The doubtful passport was obviously put on one side for further examination, and the unfortunate owner thereof detained, until he or she had been able to give more satisfactory references to the representatives of the Committee of Public Safety, stationed at Boulogne.
This process of examination necessarily took a long time.

Marguerite was getting horribly tired, her feet ached and she scarcely could hold herself upright: yet she watched all these people mechanically, making absurd little guesses in her weary mind as to whose passport would find favour in the eyes of the official, and whose would be found suspect and inadequate.
Suspect! a terrible word these times! since Merlin's terrible law decreed now that every man, woman or child, who was suspected by the Republic of being a traitor was a traitor in fact.
How sorry she felt for those whose passports were detained: who tried to argue--so needlessly!--and who were finally led off by a soldier, who had stepped out from somewhere in the dark, and had to await further examination, probably imprisonment and often death.
As to herself, she felt quite safe: the passport given to her by Chauvelin's own accomplice was sure to be quite en regle.
Then suddenly her heart seemed to give a sudden leap and then to stop in its beating for a second or two.

In one of the passengers, a man who was just passing in front of the tent, she had recognized the form and profile of Chauvelin.
He had no passport to show, but evidently the official knew who he was, for he stood up and saluted, and listened deferentially whilst the ex-ambassador apparently gave him a few instructions.

It seemed to Marguerite that these instructions related to two women who were close behind Chauvelin at the time, and who presently seemed to file past without going through the usual formalities of showing their passports.
But of this she could not be quite sure.

The women were closely hooded and veiled and her own attention had been completely absorbed by this sudden appearance of her deadly enemy.
Yet what more natural than that Chauvelin should be here now?
His object accomplished, he had no doubt posted to Dover, just as she had done.
There was no difficulty in that, and a man of his type and importance would always have unlimited means and money at his command to accomplish any journey he might desire to undertake.
There was nothing strange or even unexpected in the man's presence here; and yet somehow it had made the whole, awful reality more tangible, more wholly unforgettable.