter revenge and relentless
reprisals were constantly being spread.

Was he unconscious of it, or merely careless? His closest friend, Sir
Andrew Ffoulkes, could not say. Certain it is that, as he now appeared
before Armand, picturesque as ever in perfectly tailored clothes, with
priceless lace at throat and wrists, his slender fingers holding an
enamelled snuff-box and a handkerchief of delicate cambric, his whole
personality that of a dandy rather than a man of action, it seemed
impossible to connect him with the