"There is a trinket--a locket--containing a miniature, which I am assured is a portrait of Marie Antoinette. This locket is in the possession of Dormer Colville, who suggests that we should refrain from using violence to open it until this can be done in France in the presence of suitable witnesses. A fall or some mishap has so crushed the locket that it can only be opened by a jeweller provided with suitable instruments. It has remained closed for nearly a quarter of a century, but a reliable witness in whose possession it has been since he, who was undoubtedly Louis XVII, died in his arms, remembers the portrait, and has no doubt of its authenticity. I have told you enough to make it clear to you that my search is at last ended. What we require now is money to enable us to bring this King of France to his own; to bring him, in the first place, to my humble château of Gemosac, where he can lie hidden until all arrangements are made. I leave it to you, my dear Albert, to collect this preliminary sum." De Chantonnay folded the letter and looked at the faces surrounding the dimly lighted table. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence, who must have known the contents of the letter, and, therefore, came provided, leaned across the table with a discreet clink of jewellery and laid before Albert de Chantonnay a note for a thousand francs. "I am only an Englishwoman," she said, simply, "but I can help." CHAPTER XII THE SECRET OF GEMOSAC There is no sentiment so artificial as international hatred. In olden days it owed its existence to churchmen, and now an irresponsible press foments that dormant antagonism. Wherever French and English individuals are thrown together by a common endeavour, both are surprised at the mutual esteem which soon develops into friendship. But as nations we are no nearer than we were in the great days of Napoleon. Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence was only one-quarter French and three-quarters English. Her grandmother had been a St. Pierre; but it was not from that lady that she inherited a certain open-handedness which took her French friends by surprise. "It is not that she has the cause at heart," commented Madame de Chantonnay, as she walked laboriously on Albert's arm down the ramp of the Château de Gemosac at the termination of the meeting. "It is not for that that she throws her note of a thousand francs upon the table and promises more when things are in train. It is because she can refuse nothing to Dormer Colville. _Allez_, my son! I have a woman's heart! I know!" Albert contented himself with a sardonic laugh. He was not in the humour to talk of women's hearts; for Mrs. St. Pierre Lawrence's action had struck a sudden note of British realism into the harmony of his political fancies. He had talked so much, had listened to so much talk from others, that the dream of a restored monarchy had at last been raised to those far realms of the barely possible in which the Gallic fancy wanders in moments of facile digestion.