or to England would not probably matter much.
But the next moment the smile had given way to a look of genuine alarm. "There is a woman in the passport," cried the Prefect. "He is running his head into the noose!"
"He said he would manage," replied Agnes, paling.
"Manage! His only chance lies in a hurried passage through the custom-house. If he is stopped, if inquiries are made—well, you know as well as I!"
Yes, she knew.
"The whole thing is madness," continued the Prefect. "The danger he affronts is enormous. He must be stopped. The boat will not sail much before midnight. I must send one of your brothers after him to recover the passport and bring him back."
She stood thinking.
"I will send Felix!" said the Prefect, deliberately, and moved towards the door. She looked up. "Let me go too!"
"Why, what use would you be?"
"I think I might persuade him," she answered, blushing, "to do what is best."
He gazed at her. "Perhaps," he said. "By all means let him go to Russia. I don't believe in his delicate health."
So it was settled. Half an hour later the brother and sister were driving along the road towards Haarlem, the young fellow much pleased with the importance of his rôle in this adventure, the young girl pensive, with a project in the depths of her eyes.
They did not converse much, for she answered in monosyllables. Half-way a slight mishap to the harness delayed them. Night had fallen, cold and windy, when they drove into the desolate and dimly lighted streets of Amsterdam.
"Trust me to find him, wherever he is," Felix had boasted; but his perspicacity was not called into account, for when the carriage drove up to the Doelen Hotel, one of the first things they noticed in alighting was a large trunk with Floris's name on it standing near the door. They learned that the Heer van der Hoist was staying in the house, but had gone out, declaring his intention to return for supper. They stared at each other and at the trunk. Was it possible that he had abandoned his idea of flight, having found it impracticable? Agnes asked to be conducted to a private room and to be immediately apprised of his return. Her brother went to hunt for him.
Meanwhile Floris and the French girl had experienced a terrible end to the first stage of their journey. For Marguerite had been taken ill within half a league of the city gates, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the travellers had reached the hotel. She now lay in a bedroom there, suffering less, but still miserably weak. But the pain of her body dwindled beneath the distress of her mind. For all continuation of the journey was utterly out of the question. And the boat—Floris's last chance of escape—would sail within a couple of hours.
"What is that?" she asked, lifting up her face in alarm, from dull misery, as noises and voices became audible in the passage and the adjoining apartment.
A chambermaid was with her—a fat woman, full of motherly advice and commiseration. "A new arrival,", said the woman, and went out to reconnoitre. She came back with satisfactory information. It was only a sweet young lady, evidently of the higher classes, all by herself, probably not come to stay the night, as she had no luggage with her, only a reticule.
The girl, left to herself, lay thinking in the darkness. The steps of her neighbor could be heard for some time pacing restlessly to and fro. Then all was silence. Marguerite, in the stillness of the hour, rose up painfully on her couch. She stretched out her hand, with sudden resolve, to the bell, and rang it loud, like a challenge. The woman, who had promised to remain within call, appeared at once.
"So?" said the woman, her face all abeam with interest.
"Tell me of this lady in the next room," replied Marguerite. "Tell me immediately. She is Dutch, you say—not French?"
"Dutch, every inch of her; a sweet, high-born lady, as any one can see."
"Young? Kind-looking?"
"All kindness and goodness and sweetness and youth," said the tender-hearted chambermaid. "'I wouldn't trouble you,' she says twice in one minute. No, nor she wouldn't trouble a flea."
