Cyr bore fruit within
twenty-four hours. He was arrested. His papers were searched:
letters from the Austrian Emperor, promising to send troops against
the Paris populace, were found in his desk. He was arraigned for
treason against the nation, and sent to the guillotine, whilst his
family, his wife and his sons, shared in this awful fate.
Marguerite, horrified at the terrible consequences of her own
thoughtlessness, was powerless to save the Marquis: his own coterie,
the leaders of the revolutionary movement, all proclaimed her as a
heroine: and when she married Sir Percy Blakeney, she did not perhaps
altogether realise how severely he would look upon the sin, which she
had so inadvertently committed, and which still lay heavily upon her
soul. She made full confession of it to her husband, trusting his
blind love for her, her boundless power over him, to soon make him
forget what might have sounded unpleasant to an English ear.
Certainly at the moment he seemed to take it very quietly;
hardly, in fact, did he appear to understand the meaning of all she
said; but what was more certain still, was that never after that could
she detect the slightest sign of that love, which she once believed
had been wholly hers.
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