hand to me just once
more, and let me feel that although you would never willingly look upon
my face again, you have enough womanly tenderness in you to force your
heart to forgiveness and mayhap to pity."

Marguerite hesitated. He held out his hand and her warm, impulsive
nature prompted her to be kind. But instinct would not be gainsaid: a
curious instinct to which she refused to respond. What had she to fear
from this miserable and cringing little worm who had not even in him
the pride of defeat? What harm could he do to her, or to those whom she
loved? Her brother was in England! Her husband! Bah! not the enmity of
the entire world could make her fear for him!

Nay! That instinct, which caused her to draw away from Chauvelin, as
she would from a venomous asp, was certainly not fear. It was hate! She
hated this man! Hated him for all that she had suffered because of
him; for that terrible night on the cliffs of Calais! The peril to
her husband who had become so infinitely dear! The humiliations and
self-reproaches which he had endured.

Yes! it was hate! and hate was of all emotions the one she most
despised.

Hate? Does one hate a slimy but harmless toad or a stinging fly?
It seemed ridiculous, contemptible and pitiable to think of hate in
connection with the melancholy figure of this discomfited intriguer,
this fallen leader of revolutionary France.

He was holding out his hand to her. If she placed even the tips of
her fingers upon it, she would be making the compact of mercy and
forgiveness which he was asking of her. The woman Desiree Candeille
roused within her the last lingering vestige of her slumbering wrath.
False, theatrical and stagy--as Marguerite had originally suspected--she
appeared to have been in league with Chauvelin to bring about this
undesirable meeting.

Lady Blakeney turned from one to another, trying to conceal her contempt
beneath a mask of passionless indifference. Candeille was standing close
by, looking obviously distressed and not a little puzzled. An instant's
reflection was sufficient to convince Marguerite that the whilom actress
of the Varietes Theatre was obviously ignorant of the events to
which Chauvelin had been alluding: she was, therefore, of no serious
consequence, a mere tool, mayhap, in the ex-ambassador's hands. At the
present moment she looked like a silly child who does not understand the
conversation of the "grown-ups."

Marguerite had promised her help and prot