A few days later in the luxurious apartment on the first floor of the episcopal palace Gabrielle Damiens was pacing up and down the floor like a hungry panther that has been cheated of its prey. Her dark hair, still innocent of grey, stood out all round her head in a crazy tangle, for she had been pulling at it with both hands whenever a fresh access of rage got beyond her control. Hoarse ejaculations found their way from time to time through her quivering lips. She would then pause by the centre table, pick up a bottle and pour some of its contents into a glass. The liquid was clear like water. But it was water only in name: eau de vie, water of life, Gabrielle drank it down at one gulp.

"The fools!" she muttered thickly after she had drunk; "the cowards!"

And then she went on: "If I had my way with them . . ."

"You would deprive the armies of the Republic of a number of good soldiers," a quiet voice here broke in. "Is that it?"

"Bah!" the woman retorted, "the armies have no use for cowards!"

The man who had spoken was sitting by the table, with elbows resting thereon. His long claw-like fingers were interlocked and made a support for his chin. He was a small spare man who would have appeared insignificant but for his pale, sunken eyes, which now and then flashed with a cold, glittering light like those of a cat on the prowl in the night. He was dressed in sober black and wore his dark hair tied at the nape of the neck with a black bow.

"It is not like you, Citizeness Damiens," he went on, with a sarcastic curl of his thin lips, "to brood over the past."

The woman shrugged.

"I would have liked to have the handling of that sergeant's head," she admitted.

"Of course you would," the man responded, with a note of irony in his even voice. He paused for a moment or two, his pale eyes fixed on Gabrielle and then went on coolly:

"But you would rather have the handling of the ci-devant Marquise de Saint-Lucque and her daughters. Am I not right?"

Gabrielle made no immediate response to this. She had come to a halt in the middle of the room with a half-filled glass of eau de vie in her hand, which she was on the point of conveying to her lips. At the name, Saint-Lucque, she suddenly became as if petrified. She stood absolutely still with the glass in her hand half-way up to her lips, rigid as a granite statue. Her face was entirely expressionless, like a death-mask, her eyes were entirely glassy, her lips were pressed tightly together. The man noted all this and smiled. It was a complacent, satisfied kind of smile, and his head nodded up and down once or twice.

"I am right, am I not, citizeness?" he reiterated after a moment or two.

Gabrielle drank down the eau de vie. Life appeared to come back into her eyes. She put the glass down and sank into a chair as if exhausted, passed her outspread fingers through her tousled hair, gave a deep sigh and said finally:

"Chauvelin, if you mention that woman again, I believe I should strangle you."

Chauvelin gave a dry chuckle.

"As bad as that, citizeness?" he queried.

"And worse," she retorted.

"And useless, shall we say?" the man went on flippantly. "My death would serve no purpose as far as you are concerned, and it would be good old Sanson of Paris who would have the handling of your handsome head."

He paused a moment, his pale eyes fixed on the woman as a snake fixes its eyes on the prey it covets. She said nothing either. Her mouth was set in a line of obstinacy and her eyes still glowered with fury. And so there was silence between these two, while up on the wall the old white-faced clock ticked away the seconds of time with irritating monotony. Chauvelin picked up a long quill, held it between two claw-like fingers and toyed with it, tap-tapping it against the table. He never took his eyes off her, noted every quiver of her over-strung nerves, and the power of his own self-control over her unruly temper. As soon as he was satisfied that he had obtained a certain mastery over her he resumed:

"Do not let us quarrel, citizeness," he said, with smooth urbanity, "or bandy empty threats. We have need of one another, you and I, as I will presently show you . . . if you will listen to me."

And as she still remained obstinately silent he added more insistently:

"Will you listen, citizeness?"

Whereupon she replied sullenly:

"I am listening. What is it you want?"

"Nothing but your attention for the moment."

"Well? Go on."

"I am about to give you sound advice, and I know that you do not usually take advice kindly. But will you make an exception in my favour, circumstances being what they are?"

"Well!" she rejoined with a shrug; "I sent for you, didn't I? It wasn't in order to get you to make love to me."

Chauvelin ignored the gibe and went on placidly:

"The escape of the three aristos through the agency of those damnable English spies is a nasty blow, not only for you personally, citizeness, but a blow to the prestige of all the local authorities of this province. That is so, is it not?"

