There was a deathly silence in the little room. In her mind, Marianne was echoing Talleyrand's last words, seeking some sense in them other than the immediate, horrifying implication. She found none, and at last she found her voice to ask hoarsely, still trying not to believe what she had heard: 'Are you telling me that—'

'That Jason's wife has turned against him? Unfortunately, yes. The poor creature is crazed with jealousy and she believes unalterably that you are her husband's mistress. She admits no doubt of her husband's guilt. According to her, and no fury was ever more vehement, Beaufort would be capable of anything where you are concerned, even murder!'

'But – she is mad! Stark mad! Insane… this is the most criminal folly. After this, dare you look me in the face and tell me that she loves Jason?'

Talleyrand sighed again as he answered, in his old, cynical tone: 'Perhaps. You see, Marianne, she comes of a fierce and passionate race to whom a betrayal of love can be paid for only in blood, and an injured woman may deliver up her unfaithful lover unflinchingly to execution – and then wall herself up alive in some unrelenting nunnery to spend the remainder of her life in expiation. Yes, Pilar is a dangerous woman and, as ill luck will have it, she knows that Jason loves you. She knew you at the first glance.'

'Knew me? How could she? She had never seen me.'

'You think not? I gather the figurehead of the Sea Witch is more than a little like you. Some of these wood-carvers are very skilful, you know – and some husbands remarkably obtuse! But it may be that, knowing their stay was to be a brief one, Jason hoped that Pilar might never have occasion to meet you – or, if she did, might fail to recognize the resemblance.'

For a moment, Marianne stared at her old friend. She was wholly overcome by this unexpected proof of love and hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry, but in her heart she knew that she had never doubted Jason's love for her. She had always known that he loved her, even when she had driven him away from her that night at Selton, but this simple, almost childlike proof of it touched the deepest and most sensitive chord in her. To think that she had hated that ship, had thrown it at Jason's head continually that he had purchased it from the sale of Selton! And all the time he had made it, as it were, this unexpected extension of Marianne herself…

She rose quietly and Talleyrand made no move to stop her. He was not looking at her. He was sitting with his chin sunk in the immaculate folds of his neckcloth, absently tracing with the tip of his cane the primitive design of roses decorating the carpet.

A board creaked as Marianne moved to the window which opened on to a tiny balcony. She had picked up a blue shawl from a chair and hugged it round her shoulders. She felt chilled to the soul, despite the August heat of the sun, but when she leaned on the worn iron balcony rail she was not conscious of any warmth.

Outside, everything rejoiced in the tranquil beauty of a fine summer's day. From next door, young Charlotte's voice could be heard chanting in clear tones one of the rhyming games that children love. Farther off, by the pump, three women in blue skirts and flowered petticoats were chattering away to one another in the local patois, now and then bursting into shrieks of laughter. They wore the charming costume of the region with easy grace and their rosy faces glowed with happiness under their complicated double headdresses made up of a frilled cap surmounted by a coquettish little hat cocked up before and behind and known delightfully as 'à deux bonjours'. Some children were playing at quoits under a tree and the Prince of Benevento's grooms were leading the coach horses away to the stables, while in the distance could be seen a rather touchingly old-fashioned sedan chair with drawn curtains, conveying some invisible curiste to or from the baths. On all these things the sun poured down his golden beams. Only Marianne seemed excluded, and she wondered why, even in this scene of rural peace where everyone was happy, she should have to bear such a weight of grief and suffering. She had believed that she was pitted only against a handful of villains, the stupidity of the police and Napoleon's displeasure. Instead, she found herself at the centre of a vast and dangerous political intrigue in which neither she nor Jason counted for anything. It was rather as if she had been condemned to imprisonment for eternity and could look out at the world of the living only through the bars of a dungeon. Perhaps the truth was that she was not fashioned for such a world. The world to which she belonged was one of fury and violence that would not allow her to live in peace. It was to that world she must return.

She turned from the balcony and went quickly back to Talleyrand, who had been watching her attentively through half-closed eyes. She met his light blue gaze steadily:

'I am going back. I must see this woman, speak to her. I have to make her understand—'

'What? That you love her husband as much as he loves you? Do you really think that will make her change her mind? This Pilar is like a rock. Besides, you will not get near her. She has the whole of the Queen of Spain's guard to protect her, and if I know Julie Clary she will be only too delighted to play the queen for the benefit of the only one of her subjects who has ever asked for her assistance. At Mortefontaine, Pilar is surrounded, hemmed in by ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting who are more effective than any castle walls. She has asked never to be left alone and her request has been granted. No visitors. No messages even, unless they are addressed to the queen. Do you think,' Talleyrand said wearily, 'do you think I have not tried? I was politely shown the door. What chance would you have? Your reputation is, to say the least, unlikely to recommend you to those pious ladies!'

'Never mind. I shall go just the same… at night, in disguise… I'll climb the walls if I have to. But I must see Pilar! It is unthinkable that no one should try and make her see reason, make her realize that her attitude is sheer wickedness.'

'I believe her to be quite aware of that. She simply does not care. When Jason has paid for his crime, then she will expiate her own, that is all.'

