those who refuse to ride upon this tide of blood."

His cheeks were glowing, his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. He looked
very young and very eager. Armand St. Just, the brother of Lady
Blakeney, had something of the refined beauty of his lovely sister, but
the features though manly--had not the latent strength expressed in
them which characterised every line of Marguerite's exquisite face. The
forehead suggested a dreamer rather than a thinker, the blue-grey eyes
were those of an idealist rather than of a man of action.

De Batz's keen piercing eyes had no doubt noted this, even whilst
he gazed at his young friend with that same look of good-humoured
indulgence which seemed habitual to him.

"We have to think of the future, my good St. Just," he said after a
slight pause, and speaking slowly and decisively, like a father rebuking
a hot-headed child, "not of the present. What are a few lives worth
beside the great principles which we have at stake?"

"The restoration of the monarchy--I know," retorted St. Just, still
unsobered, "but, in the meanwhile--"

"In the meanwhile," rejoined de Batz earnestly, "every victim to
the lust of these men is a step towards the restoration of law and
order--that is to say, of the monarchy. It is only through these violent
excesses perpetrated in its name that the nation will realise how it is
being fooled by a set of men who have only their own power and their own
advancement in view, and who imagine that the only way to that power is
over the dead bodies of those who stand in their way. Once the nation is
sickened by these orgies of ambition and of hate, it will turn against
these savage brutes, and gladly acclaim the restoration of all that
they are striving to destroy. This is our only hope for the future, and,
believe me, friend, that every head snatched from the guillotine by
your romantic hero, the Scarlet Pimpernel, is a stone laid for the
consolidation of this infamous Republic."

"I'll not believe it," protested St. Just emphatically.

De Batz, with a gesture of contempt indicative also of complete
self-satisfaction and unalterable self-belief, shrugged his broad
shoulders. His short fat fingers, covered with rings, beat a tattoo upon
the ledge of the box.

Obviously, he was ready with a retort. His young friend's attitude
irritated even more than it amused him. But he said nothing for the
moment, waiting while the traditional three knocks on the floor of the
stage pro