Victor de Marmont, wrapped in a dark cloak, stood among the crowd for a while. He knew that the Emperor would probably not be in Paris before night, and he loved to be in the very midst of the wave of enthusiasm which was surging higher and ever higher in the crowd, and hear the excited whispers, and to feel all round him, wrapping him closely like a magic mantle of warmth and delight, the exaltation of this mass of men and women assembled here to acclaim the hero whom he himself adored. Closely buttoned inside his coat he had scraps of paper worth the ransom of any king. Among the crowd, too, Bobby Clyffurde moved and stood. He was one of those who watched this enthusiasm with a heart filled with forebodings. He knew well how short this enthusiasm would be: he knew that within a few weeks--days perhaps--the bold and reckless adventurer who had so easily reconquered France would realise that the Imperial crown would never be allowed to sit firmly upon his head. None in this crowd knew better that the present pageant and glory would be short-lived, than did this tall, quiet Englishman who listened with half an ear and a smile of good-natured contempt to the loud cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" which rose spontaneously whenever the sound of horses' hoofs or rattles of wheels from the direction of Fontainebleau suggested the approach of the hero of the day. None knew better than he that already in far-off England another great hero, named Wellington, was organising the forces which presently would crush--for ever this time--the might and ambitions of the man whom England had never acknowledged as anything but a usurper and a foe. And closely buttoned inside his coat Clyffurde had a letter which he had received at his lodgings in the Alma quarter only a few moments before he sallied forth into the streets. That letter was an answer to a confidential enquiry of his own sent to the Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Department resident in Paris, desiring to know if the Department had any knowledge of a vast sum of money having come unexpectedly into the hands of His Majesty the King of France, before his flight from the capital. The answer was an emphatic "No!" The Intelligence Department knew of no such windfall. But its secret agents reported that Victor de Marmont, captain of the usurper's body-guard, had waylaid M. le Marquis de St. Genis on the high road not far from Lyons. The escort which had accompanied Victor de Marmont on that occasion had been dismissed by him at Villefranche, and the information which the British Secret Intelligence Department had obtained came through the indiscretion of the sergeant in charge of the escort, who had boasted in a tavern at Lyons that he had actually searched M. de St. Genis and found a large sum of money upon him, of which M. de Marmont promptly took possession.