'To her, the worst crime is to betray herself.' It was a new voice, speaking from the doorway. Marianne and the prince both turned at once and for the first time for many days, Marianne uttered a cry of pure joy:

'Jolival! At last.'

In her delight at seeing her faithful friend once again, she ran to him impulsively and flung both her arms round his neck and kissed him resoundingly on both cheeks like a little girl, heedless of the fact that the said cheeks had not seen a razor for two days and that Arcadius himself was quite dreadfully dirty.

'Eh, well!' The prince extended a hand to the new arrival. 'You could certainly not have come at a better moment. I was very nearly out of arguments to dissuade this young lady from indulging in the most precipitate piece of foolishness. She wishes to go back to Paris.'

'I know. I heard,' Jolival said gloomily, flinging himself down without ceremony in a chair which groaned under the shock. 'But she must not go back to Paris, for two reasons. The first is that her house is being closely watched. The Emperor knows her very well and he would rather make it impossible for her to disobey him than be obliged to punish her. The second is that her absence is the one thing which might serve to calm that Spanish woman's temper a little. Queen Julie must have put it to her that by sending his former favourite away, Napoleon is paying tribute to the virtue of Beaufort's wronged spouse.'

'Nothing—!' Marianne muttered grittily.

'Possibly. But your return, my dear, would unleash a pack of troubles. Monsieur Beaufort may be in prison but even there he is under close watch by his wife's friends, and in particular by one Don Alonzo Vasquez who seems to have heard something of the estates in Florida and to have ambitions to restore them to the Spanish flag.'

'Good heavens, Arcadius!' Marianne exclaimed. 'Wherever did you learn all this?'

'At Mortefontaine, my love, at Mortefontaine where I have been spying quite unblushingly on your foe while ostensibly engaged in pruning Queen Julie's roses, after a fashion. Yes, for your sake I have been the Queen of Spain's gardener for three whole days!'

Talleyrand smiled slightly. 'I suppose it did not occur to you that one does not prune roses in July, eh?'

'That was why I stayed no more than three days. The head gardener tired of my efforts and suggested I take my talents elsewhere for employment. But if you want to hear any more, for pity's sake give me a bath and a meal! I'm choked with heat and dust, and half-dead of hunger and thirst as well. I can't decide which to die of first.'

'I'll leave you,' Talleyrand said, getting to his feet, while Marianne hurried from the room to give orders. 'In any case, I have said all I came to say and I must go home.' He paused and added in a lowered tone: 'Have you any further news?'

Arcadius de Jolival shook his head sadly:

'Not much. The real murderers seem to have vanished into thin air. Not that I'm surprised at that. Fanchon is an old hand. She and her people must have done their work and gone to earth somewhere. As for the Englishman, he has disappeared so completely, whether to become the Vicomte d'Aubécourt or to assume some other identity, that it is easy to believe – as unfortunately it is believed – that he never existed outside our friend's imagination.' He sighed. 'Things are going badly… very badly.'

'Quiet. Here she comes. She is sufficiently unhappy as it is. Until later, then…'

An hour later, adequately washed and refreshed, Jolival was answering Marianne's questions. He told her that he had left Aix-la-Chapelle the moment he had received the letter which Fortunée Hamelin had pledged herself to deliver. Before the hour was out, he and Adelaide d'Asselnat were posting back to Paris.

'Adelaide came back with you?' Marianne said in surprise. 'Then why isn't she here?'

Then Jolival explained how, hearing of the troubles which had beset her young cousin, that elderly spinster had not hesitated for a moment. 'She needs me,' she had declared generously. 'I will go to her.' It seemed, also, that the fascination with the life of the mountebank which had led her to share for a while the existence of the clown Bobèche, was beginning to wear off. Aside from the somewhat doubtful charms of a career as a street player combined with that of a secret agent, Adelaide had finally come to recognize that a difference in age of more than ten years between herself and the object of her affections was a considerable handicap. It may well have been that a budding romance between Bobèche and a blooming flower-girl in the spa gardens at Aix had something to do with her new-found wisdom.

'Naturally,' Jolival said, 'she has returned a little disappointed, rather disenchanted and inclined to melancholy, but at heart I think she is quite pleased to get back to her own life again… and to French cooking. She was very fond of Bobèche but she does dislike sauerkraut! Besides, when you are in trouble, she thinks her place is with you. She is vastly proud of the fact that you are now a princess, by the way, although she would be torn in pieces before she admitted it.'

'But then, why did she not come with you?'

'Because she thinks she will be more useful to you in Paris than coming here to sympathize. Your people know about your exile and it is just as well that someone should be there to mind the house. That is something Mademoiselle Adelaide can do perfectly and everything is running quite smoothly there.'

The two friends talked on far into the night. There was so much they had to tell. Arcadius did not mean to make a long stay at Bourbon. It was his intention to return to Paris the next day and his visit was chiefly to inform Marianne of his return and assure her of his practical help. At the same time, he wanted to hear from her own lips a complete account of all that had happened, so that he could draw his own conclusions.

'I gather then,' he said, settling himself with half-closed eyes to the enjoyment of a glass of the old Armagnac which Talleyrand had sent round in the course of the evening, 'that neither Inspector Pâques nor Savary would listen to you when you tried to put the blame on your – on Lord Cranmere?'