The Rising Storm

sundown. Come to me at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning at the Carmelites. Then we can make our plans.'

In a daze, Roger kissed her hand and watched her enter the Palace. Then he slowly turned away, walked back to La Belle Etoile, mechani­cally ate a solitary evening meal and went early to bed.

For a long time he lay there staring up at the ceiling. He recalled another occasion when he had lain in bed thinking about Isabella. That had been twelve and a half months ago, at a less comfortable inn, near Les Gobelins, on the far side of the Seine. He was then about to set out for Florence with Madame Marie Antoinette's letter, and he had barely made the acquaintance of the dark-browed Senorita d'Aranda.

How much had happened since then, the States General had not even met. Lettres de cachet were still issued for the imprisonment of people during His Majesty's pleasure; and there still existed a Bastille in which to confine them. The de Polignacs, the de Coignys; their High­nesses d'Artois, de Conde, de Conti, and a host of others had still danced and gambled in the splendid salons of Versailles. The treacherous Due d'Orleans had been the idol of the Paris mob; and none but a few rough seamen and Red Indians even knew of the existence of a place called Nootka Sound.

Roger had never then been to Avignon, Marseilles, Leghorn, Florence, Naples, Lisbon, Madrid or Aranjuez; and he recalled speculat­ing on whether, had Isabella been remaining at the Court of France, and they had entered on an affaire, he would have been able to make her his mistress. He had been inclined to think it most unlikely, because he believed her to be a serious, intense girl who, when she gave herself, would do so with great passion, but would bring herself to it only with a man with whom she hoped to share a lifelong love. Now he knew.

There was nothing to stop him leaving Paris next day for England. Mr. Pitt had not sent him to France and would certainly be much annoyed with him for having gone there. He had shot his bolt with the Queen in vain, and if he stayed on to enter into some almost hopeless intrigue with the deputies of the Extreme Left his master would have more cause for anger with him than ever. It would probably wreck his career for the second and last time.

Yet he knew that he was going to stay on; both because, having already adopted unorthodox means in the hope of being able to fulfil his mission, he would not give up the game as long as there was a card left in the pack; and because, since Isabella now felt her danger to be so acute as to have left her husband on account of it, and life for her held no future except with him, he could not possibly abandon her.

At eleven o'clock next morning she joined him in the visitors' parlour at the Carmelite Convent. It was a bare, sparsely furnished room, the antithesis of the surroundings that any couple would have chosen to make love in; and they did not attempt it.

After they had spent a few moments saying how happy they were to be reunited once more, Roger said: 'Tell me, my love, why you have sought this retreat. Have you recently had fresh evidence of your husband's intention to poison you?'

'Nay,' she shook her head. 'But circumstances have altered. Had I not pretended a sudden fit of religion during the last stages of our journey, and insisted that I must make a novena here immediately on my arrival in Paris, I might be dead by now.'

'I must confess to still having doubts that his intentions are so evil,' Roger told her. 'For the past month I have been racked with anxiety for your safety. My ultimate reasoning led me to conclude that if Don Diego meant to rid himself of you he would do so while you were travelling, preferably far from a town, at some small inn where the odds would have been all against any serious enquiry into your death being made. Moreover, had he done so he would then have reached Paris a free man, and been able to offer himself to the Lady Georgina before any question could arise of her leaving for England. Whereas now ...'

'No, you do not understand!' she cut him short. 'However black any man's thoughts, he would incline to put off so terrible a deed until the last extremity. Diego believed that Lady Etheredge was willing to spend several weeks in Paris. Perhaps she would have been, but for the fact that she is now pursued by a new admirer, and he an Englishman who is pressing her to return home in his company at an early date.'

'Who is he?' asked Roger with quick interest. 'And what type of man?'

'He is the Earl of St, Ermins; and he is young, rich and handsome. We met him at Tours. He was engaged on a leisurely progress round the historic chateaux of the Loire; but he abandoned it, and joining his coach to our cavalcade accompanied us on the last stages to Paris. Each day Diego became more green with jealousy. By the time we reached the capital he was near desperate. Had I lodged with him at the Spanish Embassy, I vow that within the next few days he would have taken any gamble to rid himself of me; so that he might declare himself, rather than see Lady Etheredge leave for England with his rival.'

'I will admit that puts a very different complexion on the matter,' Roger agreed. 'But, thank God, you will be safe from him here until I can make arrangements to take you away with me.'

She smiled. 'There is naught for which to wait, I saw Her Majesty last night, and she gave me every assurance in connection with Diego's mission that I could desire. I wrote him to that effect first thing this morning. Maria I had to leave behind at the Embassy, but I could send money to her and instructions how to join us later. Quetzal is here with me now, as I arranged for him to sleep in the gardener's lodge. There is at last, my dearest love, no reason left to prevent us taking the road to happiness together, tomorrow.'

'I fear there is still one,' he demurred. 'Having come to Paris, I took the opportunity yesterday to raise certain questions with the Govern­ment in connection with work upon which I am engaged; so I could hardly leave now without making some attempt to complete this business satisfactorily.'

'What is this work of yours?' she asked with a frown. 'You made only the vaguest references to it in Aranjuez, so the thought of it passed entirely from my mind until Quetzal caught us up in Madrid, and gave it as your reason for not joining us on the pretext I had suggested.'

'It is the agreement of certain navigational rights between several countries,' Roger replied quietly. 'For some time past I have been asked by my Government, when travelling here, and there, to settle such questions to the best of my ability.'

She shrugged. 'Surely such matters are of very minor importance.

Can you not take me to England without delay, and get your Govern­ment to instruct their Consul here to conclude the negotiations in your stead?'

'Seeing that I started the ball rolling myself, I fear that might be taken very ill. But I think my business will be settled one way or the other within the next few days. So we could get away by the end of the week.'

'Ah well,' she sighed. ' 'Tis a disappointment after the happy dreams I had last night; but since we have waited for one another for so long, and you require only so short a period, I will endeavour not to show too great an impatience.'

For the better part of two hours they talked of the retired but happy life they proposed to lead in England; then, as he was about to leave her, she asked when he would visit her again.

'In view of our projected elopement it might be unwise for us to court suspicion by my coming here too frequently,' he answered cautiously. 'Let us leave it till Wednesday. I will come in the morning at ten o'clock and, with luck, by then I shall be in a position to fix a time for our departure.'

When he had left her he was glad that he had not committed himself to a series of visits. He had found their long talk in that bare, cold room a considerable strain; but he hoped and believed that matters would be very different once they could get away, as there would be the excite­ment of the elopement and the brighter prospect of all the new interests of their life together.

That afternoon he went to the Spanish Embassy to call upon Georgina, but she was out, so he left a message that he would wait upon her the following morning. In the evening he went again to the Jacobins, and listened for four hours to the heated speeches of the members. The immediate crisis now seemed to have become submerged in the general question whether the right to make peace or war at any time should remain in the hands of the King; and the speakers of the Extreme Left were urging that he should be deprived of the power to do do by a clause in the new Constitution.

On the Monday morning at eleven o'clock Roger was shown up to the salon on the first floor of the Spanish Embassy. He found Georgina with her hostess, the Condesa Fernanunez, so for a while their con­versation had to remain impersonal. The war scare was naturally men­tioned and the Condesa complained unhappily about the situation of the Embassy. Unlike most of the great hotels in Paris, which were built round