Part 18 (2/2)

He went deliberately up to theand looked out into the night On the quay, a little to the left, the outdoor caht The people of France in arainst tyranny were allowed to put away their work for the day and to go to their ather rest in sleep for the h and brutal in theirthe women and children The little ones, weary, sleepy, and cold, seeing to her skirts; a soldier suddenly seized one of thehly in front of hiet it out of the way The woman struck at the soldier in a stupid, senseless, useless way, and then gathered her tre to look defiant

In a moment she was surrounded Two soldiers seized her, and two ed the children away from her She screamed and the children cried, the soldiers swore and struck out right and left with their bayonets

There was a general h oaths drowned the shouts of the helpless Some women, panic-stricken, started to run

And Blakeney froer saw the garden at Rich river, the bowers of roses; even the sweet face of Marguerite, sad and lonely, appeared dim and far away

He looked across the ice-bound river, past the quay where rough soldiers were brutalising a nuri here and there behind barred s told the sad tale of weary vigils, of watches through the night, when daould bring uerite's blue eyes that beckoned to him now, it was not her lips that called, but the wan face of a child with reasy forehead, and srime that had once been fondled by a Queen

The adventurer in him had chased away the dream

”While there is life in me I'll cheat those brutes of prey,” he murmured

CHAPTER XIII THEN EVERYTHING WAS DARK

The night that Ar about on a hard, narrow bed was theone he had ever passed in his life

A kind of fever ran through hi his teeth to chatter and the veins in his teht that they must burst

Physically he certainly was ill; thepassions had attacked his bodily strength, and whilst his brain and heart fought their battles together, his aching limbs found no repose

His love for Jeanne! His loyalty to the iance and is sees, until he felt that he could no longer lie on the s did duty for a bed

He rose long before daybreak, with tired back and burning eyes, but unconscious of any pain save that which tore at his heart

The weather, fortunately, was not quite so cold--a sudden and very rapid thaw had set in; and when after a hurried toilet Ared into the street, the mild south wind struck pleasantly on his face

It was then pitch dark The street lao, and the feeble January sun had not yet tinged with pale colour the heavy clouds that hung over the sky

The streets of the great city were absolutely deserted at this hour It lay, peaceful and still, wrapped in its , and Arhts of Montmartre, sank ankle deep in the mud of the road There was but scanty atte quarter of the town, and Ar on the uneven and intermittent stones that did duty for roads in these parts But this discoht--and one alone--was clear in his mind: he must see Jeanne before he left Paris

He did not pause to think how he could accomplish that at this hour of the day All he kneas that he must obey his chief, and that he must see Jeanne He would see her, explain to her that heher to ht ht away

He did not feel that he was being disloyal by trying to see Jeanne

He had thrown prudence to the winds, not realising that his imprudence would and did jeopardise, not only the success of his chief's plans, but also his life and that of his friends He had before parting frohbourhood of the Neuilly Gate at seven o'clock; it was only six now There was plenty of tie at the house of the Square du Roule, to see Jeanne for a few moments, to slip into Madame Belhomme's kitchen, and there into the labourer's clothes which he was carrying in the bundle under his arate at the appointed hour

The Square du Roule is shut off froates, which a few years ago, when the secluded little square was a fashi+onable quarter of the city, used to be kept closed at night, with a watchates had been rudely torn away from their sockets, the iron had been sold for the benefit of the ever-e, or the evil-doer found shelter under the porticoes of the houses, froht it wise to flee

No one challenged Arh the darkness was intense, he ed Madee

So far he had been wonderfully lucky The foolhardiness hich he had exposed his life and that of his friends by wandering about the streets of Paris at this hour without any atte one under his arm, had not met with the untoward fate which it undoubtedly deserved The darkness of the night and the thin sheet of rain as it fell had effectually wrapped his progress through the lonely streets in their beneficent loom; the soft mud below had drowned the echo of his footsteps If spies were on his track, as Jeanne had feared and Blakeney prophesied, he had certainly succeeded in evading them