eet at last. He had kept just a sufficiency of reason--or was it
merely blind instinct?--to avoid the places where the night patrols
of the National Guard might be on the watch. He avoided the Place du
Carrousel, also the quay, and struck sharply to his right until he
reached the facade of St. Germain l'Auxerrois.

Another effort; round the corner, and there was the house at last.
He was like the hunted creature now that has run to earth. Up the two
flights of stone stairs, and then the pull at the bell; a moment of
tense anxiety, whilst panting, gasping, almost choked with the sustained
effort and the strain of the past half-hour, he leaned against the wall,
striving not to fall.

Then the well-known firm step across the rooms beyond, the open door,
the hand upon his shoulder.

After that he remembered nothing more.

CHAPTER XIV. THE CHIEF

He had not actually fainted, but the exertion of that long run had
rendered him partially unconscious. He knew now that he was safe, that he
was sitting in Blakeney's room, and that something hot and vivifying was
being poured down his throat.

"Percy, they have arrested her!" he said, panting, as soon as speech
returned to his paralysed tongue.

"All right. Don't talk now. Wait till you are better."

With infinite care and gentleness Blakeney arranged some cushions under
Armand's head, turned the sofa towards the fire, and anon brought his
friend a cup of hot coffee, which the latter drank with avidity.

He was really too exhausted to speak. He had contrived to tell Blakeney,
and now Blakeney knew, so everything would be all right. The inevitable
reaction was asserting itself; the muscles had relaxed, the nerves were
numbed, and Armand lay back on the sofa with eyes half closed, unable to
move, yet feeling his strength gradually returning to him, his vitality
asserting itself, all the feverish excitement of the past twenty-four
hours yielding at last to a calmer mood.

Through his half-closed eyes he could see his brother-in-law moving
about the room. Blakeney was fully dressed. In a sleepy kind of way
Armand wondered if he had been to bed at all; certainly his clothes
set on him with their usual well-tailored perfection, and there was no
suggestion in his brisk step and alert movements that he had passed a
sleepless night.

Now he was standing by the open window. Armand, from where he lay, could
see his broad shoulders sharply outlined against the grey background