d Armand would step out of
the coach and be led--always with soldiers close around them--to some
wayside inn, where some sort of a meal was served, where the atmosphere
was close and stuffy and smelt of onion soup and of stale cheese.

Armand and Marguerite would in most cases have a room to themselves,
with sentinels posted outside the door, and they would try and eat
enough to keep body and soul together, for they would not allow their
strength to fall away before the end of the journey was reached.

For the night halt--once at Beauvais and the second night at
Abbeville--they were escorted to a house in the interior of the city,
where they were accommodated with moderately clean lodgings. Sentinels,
however, were always at their doors; they were prisoners in all but
name, and had little or no privacy; for at night they were both so tired
that they were glad to retire immediately, and to lie down on the hard
beds that had been provided for them, even if sleep fled from their
eyes, and their hearts and souls were flying through the city in search
of him who filled their every thought.

Of Percy they saw little or nothing. In the daytime food was evidently
brought to him in the carriage, for they did not see him get down, and
on those two nights at Beauvais and Abbeville, when they caught sight of
him stepping out of the coach outside the gates of the barracks, he was
so surrounded by soldiers that they only saw the top of his head and his
broad shoulders towering above those of the men.

Once Marguerite had put all her pride, all her dignity by, and asked
citizen Chauvelin for news of her husband.

"He is well and cheerful, Lady Blakeney," he had replied with his
sarcastic smile. "Ah!" he added pleasantly, "those English are
remarkable people. We, of Gallic breed, will never really understand
them. Their fatalism is quite Oriental in its quiet resignation to the
decree of Fate. Did you know, Lady Blakeney, that when Sir Percy was
arrested he did not raise a hand. I thought, and so did my colleague,
that he would have fought like a lion. And now, that he has no doubt
realised that quiet submission will serve him best in the end, he is
as calm on this journey as I am myself. In fact," he concluded
complacently, "whenever I have succeeded in peeping into the coach I
have invariably found Sir Percy Blakeney fast asleep."

"He--" she murmured, for it was so difficult to speak to this callous
wretch, who was obviously m