Zounds! but we'll give them an exciting chase this time....

Nay! little woman, do not fear!" he said with sudden infinite gentleness, "those demmed murderers have not got me yet." Oh! how often she had fought with him thus: with him, the adventurer, the part of his dual nature that was her bitter enemy, and which took him, the lover, away from her side.

She knew so well the finality of it all, the amazing hold which that unconquerable desire for these mad adventures had upon him.

Impulsive, ardent as she was, Marguerite felt in her very soul an overwhelming fury against herself for her own weakness, her own powerlessness in the face of that which forever threatened to ruin her life and her happiness.
Yes! and his also! for he loved her! he loved her! he loved her! the thought went on hammering in her mind, for she knew of its great truth! He loved her and went away! And she, poor, puny weakling, was unable to hold him back; the tendrils which fastened his soul to hers were not so tenacious as those which made him cling to suffering humanity, over there in France, where men and women were in fear of death and torture, and looked upon the elusive and mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel as a heaven-born hero sent to save them from their doom.

To them at these times his very heartstrings seemed to turn with unconquerable force, and when, with all the ardour of her own passion, she tried to play upon the cords of his love for her, he could not respond, for they--the strangers--had the stronger claim.
And yet through it all she knew that this love of humanity, this mad desire to serve and to help, in no way detracted from his love for her.
Nay, it intensified it, made it purer and better, adding to the joy of perfect intercourse the poetic and subtle fragrance of ever-recurring pain.
But now at last she felt weary of the fight: her heart was aching, bruised and sore.