As she gave no reply, he continued in the same suave, urbane tone:

"You will also admit, citizeness, that a repetition of such an incident would gravely compromise the reputation, not to say the lives of all the members of your local government."

He paused for a moment or two, and then added with ironic emphasis:

"Including yours, Mam'zelle Guillotine."

He no longer waited for her to speak. He could read the workings of her mind as he would an open book, knew that she cared for nothing at this moment, except the satisfaction of her vengeful hate, and that he would get nothing out of her until he had finally succeeded in persuading her that her interests and her desires were identical with his. And so he went on:

"That is why, citizeness, you and I must become allies--not enemies. Your one desire in life, now that Saint-Lucque himself has escaped you, is to bring the rest of the family--the wife and the two remaining children--to justice. My one aim so long as I have breath in my body left will be to lay the English spies and their chief, the Scarlet Pimpernel, by the heels."

Gabrielle gave a shrug. "Pshaw!" she muttered contemptuously. What cared she about Chauvelin's grudge against the English spies? Give her the Saint-Lucque woman and her two brats and let Chauvelin deal with that legendary Scarlet Pimpernel as best he could. She for one did not believe in his existence at all.

"I care nothing about your English spies," she said presently. "Give me the Saint-Lucque brood . . ."

"You'll never get them, citizeness," he retorted with firm emphasis, "while the Scarlet Pimpernel is alive."

"Bah!"

"Never!" he reiterated forcibly.

"Well! You have tried often enough to get him, my good man, and you have failed every time, haven't you?"

"I know it. The man is a genius. A devil, if you like. So far he has baffled me. I am willing to admit my many failures. But I'll not fail this time if you, citizeness, will help me."

Gabrielle broke into a loud, prolonged, mirthless laugh.

"So that's it, is it?" she rapped out harshly. "I am to be the tool of your selfish intrigues."

She jumped to her feet, and brought her clenched fist banging down upon the table.

"It is not for me," she went on, hurling vituperation upon vituperation on the silent, smooth-tongued man, who sat quietly by allowing the flood of her wrath to pass unchallenged over his head: "it is not for me and my just cause that your are setting your crooked mind at work. Allies indeed! Friends! You care nothing for the punishment of traitors like that Saint-Lucques brood; all you think of is your petty revenge on the man who has made a fool of you, that creature of your own imagination--the Scarlet Pimpernel."

She sank back into the chair, pausing for want of breath, for she had gradually raised her voice to a strident pitch, screaming at Chauvelin, who for once in his life was completely dumbfounded. He had not expected this outburst, had apparently not read quite deeply enough into the workings of this half-demented woman's mind, a woman whom, by the way, he heartily despised but whom he believed to have so completely mastered that she would be as putty in his hands. In point of fact, she was right when she said that he cared nothing about the Saint-Lucque women, except as a means to his ends. It was the Scarlet Pimpernel he wanted to destroy and he had set his brain to work to devise a trap into which that chivalrous dandy would be fated to fall.

For the moment, however, he allowed the full flood of Gabrielle's vituperations to flow unchecked over his head. He was not the man to be intimidated by the fury of any woman, not even of this one who had the reputation of always getting the better of those who were bold enough to oppose her. He remained silent for the moment, with pale eyes fixed upon the irate harpy, his long, thin fingers drumming a tattoo upon the table-top. Soon, however, a thin, sarcastic smile curled around his lips, and when Gabrielle came to a halt, panting with exhaustion, he put in calmly;

"Are you not rather unjust towards me now, citizeness? You accuse me of scheming for the destruction of the Scarlet Pimpernel rather than for the punishment of three aristos. But let me remind you that while that audacious spy and his accursed league are at large they will never allow the Saint-Lucque women to be tried and condemned either here or in Paris. Never! They will plan their rescue, wherever they may be, and they will succeed in snatching them from under your nose, whatever you may do, even from the very steps of your guillotine."

He paused, letting his words sink into the woman's consciousness, and he had the satisfaction of noting that comprehension of his point of view did gradually filtrate into her mind. The look of rage slowly faded out of her eyes and her breath came and went more slowly through her parted lips. Presently she said with amazing calm:

"Yes! I see what you mean, and I dare say you are right. It would be the death of me if those women slipped through my fingers in the end."

