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Updated: June 21, 2025
"And you will be very merry here in Boulogne, I dare swear..." "Aye, merry, sir," said Chauvelin with an involuntary and savage snarl, as he placed a long claw-like finger upon the momentous paper before him, "merry, for we here in Boulogne will see that which will fill the heart of every patriot in France with gladness.... Nay!
Sir Percy Blakeney would either write the letter in order to save his wife, and heap dishonour on himself, or he would shrink from the terrible ordeal at the last moment and let Chauvelin and the Committee of Public Safety work their will with her and him.
"Sir Percy," retorted Chauvelin firmly, "since you will not offer Mademoiselle Candeille the apology which she has the right to expect from you, are you prepared that you and I should cross swords like honourable gentlemen?"
"Found inside the lining of the prisoner's hat, citizen," he reported curtly, and opened the shutter of a small, dark lantern which he wore at his belt. Chauvelin took the paper from his subordinate. A weird, unexplainable foreknowledge of what was to come caused his hand to shake and beads of perspiration to moisten his forehead. He looked up and saw the prisoner standing before him.
Chauvelin the aristocrat turned revolutionary, the diplomat turned spy, the baffled enemy of the Scarlet Pimpernel. He stood there vaguely outlined in the gloom by the feeble rays of an oil lamp fixed into the wall just above.
A few quick orders to the sergeant of the guard, and l'Abbe Foucquet, weak, helpless and gentle, became the relentless jailer who would guard Marguerite more securely than a whole regiment of loyal soldiers could have done. Then, having despatched a messenger to the Committee of Public Safety, Chauvelin laid himself down to rest. Fate had not deceived him.
"No, no!" said Heron with a gruff laugh; "that idea does not appeal to me nearly so much as the other. I should not feel so secure on the way.... I should always be thinking that that cursed woman had been allowed to escape.... No! no! I would rather keep her under my own eye just as you suggest, citizen Chauvelin... and under the prisoner's, too," he added with a coarse jest.
Armand by this time was so dazed with fatigue that he sank on a chair like a log, and remained there staring into the fire, unconscious of the flight of time. Anon Heron came home. He nodded to Chauvelin, and threw but a cursory glance on Armand. "Five minutes, citizen," he said, with a rough attempt at an apology.
"Do try and eat something, little mother," Armand whispered in her ear; "try and keep up your strength for his sake, if not for mine." She turned a wan, pale face to him, and tried to smile. "I'll try, dear," she said. "You have taken bread and meat to the citizens in the coach?" Chauvelin called out to the retreating figure of mine host. "H'm!" grunted the latter in assent.
But I protest I need not ask," he added, as he carelessly strode back towards the supper-table. "In matters of taste the Church has never been backward. . . . Eh?" But Chauvelin was not listening. His every faculty was now concentrated on that door through which presently Desgas would enter.
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