"A tall Englishman had a long conversation about three-quarters of an hour ago with a Jew, Reuben by name, who lives not ten paces from here.""Yes--and?" queried Chauvelin, impatiently.
"The conversation was all about a horse and cart, which the tall Englishman wished to hire, and which was to have been ready for him by eleven o'clock.""It is past that now. Where does that Reuben live?""A few minutes' walk from this door."
"Send one of the men to find out if the stranger has driven off in Reuben's cart.""Yes, citoyen."
Desgas went to give the necessary orders to one of the men.
Not a word of this conversation between him and Chauvelin had escaped Marguerite, and every word they had spoken seemed to strike at her heart, with terrible hopelessness and dark foreboding.
She had come all this way, and with such high hopes and firm determination to help her husband, and so far she had been able to do nothing, but to watch, with a heart breaking with anguish, the meshes of the deadly net closing round the daring Scarlet Pimpernel.
