Chauvelin said little more. In truth, the era of heroics was at an end. At an end those ominous "either--ors" that he was wont to mete out with a voice quavering with rage and lust of revenge. Now there was no alternative, no deep-laid plot save one: to wait for the Scarlet Pimpernel until he came. In the meanwhile she, Marguerite, must remain helpless and a prisoner; she must eat and drink and sleep. She, the decoy!--who would never know when the crushing blow would fall that would mean a hundred deaths to her if it involved that of the husband whom she worshipped. After a while, Chauvelin went away. In fact, she never knew actually when he did go. A while ago he had sat there on that upright chair, quiet, well groomed, suave of speech and bland of manner. "Then he will come," he had said quite urbanely. "Am I not right?" When Marguerite closed her eyes she could still see him, his mocking gaze fixed upon her, his thin, white hands folded complacently before him. And presently, as the day wore on and the shades of evening blurred one object in the room after another, the straight-backed chair, still left in its place, assumed a fantastic human shape--the shape of a meagre figure with narrow shoulders and thin, carefully be-stockinged legs. And all the faint noises around her--the occasional creaking of the furniture, the movement of the men outside her door, the soughing of the evening breeze in the foliage of the elm trees--all were merged into a thin, bland human voice, that went on repeating in a kind of thin, dreary monotone: "Then he will come. Am I not right?" CHAPTER XXIII MICE AND MEN §1 It was on her return from England that Theresia Cabarrus took to consulting the old witch in the Rue de la Planchette, driven thereto by ambition, and also no doubt by remorse. There was nothing of the hardened criminal about the fair Spaniard; she was just a spoilt woman who had been mocked and thwarted, and desired to be revenged. The Scarlet Pimpernel had appeared before her as one utterly impervious to her charms; and, egged on by Chauvelin, who used her for his own ends, she entered into a callous conspiracy, the aim of which was the destruction of that gang of English spies who were the enemies of France, and the first stage of which was the heartless abduction of Lady Blakeney and her incarceration as a decoy for the ultimate capture of her own husband.