Mr. Elphinstone pulled himself out of his chair and, going to a safe, began with trembling hands to unlock it. "I cannot believe that you are right," he said brokenly. "And he had Elspeth--he even took his new goldfish with him." "Neither Elspeth nor a goldfish, I fear, will serve as a talisman," returned the Frenchman rather grimly, pocketing the notes and gold that the old man pushed into his hands. "These two years that Mme. and Mlle. de Chaulnes, as they call themselves, have lived on the Dover road, professedly as sympathisers with the Royalist cause, they have been the reason of more of our plans miscarrying, more of our agents being betrayed, than any half-dozen of the Convention's male spies put together. You see, they are really of noble birth." "René says in his letter that they are old friends--but I forget, you say his letter is a forgery." "As to their having known his family in the past I cannot say," replied La Vireville. "It is possible, since they are renegades. The mischief is, that we have only just found out their treachery. This, I suppose, is a last effort before giving up their trade--in Canterbury at least. Now a line, sir, to authorise me to bring the child back." Mr. Elphinstone wrote it, scarcely able to control his pen. "God grant you are successful!" he said, as he gave it to the Chouan. "I will do my best, sir," returned the latter. "I do not want to alarm you unduly, and, on my soul, I think they only wanted Anne for what they could get out of him in the way of information. _We_ shall be the losers by that, not you; and so I hope to bring him back safely in a couple of days at most. In any case, I will write to you from Canterbury to-night. Au revoir!" He wrung the old man's hand and departed. * * * * * If there were any room in any house in London which held at that hour more anguish of soul than Mr. Elphinstone's study, it would have been hard to find it. CHAPTER VII THE CHEVALIER DE LA VIREVILLE MEETS "MONSIEUR AUGUSTIN" When the Chevalier de la Vireville, wet and draggled from his long ride, flung himself off his horse at the gate, and knocked on the door of the little house at Canterbury, that door was not very speedily opened. Yet the occupants of Rose Cottage were not engaged in anything visibly nefarious: Mme. de Chaulnes was merely copying a paper, in her regular pointed writing, at the table in the little hall, and, after exchanging a glance with her sister-in-law, she quite unhurriedly sanded over what she had written and, putting it away in a drawer, took up some embroidery. Mlle. Angèle, equally unhurried, rose and opened. So La Vireville saw, through the frame of the door, an idyllic picture of a beautiful and serene old age bent over fine needlework. His mouth tightened a little as he took off his dripping hat to Mlle. de Chaulnes. "Mesdames will permit that I enter?" he asked in his own tongue.