"They won't," Chauvelin rejoined decisively, "once you have those English spies out of the way, and do not forget, citizeness, that the capture and death of the Scarlet Pimpernel will be a political event of the first magnitude and that you will reap as rich a reward as has ever been bestowed on any man or woman before."

He could no longer be in doubt now that he held her attention. Her expressive face showed plainly that she was listening, listening eagerly, and that it rested with him to hold her attention to the end and to force his will upon her. His will! She must bow to it. She must! His plan was so fine, so perfect! So certain of success. But he must have her co-operation. Without it he could not succeed. What a humiliation for this master-sleuth, this incomparable tracker of spies, to see himself dependent on a woman's whim for what meant his whole future, probably his life!

Ah, well! Ends had justified the means in many intrigues before now. Mentally, Chauvelin had counted his cards and could well be satisfied that he held the ace of trumps. Leaning well forward, with forearms resting on the table and hands clasped, he took as it were a final survey of this woman on whom so much depended. She sat opposite to him, lounging in an armchair, one leg crossed over the other, her hands thrust in the pockets of her breeches. She was the first to speak.

"Well!" she said, "what about that wonderful scheme of yours? Your tongue does not seem to be as glib as usual, I am thinking."

"I want to put the matter as briefly as I can before you, citizeness," Chauvelin gave answer; "but first of all, tell me, do you know where the Saint-Lucque women are hiding?"

"No, I don't," she replied curtly.

"Why not?"

"Because I am surrounded by fools and cowards, traitors I call them. . . . The committee and their sleuths are all alike. . . . Dolts, I tell you."

"Obviously then, if your own people cannot track those aristos we have got to find someone who can."

"I won't have a stranger meddling here, you know," Gabrielle snapped out quickly; "I sent for you because it is you I want. Why cannot you . . .?"

Chauvelin gravely shook his head.

"Impossible, citizeness."

"Why?"

"I have been summoned back to Paris, and I must return immediately. It is a matter connected with the arrest of a ci-devant sewing-maid who was intimately acquainted with the Capet family. The Committee of Public Safety fear the intervention of the English spies on her behalf. They have sent for me," he reiterated solemnly, "and I must go."

"I can arrange that," she retorted with her usual arrogance.

He shook his head once again.

"It would be the guillotine for us both," he rejoined, "if owning to any failure on my part or to any interference from you, the ci-devant sewing-maid were spirited away by the Scarlet Pimpernel."

He gave a short dry laugh and added:

"I don't know what you feel about it, citizeness, but there are one or two things I want to do before my unworthy head rolls into old Sanson's basket."

Gabrielle swore under her breath.

"I hate strangers," she reasserted, muttering hoarsely through her teeth: "I will not have a stranger here."

"The man I have in my mind, citizeness, is one of the finest trackers of aristos in the country."

"I hate strangers," she reiterated sullenly.

"Yet, you admit that you cannot trust your own spies to track the Saint-Lucque women to their hiding-place."

Gabrielle gave no reply to that and for a few minutes there was absolute silence in this room where two minds were busy scheming for the death of a helpless woman and her innocent children. Absolute silence, but the white-faced clock ticked on marking the passage of time towards eternity.

"What's the man's name?" Gabrielle queried at last.

"André Renaud, one of the ablest men on the staff of the Chief Commissariat in Paris," was Chauvelin's glib answer.

"And you are sure," she insisted, "that he can run that hateful brood to earth?"

"Quite sure. He will bring his own subordinates with him and within three days you will know where the three women are in hiding."

"And twenty-four hours later we have them under lock and key," she concluded with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Ready for conveyance to Paris. . . ."

But Gabrielle wouldn't have that.

"Don't be a fool, Chauvelin," she snapped out at him; "haven't I told you that I want the handling of those three cursed women myself. Isn't my guillotine good enough for that vermin? I tell you I will not have them sent to Paris."

"And they won't be. Not all the way, at any rate."

"I don't understand what you mean by 'not all the way.' I wish you wouldn't talk in riddles."

"It is quite simple, citizeness. As soon as the aristos are under arrest, let the fact be bruited abroad far and wide. The ci-devant Saint-Lucques are, I understand, very well known in the province and their arrest is sure to cause a sensation. In fact the greater the sensation the better it will suit my . . . our plan. After that let it be also known that the three women will be conveyed to Paris on a given day, for trial and summary condemnation. Surely you can guess what will inevitably follow?"

