questioning eyes.

What a wealth of memories crowded in on her mind at sound of that name!
Her beautiful home at Richmond, her brilliant array of servants and
guests, His Royal Highness at her side! life in free, joyous happy
England--how infinitely remote it now seemed. Her ears were filled with
the sound of a voice, drawly and quaint and gentle, a voice and a laugh
half shy, wholly mirthful, and oh! so infinitely dear:

"I think a little sea voyage and English country air would suit the Abbe
Foucquet, m'dear, and I only mean to ask him to cross the Channel with
me..."

Oh! the joy and confidence expressed in those words! the daring, the
ambition! the pride! and the soft, languorous air of the old-world
garden round her then, the passion of his embrace! the heavy scent of
late roses and of heliotrope, which caused her to swoon in his arms!

And now a narrow prison cell, and that pathetic, tender little creature
there, with trembling hands and tear-dimmed eyes, the most powerful and
most relentless jailer which the ferocious cunning of her deadly enemies
could possible have devised.

Then she talked to him of Juliette Marny.

The Abbe did not know that Mlle. de Marny had succeeded in reaching
England safely and was overjoyed to hear it.

He recounted to Marguerite the story of the Marny jewels: how he had put
them safely away in the crypt of his little church, until the Assembly
of the Convention had ordered the closing of the churches, and placed
before every minister of le bon Dieu the alternative of apostasy or
death.

"With me it has only been prison so far," continued the old man simply,
"but prison has rendered me just as helpless as the guillotine would
have done, for the enemies of le bon Dieu have ransacked the Church of
Saint Joseph and stolen the jewels which I should have guarded with my
life."

But it was obvious joy for the Abbe to talk of Juliette Marny's
happiness. Vaguely, in his remote little provincial cure, he had heard
of the prowess and daring of the Scarlet Pimpernel and liked to think
that Juliette owed her safety to him.

"The good God will reward him and those whom he cares for," added Abbe
Foucquet with that earnest belief in divine interference which seemed so
strangely pathetic under these present circumstances.

Marguerite sighed, and for the first time in this terrible soul-stirring
crisis through which she was passing so bravely, she felt a beneficent
moisture in her eyes: