"Yes. I prolonged my walk," the woman replied. "I did not notice that the road had become lonely. Then suddenly I realized that I was being followed, and I ran. Mon Dieu, how I ran! Whither, I knew not! I just felt that something horrible was at my heels!" Her eyes, dilated with terror, looked as black as sloes. They were fixed upon Marguerite, never once raised on Sir Percy, who, standing some way apart from the two women, was looking down on them, silent and apparently unmoved. The stranger shuddered again; her face was almost grey in its expression of fear, and her lips seemed quite bloodless. Marguerite gave her trembling hands an encouraging pat. "It was lucky," she said gently, "that you found your way here." "I had seen the light," the woman continued more calmly. "And I believe that at the back of my mind there was the instinct to run for shelter. Then suddenly my foot knocked against a stone, and I fell. I tried to raise myself quickly, but I had not the time, for the next moment I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a voice--oh, a voice I dread, citoyenne!--called to me by name." "The voice of citizen Chauvelin?" Marguerite asked simply. The woman looked up quickly. "You knew----?" she murmured. "I knew his voice." "But you know him?" the other insisted. "I know him--yes," Marguerite replied. "I am a compatriot of yours. Before I married, I was Marguerite St. Just." "St. Just?" "We are cousins, my brother and I, of the young deputy, the friend of Robespierre." "God help you!" the woman murmured. "He has done so already, by bringing us both to England. My brother is married, and I am Lady Blakeney now. You too will feel happy and safe now that you are here." "Happy?" the woman ejaculated, with a piteous sob. "And safe? Mon Dieu, if only I could think it!" "But what have you to fear? Chauvelin may have retained some semblance of power over in France. He has none over here." "He hates me!" the other murmured. "Oh, how he hates me!" "Why?" The stranger made no immediate reply. Her eyes, dark as the night, glowing and searching, seemed to read the very soul behind Marguerite's serene brow. Then after awhile she went on, with seeming irrelevance: "It all began so foolishly! . . . mon Dieu, how foolishly! And I really meant nothing treacherous to my own country--nothing unpatriotic, quoi?" She suddenly seized Marguerite's two hands and exclaimed with childlike enthusiasm: "You have heard of the Scarlet Pimpernel, have you not?" "Yes," Marguerite replied. "I have heard of him." "You know then that he is the finest, bravest, most wonderful man in all the world?" "Yes, I know that," Marguerite assented with a smile. "Of course, in France they hate him. Naturally! He is the enemy of the republic, quoi? He is against all those massacres, the persecution of the innocent. He saves them and helps them when he can. So they hate him. Naturally." "Naturally!"