The Elusive Pimpernel

It was a mere flash! One of memory’s swiftly effaced pictures, when she shows us for the fraction of a second indelible pictures from out our past. Chauvelin, in that same second, while his own eyes were closed and Robespierre’s fixed upon him, also saw the lonely cliffs of Calais, heard the same voice singing God save the King! the volley of musketry, the despairing cries of Marguerite Blakeney; and once again he felt the keen and bitter pang of complete humiliation and defeat.