"It is lucky that the whole paper was not burned," added Chauvelin, with dry sarca**, "for it might have fared ill with Armand St. Just. What were the two lines citoyenne?""One was, `I start myself to-morrow,'" she said quietly, "the other--'If you wish to speak to me, I shall be in the supper-room at one o'clock precisely.'"Chauvelin looked up at the clock just above the mantelpiece.
"Then I have plenty of time," he said placidly.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
She was pale as a statue, her hands were icy cold, her head and heart throbbed with the awful strain upon her nerves. Oh, this was cruel! cruel! What had she done to have deserved all this? Her choice was made: had she done a vile action or one that was sublime?
The recording angel, who writes in the book of gold, alone could give an answer.
"What are you going to do?" she repeated mechanically.
"Oh, nothing for the present. After that it will depend.""On what?"
"On whom I shall see in the supper-room at one o'clock precisely.""You will see the Scarlet Pimpernel, of course. But you do not know him.""No. But I shall presently."
"Sir Andrew will have warned him."
