Now you see how simple it all
is, citoyenne!"
"It does seem simple, doesn't it?" she said, with a final
bitter attempt at flippancy, "when you want to kill a chicken. . .you
take hold of it. . .then you wring its neck. . .it's only the chicken
who does not find it quite so simple. Now you hold a knife at my
throat, and a hostage for my obedience. . . . You find it
simple. . . . I don't."
"Nay, citoyenne, I offer you a chance of saving the brother
you love from the consequences of his own folly."
Marguerite's face softened, her eyes at last grew moist, as
she murmured, half to herself:
"The only being in the world who has loved me truly and
constantly. . . . But what do you want me to do, Chauvelin?" she
said, with a world of despair in her tear-choked voice. "In my
present position, it is well-nigh impossible!"
"Nay, citoyenne," he said drily and relentlessly, not heeding
that despairing, childlike appeal, which might have melted a heart of
stone, "as Lady Blakeney, no one suspects you, and with your help
to-night I may--who knows?--succeed in finally establishing the
identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel.
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