Whether Chauvelin heard all these jeremiads, he could not afterwards
have told you. But he did not need to be told how it had all been done.
It had all been so simple, so ingenious, so like the methods usually
adopted by that astute Scarlet Pimpernel! He saw it all so clearly
before him. Nobody was to blame really, save he himself--he, who alone
knew and understood the adversary with whom he had to deal.

But these people here should not have the gratuitous spectacle of a man
enduring the torments of disappointment and of baffled revenge. Whatever
Chauvelin was suffering now would for ever remain the secret of his own
soul. Anon, when the Leridans' rasping voices died away in one of the
more distant portions of the house and the men of the Surete were busy
accepting refreshment and gratuity from the two terrified wretches, he
had put down the candle with a steady hand and then walked with a firm
step out of the house.

Soon the slender figure was swallowed up in the gloom as he strode back
rapidly towards the city.

XII

Citizen Fouquier-Tinville had returned home from the Palais at a very
late hour that same evening. His household in his simple lodgings in the
Place Dauphine was already abed: his wife and the twins were asleep. He
himself had sat down for a moment in the living-room, in dressing-gown
and slippers, and with the late edition of the Moniteur in his hand, too
tired to read.

It was half-past ten when there came a ring at the front door bell.