Part 31 (1/2)

”Here,” said Blakeney, thrusting the piece of gold into the thin ser that a big, rough man took the letter away from you by force Now run, before I kick you out of the way”

The lad, terrified out of his poor wits, did not wait for further co the piece of gold Soon he had disappeared round the corner of the street

Blakeney did not at once read the paper; he thrust it quickly into his breeches pocket and slouched away slowly down the street, and thence across the Place du Carrousel, in the direction of his new lodgings in the Rue de l'Arcade

It was only when he found hi that he took the scrap of paper froh It said:

Percy, you cannot forgive ive myself, but if you only knehat I have suffered for the past two days you would, I think, try and forgive I aed What they ultimately mean to do withfor the power to end mine own miserable existence Percy! she is still in the hands of those fiends I saw the prison register; her na brand on my heart ever since She was still in prison the day that you left Paris; to-ht mayhap, they will try her, condeo to see you, for I would only be bringing spies to your door But will you coht, and the concierge is devoted to ht at ten o'clock she will leave the porte-cochere unlatched If you find it so, and if on the ledge of theiht, and beside it a scrap of paper with your initials S P traced on it, then it will be quite safe for you to co--a door on your right--that too I will leave on the latch But in the name of the woman you love best in all the world come at once to me then, and bear in mind, Percy, that the woman I love is threatened with immediate death, and that I aladly die even now but for the thought of Jeanne, who in the hands of those fiends For God's sake, Percy, remember that Jeanne is all the world to me

”Poor old Armand,” murmured Blakeney with a kindly smile directed at the absent friend, ”he won't trust me even now He won't trust his Jeanne in my hands Well,” he added after a while, ”after all, I would not entrust Marguerite to anybody else either”

CHAPTER XXIII THE OVERWHELMING ODDS

At half-past ten that sa, Blakeney, still clad in a workman's tattered clothes, his feet bare so that he could tread the streets unheard, turned into the Rue de la Croix Blanche

The porte-cochere of the house where Arht Peering cautiously round, he slipped into the house On the ledge of the , immediately on his left when he entered, a candle was left burning, and beside it there was a scrap of paper with the initials S P roughly traced in pencil No one challenged hilided past it, and up the narrow stairs that led to the upper floor Here, too, on the second landing the door on the right had been left on the latch He pushed it open and entered

As is usual even in the ave between the front door and the hted, but the door into the inner room beyond was ajar Blakeney approached it with noiseless tread, and gently pushed it open

That very instant he knew that the ga up behind hiainst the wall in the roouard over him

The next moment the room and the antechamber were literally alive with soldiers--twenty of them to arrest one man

It was characteristic of that man that when hands were laid on hihed ht-heartedly, and the first words that escaped his lips were:

”Well, I aainst you, Sir Percy,” said Chauvelin to hilish, whilst Heron at the further end of the roo like a contented beast

”By the Lord, sir,” said Percy with perfect sang-froid, ”I do believe that for the moment they are”

”Have done, ood-huainst overwhel odds Twenty to one, eh? I could lay four of you out easily enough, perhaps even six, but what then?”

But a kind of savage lust seemed to have rendered these ed on by Heron The lishman, about whom so many eerie tales were told! Well, he had supernatural powers, and twenty to oneto him if the devil was on his side Therefore a blow on his forear his right hand, and soon the left ar limp by his side Then he was bound with cords

The vein of luck had given out The gambler had staked more than usual and had lost; but he kne to lose, just as he had always knoin

”Those d--d brutes are trussing aiety at the last