"
"And then you saw Armand again?"
"Yes. They told him that I was free. And he came here to see me.
He often comes; he will be here anon."
"But are you not afraid on his account and your own? He is--he
must be still--'suspect'; a well-known adherent of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, he would be safer out of Paris."
"No! oh, no! Armand is in no danger. He, too, has an unconditional
certificate of safety."
"An unconditional certificate of safety?" asked Marguerite, whilst
a deep frown of grave puzzlement appeared between her brows.
"What does that mean?
"It means that he is free to come and go as he likes; that neither
he nor I have anything to fear from Heron and his awful spies.
Oh! but for that sad and careworn look on Armand's face we could
be so happy; but he is so unlike himself. He is Armand and yet
another; his look at times quite frightens me."
"Yet you know why he is so sad," said Marguerite in a strange,
toneless voice which she seemed quite unable to control, for that
tonelessness came from a terrible sense of suffocation, of a
feeling as if her heart-strings were being gripped by huge, hard
hands.
"Yes, I know," said Jeanne half hesitatingly, as if knowing, she
was still unconvinced.
"His chief, his comrade, the friend of whom you speak, the Scarlet
Pimpernel, who risked his life in order to save yours,
mademoiselle, is a prisoner in the hands of those that hate him.
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