And escorted almost respectfully by the keeper, the strange prisoner, apparently very much at home, departed from the cell to go and sup with his gaoler as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

'Well!' said Marianne, recovering from her astounded contemplation of this exit. 'Who is that man?'

'He told you,' Jason said, folding her in his arms again. 'He is an habitual felon, always escaping and as often returning, what they call here an old lag.'

'Is he – a murderer?'

'No, a thief merely. I am the murderer here,' Jason said wryly. 'He's a curious fellow, but I owe him my life.'

'You do?'

'Yes, indeed! You don't know this prison. It is a hell inhabited by demons, a sink of all that is base and cruel and ugly, where the law of the strongest prevails. I was a stranger – well dressed, which was enough to make them take me in dislike. I should have been a dead man beyond a doubt if François had not taken me under his protection. He is a great man hereabouts, and he has the trick of taming these ravening beasts. That poor devil sleeping over there has him to thank that he is still alive. It's a grand thing to be a master of escape. Even the turnkeys respect him – as you've seen!'

Marianne understood the danger which had threatened Jason on his first arrival at La Force better than he could have known. She herself retained vivid memories of the one night she had spent in the prison of St Lazare and from time to time in her dreams she still saw the leering face of the woman known as La Tricoteuse who had tried to kill her only because she was young and beautiful. She saw the yellow eyes and evil grin, and the horrible skill with which the creature had wielded her clumsy knife.

Just then, the black bundle which was an abbe stirred suddenly on his pallet bed and sat up with a smothered shriek. Marianne could see a gaunt, raggedly bearded face and eyes that looked at her with staring terror.

'Tranquilo,' Jason murmured quickly. 'Es un'amiga.'

The abbé's head nodded and with a sigh he turned his back on the young people and lay down again obediently.

'There,' Jason said comfortably. 'He'll not move again. He has very nice manners. Now let's forget him. Come and sit by me, let me look at you. You are so lovely! No, don't speak!'

He led her to a kind of plank bed covered with a moth-eaten rug and made her sit down, all without taking his eyes from her. If the truth were told, there was little in Marianne's modest print gown, made high to the throat, which was the most countrified thing she had been able to find in her wardrobe, to justify his enthusiasm, yet even in her most fairytale dresses, her most fabulous jewels, Jason had never looked at her like this. It was miraculous and yet at the same time oddly disturbing, so disturbing that Marianne found herself withdrawing a little. She kissed his unshaven cheek lightly:

'Yes but I have come to talk, and we have so little time—'

'No. Hush now. I don't want to waste these moments in talk. They may never come again – and I have prayed so hard just to see you again – if only once!'

He buried his head in her neck but, thoroughly alarmed now, she pushed him away.

'What do you mean? Why may we never meet again? Your trial—'

'I have no illusions about my trial,' Jason said, with a degree of patience he was far from feeling. 'I shall be found guilty and condemned—'

'But – oh, no – not to—' She could not bring herself to say the words which, in this prison setting, had acquired a horrible reality. But Jason nodded:

'Very possibly – even probably. No, be quiet.' His hand came quickly over her lips, checking her fierce protest. 'It is always best to look things in the face. All the evidence is against me. Unless the real culprit is found, which is highly unlikely, the judges will find me guilty. I know that.'

'But this is fantastic! Insane! Jason, all is not yet lost! Arcadius has gone to Aix, to make Fouché give evidence. Fouché can tell how matters stood between myself and Black Fish!'

'But he cannot state positively that I did not kill him. Look, this business is the outcome of a political plot. And I am caught in the toils.'

'Then your ambassador must defend you!'

'He will not. He has told me so himself, Marianne, here in this very prison, because to do so would be a sure way of bringing about the ruin of the present negotiations between President Madison and France to get the decrees concerning the Continental Blockade revoked where America is concerned. It is all very complicated—'

'No,' Marianne broke in, desperately. 'I know. Talleyrand told me all about the Berlin and Milan decrees.'

