erefore she said to him earnestly now:

"I thank you, citizen, for your solicitude on my behalf, but you will
understand, I think, that my visit to the prisoner has been almost more
than I could bear. I cannot tell you at this moment whether to-morrow I
should be in a fit state to repeat it."

"As you please," he replied urbanely. "But I pray you to remember one
thing, and that is--"

He paused a moment while his restless eyes wandered rapidly over her
face, trying, as it were, to get at the soul of this woman, at her
innermost thoughts, which he felt were hidden from him.

"Yes, citizen," she said quietly; "what is it that I am to remember?"

"That it rests with you, Lady Blakeney, to put an end to the present
situation."

"How?"

"Surely you can persuade Sir Percy's friends not to leave their chief
in durance vile. They themselves could put an end to his troubles
to-morrow."

"By giving up the Dauphin to you, you mean?" she retorted coldly.

"Precisely."

"And you hoped--you still hope that by placing before me the picture of
your own fiendish cruelty against my husband you will induce me to act
the part of a traitor towards him and a coward before his followers?"

"Oh!" he said deprecatingly, "the cruelty now is no longer mine.
Sir Percy's release is in your hands, Lady Blakeney--in that of his
followers. I should only be too willing to end the present intolerable
situation. You and your friends are applying the last turn of the
thumbscrew, not I--"

She smothered the cry of horror that had risen to her lips. The man's
cold-blooded sophistry was threatening to make a breach in her armour of
self-control.

She would no longer trust herself to speak, but made a quick movement
towards the door.

He shrugged his shoulders as if the matter were now entirely out of his
control. Then he opened the door for her to pass out, and as her skirts
brushed against him he bowed with studied deference, murmuring a cordial
"Good-night!"

"And remember, Lady Blakeney," he added politely, "that should you at
any time desire to communicate with me at my rooms, 19, Rue Dupuy, I
hold myself entirely at your service."

Then as her tall, graceful figure disappeared in the outside gloom
he passed his thin hand over his mouth as if to wipe away the last
lingering signs of triumphant irony:

"The second visit will work wonders, I think, my fine lady," he murmured
under his breath.

CHAPTER XXXI. AN INTERLUDE

It w