r when first she entered, and had immediately closed
it with a loud clang behind her; and all the way down the corridors,
through the half-light engendered by feebly flickering lamps, she caught
glimpses of the white facings on the uniforms of the town guard, or
occasionally the glint of steel of a bayonet. Presently Chauvelin paused
beside a door, which he had just reached. His hand was on the latch, for
it did not appear to be locked, and he turned toward Marguerite.

"I am very sorry, Lady Blakeney," he said in simple, deferential tones,
"that the prison authorities, who at my request are granting you this
interview at such an unusual hour, have made a slight condition to your
visit."

"A condition?" she asked. "What is it?"

"You must forgive me," he said, as if purposely evading her question,
"for I give you my word that I had nothing to do with a regulation that
you might justly feel was derogatory to your dignity. If you will kindly
step in here a wardress in charge will explain to you what is required."

He pushed open the door, and stood aside ceremoniously in order to allow
her to pass in. She looked on him with deep puzzlement and a look of
dark suspicion in her eyes. But her mind was too much engrossed with
the thought of her meeting with Percy to worry over any trifle that
might--as her enemy had inferred--offend her womanly dignity.

She walked into the room, past Chauvelin, who whispered as she went by:

"I will wait for you here. And, I pray you, if you have aught to
complain of summon me at once."

Then he closed the door behind her. The room in which Marguerite now
found herself was a small unventilated quadrangle, dimly lighted by a
hanging lamp. A woman in a soiled cotton gown and lank grey hair brushed
away from a parchment-like forehead rose from the chair in which she
had been sitting when Marguerite entered, and put away some knitting on
which she had apparently been engaged.

"I was to tell you, citizeness," she said the moment the door had been
closed and she was alone with Marguerite, "that the prison authorities
have given orders that I should search you before you visit the
prisoner."

She repeated this phrase mechanically like a child who has been taught
to say a lesson by heart. She was a stoutish middle-aged woman, with
that pasty, flabby skin peculiar to those who live in want of fresh
air; but her small, dark eyes were not unkindly, although they shifted
restlessly from one ob