'God bless him, then,' Jason said, with his crooked smile. 'Well, France's conditions are these: that my country must persuade England, with whom we are not on the best of terms, to revoke what are called the "orders in council", in other words, the English retort to the decrees. And the first condition, naturally, is that the United States shall make no move to interfere with the course of justice so far as I am concerned – this affair of the forged notes is too serious. Cadore has said as much in a note to Armstrong. Armstrong is sorry – but there is nothing he can do. He is almost as much a prisoner as I am. Do you see?'

'No,' Marianne persisted stubbornly. 'I shall never see why they have to sacrifice you – because that is what they are doing, isn't it?'

'Yes, it is. But when you think that my country is prepared to go to war with England as a proof of good faith to Napoleon if the orders in council are not rescinded, you can imagine that my own life matters very little. Nor would I wish it to. You see, my love… we must all serve as we can – and I love my country above all things.'

'More than me, even?' Marianne said quietly, on the verge of tears.

Jason did not answer. Instead, his arms tightened round her and he sought her lips again. His heart was hammering so hard that Marianne seemed to feel it beating in her own breast. She felt the shuddering of his whole body and she knew that his desires had grown beyond his power to master them, a knowledge only confirmed when, lifting his head briefly from the lips which he had been crushing under his own, he began to plead with her softly: 'My darling, I entreat you… this may be our only chance… Now I am asking you to let me love you…'

Marianne's heart leapt. Gently, she pushed him away once more, and when she heard him groan she murmured softly: 'A moment, my beloved, only a moment…'

Then, lifted beyond herself by a love stronger than fear or modesty, Marianne stood up, oblivious of the priest lying a few yards away. He might be asleep or not, he had his back to them at least. Not taking her eyes from Jason who stayed where he was, half-kneeling, his gaze fixed intently on her, she stripped off all her garments one by one and dropped them on the greasy floor. Then, proud and unashamed, she walked into the arms held open to receive her, and the rough and grimy pallet which was Jason's bed became for Marianne a couch softer and more sumptuous than any she had ever lain on, even in that princely palace where she had slept so many nights alone. Yet she blessed the semi-darkness of the prison, for Jason had snuffed the single candle and only a faint moonlight shone into the cell, because it hid the weal, still red and angry, of the burn which Chernychev had given her. She did not want to have to lie to him, nor yet to involve herself in explanations which would have left a scar on Jason's happiness. In that one, irrecoverable moment when Marianne learned at last in joy and wonder what it meant to become one with another person, the past must be blotted out and even the dread future cry a truce.

When the door opened again a little while later, the candle was burning again and Jason was helping Marianne to put her dress to rights. But it was not Ducatel who appeared. The prisoner named François Vidocq stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped nonchalantly against the door jamb, and after a brief glance at the abbé who was now snoring like a grampus, surveyed the lovers with an air of great amusement.

'A woman of substance, indeed, Madame,' he remarked chattily. 'You have brought him the one thing that could do him good.'

'Mind your own business,' Marianne snapped, all the more furious because he had been right. She felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair and, as she always did when threatened with embarrassment, she lost her temper. 'Besides,' she went on hotly, 'you are talking of matters you know nothing about! The only thing that could "do him good", as you put it, would be if they would acknowledge his innocence and set him free.'

'We are all in God's hands,' Vidocq observed with exaggerated piety. 'Who knows what tomorrow may bring? As the poet says, "Patience and time work more than strength and fury".'

'And however often goes the pitcher to the well, in the end it will be broken… Do you think I came here to listen to proverbs? Jason,' she cried desperately, turning to him, 'tell him you are lost, that your one hope now is – is to escape! And if he is your friend, as he claims to be, and at the same time a master at escaping the police, then he must see…'

A prolonged and obvious yawn brought Marianne's impassioned tirade to an abrupt halt. She glared at Vidocq with a look of sheer murder on her face while he cocked a thumb in the direction of the open door.

'I hate to be a spoil sport, but Ducatel is waiting for you, fair one – and the watch is due in five minutes.'

'You must go, Marianne,' Jason told her seriously as she clung to him by a kind of instinct. 'And you must be sensible. You have made me – so very, very happy. I shall think of you always. But we must say good-bye now.'