Directly he heard the word: "Halt!" outside the door, he jumped to his
feet. The next moment Marguerite had entered the room.
Hardly had her foot crossed the threshold than Sir Percy rose, quietly and
without haste but evidently fully awake, and turning towards her, made
her a low obeisance.
She, poor woman, had of course caught sight of him at once. His
presence here, Chauvelin's demand for her reappearance, the soldiers in a
small compact group outside the door, all these were unmistakable
proofs that the awful cataclysm had at last occurred.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Percy Blakeney, her husband, was in the hands of
the Terrorists of France, and though face to face with her now, with an
open window close to him, and an apparently helpless enemy under his
hand, he could not--owing to the fiendish measures taken by Chauvelin--
raise a finger to save himself and her.
Mercifully for her, nature--in the face of this appalling tragedy --deprived
her of the full measure of her senses. She could move and speak and see,
she could hear and in a measure understand what was said, but she was
really an automaton or a sleep-walker, moving and speaking mechanically
and without due comprehension.
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