"Faith, Madame, I would like you to find it then . . . as for me, I
vow, I love the game, for this is the finest sport I have yet
encountered.--Hair-breath escapes . . . the devil's own risks!--Tally
ho!--and away we go!"

But the Comtesse shook her head, still incredulously. To her it seemed
preposterous that these young men and their great leader, all of them
rich, probably wellborn, and young, should for no other motive than
sport, run the terrible risks, which she knew they were constantly
doing. Their nationality, once they had set foot in France, would be
no safeguard to them. Anyone found harbouring or assisting suspected
royalists would be ruthlessly condemned and summarily executed, whatever
his nationality might be. And this band of young Englishmen had, to her
own knowledge, bearded the implacable and bloodthirsty tribunal of the
Revolution, within the very walls of Paris itself, and had snatched away
condemned victims, almost from the very foot of the guillotine. With a
shudder, she recalled the events of the last few days, her escape from
Paris with her two children, all three of them hidden beneath the hood
of a rickety cart, and lying amidst a heap of turnips and cabbages, not
daring to breathe, whilst the mob howled, "A la lanterne les aristos!"
at the awful West Barricade.

It had all occurred in such a miraculous way; she and her husband had
understood that they had been placed on the list of "suspected persons,"
which meant that their trial and death were but a matter of days--of
hours, perhaps.

Then came the hope of salvation; the mysterious epistle, signed with
the enigmatical scarlet device; the clear, peremptory directions; the
parting from the Comte de Tournay, which had torn the poor wife's heart