"You mean that the English spies . . .?"

"Exactly. Flushed with their recent success, they will at once be on the warpath, devising a plan for the rescue of these so-called innocent victims of our wicked revolution."

"Go on, man! Go on! I am getting interested."

"For the journey to Paris--do not interrupt me again I pray you--you must choose just such another day as served the English spies so well in the case of the other Saint-Lucques and the priest--you want a mist or thin drizzle, lashing wind or driven rain. Do not have too big an escort: four to six men will suffice. Having settled on the day you will have a diligence ready in the earliest dawn shuttered so that no one can get so much as a peep into the interior."

"You don't want the crowd to see the prisoners inside the coach?"

"The prisoners will not be in the coach, citizeness."

"What do you mean? . . . not in the coach?"

"In the coach, citizeness, there will be a half a dozen picked men of your own local gendarmerie armed with pistols, ready to meet the surprise attack, which those English spies will of a certainty have engineered for the rescue of the aristos."

Gabrielle now was sitting quite still, with elbows on the table, her head resting against her hand. Her eyes were aglow gazing straight out before her as if she were already seeing a vision of the drama which Chauvelin had so graphically foreshadowed.

"I see it all," she murmured after a minute or two.

"You can rely on the Chief Commissary here, I suppose," Chauvelin added.

"He is my friend," she replied curtly; "he will do what I want."

"That's good, as we must have his co-operation. Will you tell him to order the driver, who had best be a trained soldier, to arrange a breakdown at twilight on the loneliest bit of road in the forest."

"That's simple enough as you say, providing . . ."

"Providing what?" Chauvelin threw a quick anxious glance at Gabrielle. Her manner had suddenly undergone a change. A moment ago her enthusiasm had seemed at fever-pitch. The scheme was grand and certain of success. She saw it all in a series of mental visions. The coach coming to a halt, the spies on the watch. The sudden attack on the diligence filled with stalwarts armed to the teeth. Yes! armed to the teeth. Six to one or more. All very well, providing they had to deal with an ordinary human being, say an eccentric Englishman. Or the usual type of adventurous spy, out for money or promotion. But this man--this legendary creature with his impenetrable anonymity--the Scarlet Pimpernel . . .

Instinctively she shrugged, obviously in doubt, her expressive face showing an inkling almost of fear. Chauvelin was sharp enough to note all this. Her doubts, her fears, and the reason for both. He gave a harsh mocking laugh and said in direct answer to her thoughts:

"Those misgivings which I can see have reared their ugly heads in your mind are unworthy of you, citizeness. I know that people in this country have talked of the Scarlet Pimpernel as if he were some kind of superhuman being bearing a charmed life, and those fools over in England are inclined to foster that belief. Now I know the man. I have seen him and spoken with him and I give you my word that there is nothing unearthly about him except his unfailing luck and . . . well, yes! . . . his physical courage. But let me assure you once more, citizeness, that the aristos whom you hate will never be sent to the guillotine while the Scarlet Pimpernel is alive. Never."

Chauvelin had risen from the table while he gave Gabrielle this assurance. She made no movement while he picked up his hat and cape and made a move towards the door, but he was quite shrewd enough to note that at last his solemn words of warning had their desired effect. His hand had already hold of the latch when she spoke abruptly:

"Where are you going, Chauvelin?"

"To interview the Chief Commissary of your section . . . with your permission that is . . . By the way, what is his name?"

"Lescar."

"Well! I'll go and have a talk with Citizen Lescar. I shan't have the same difficulty with him as I had with you, citizeness," he went on with a wry smile. "There is a reward of ten thousand livres for the capture of the Scarlet Pimpernel, if taken alive. The largest share of that will go to the Chief Commissary of the district in which the capture has taken place. I imagine that our friend Lescar will not be lacking in zeal."

"No," Gabrielle returned with a mocking laugh; "money is the goad which moves you all."

"Perhaps," Chauvelin was willing to admit. After which he asked: "Is there anything else you wish me to do, citizeness?"

"No," she replied at first and then said: "Yes!"

"At your service, citizeness."

"You can tell those dolts up in Paris to send their sleuth down at once. We'll see what he can do."