Barely another thirty seconds had elapsed between the moment when Lord Hastings slipped the mysterious “something” into Sir Andrew’s hand, and the one when she, in her turn, reached the deserted boudoir. Sir Andrew was standing with his back to her and close to a table upon which stood a massive silver candelabra. A slip of paper was in his hand, and he was in the very act of perusing its contents.

Unperceived, her soft clinging robe making not the slightest sound upon the heavy carpet, not daring to breathe until she had accomplished her purpose, Marguerite slipped close behind him. … At that moment he looked round and saw her; she uttered a groan, passed her hand across her forehead, and murmured faintly:

“The heat in the room was terrible … I felt so faint … Ah! … ”

She tottered almost as if she would fall, and Sir Andrew, quickly recovering himself, and crumpling in his hand the tiny note he had been reading, was only, apparently, just in time to support her.

“You are ill, Lady Blakeney?” he asked with much concern. “Let me … ”

“No, no, nothing—” she interrupted quickly. “A chair—quick.”

She sank into a chair close to the table, and throwing back her head, closed her eyes.

“There!” she murmured, still faintly; “the giddiness is passing off … Do not heed me, Sir Andrew; I assure you I already feel better.”

At moments like these there is no doubt—and psychologists actually assert it—that there is in us a sense which has absolutely nothing to do with the other five: it is not that we see, it is not that we hear or touch, yet we seem to do all three at once. Marguerite sat there with her eyes apparently closed. Sir Andrew was immediately behind her, and on her right was the table with the five-armed candelabra upon it. Before her mental vision there was absolutely nothing but Armand’s face. Armand, whose life was in the most imminent danger, and who seemed to be looking at her from a background upon which were dimly painted the seething crowd of Paris, the bare walls of the Tribunal of Public Safety, with Foucquier-Tinville, the Public Prosecutor, demanding Armand’s life in the name of the people of France, and the lurid guillotine with its stained knife waiting for another victim … Armand! …

For one moment there was dead silence in the little boudoir. Beyond, from the brilliant ball-room, the sweet notes of the gavotte, the frou-frou of rich dresses, the talk and laughter of a large and merry crowd, came as a strange, weird accompaniment to the drama which was being enacted here.

Sir Andrew had not uttered another word. Then it was that that extra sense became potent in Marguerite Blakeney. She could not see, for her eyes were closed, she could not hear, for the noise from the ball- room drowned the soft rustle of that momentous scrap of paper; nevertheless she knew—as if she had both seen and heard—that Sir Andrew was even now holding the paper to the flame of one of the candles.

At the exact moment that it began to catch fire, she opened her eyes, raised her hand and, with two dainty fingers, had taken the burning scrap of paper from the young man’s hand. Then she blew out the flame, and held the paper to her nostril with perfect unconcern.

“How thoughtful of you, Sir Andrew,” she said gaily, “surely ’twas your grandmother who taught you that the smell of burnt paper was a sovereign remedy against giddiness.”

She sighed with satisfaction, holding the paper tightly between her jewelled fingers; that talisman which perhaps would save her brother Armand’s life. Sir Andrew was staring at her, too dazed for the moment to realise what had actually happened; he had been taken so completely by surprise, that he seemed quite unable to grasp the fact that the slip of paper, which she held in her dainty hand, was one perhaps on which the life of his comrade might depend.