“Yes,” she said quietly, “I have come back.  I am sorry I went away.  It was a mistake, a great mistake.”

“You have driven us nearly wild with anxiety,” the Princess declared.  “Where have you been to?”

“Yes!” the Count echoed, fixing his eyes upon her, “where have you been to?”

Jeanne behaved with a composure which astonished them both.  She calmly unbuttoned her gloves and seated herself in the easy-chair.

“I have been to Salthouse,” she said.

“What! back to the Red Hall?” the Princess exclaimed.

Jeanne shook her head.

“No!” she said, “I have been in rooms at a farmhouse there, Caynsard’s farm.  I went away because I did not like the life here, and because my stepmother,” she continued, turning toward the Count, “seemed determined that I should marry you.  I thought that I would go away into the country, somewhere where I could think quietly.  I went to Salthouse because it was the only place I knew.”

“You are the maddest child!” the Princess exclaimed.

Jeanne smiled, a little wearily.

“If I have been mad,” she said, “I have come to my senses again.”

The Count leaned toward her eagerly.

“I trust,” he said, “that that means that you are ready now to obey your stepmother, and to make me very, very happy.”

Jeanne looked at him deliberately.

“It depends,” she said, “upon circumstances.”

“Tell me what they are quickly,” the Count declared.  “I am impatient.  I cannot bear that you keep me waiting.  Let me know of my happiness.”

The Princess was suddenly uneasy.  There was one weak point in her schemes, a weakness of her own creating.  Ever since she had told Jeanne the truth about her lack of fortune, she had felt that it was a mistake.  Suppose she should be idiot enough to give the thing away!  The Princess felt her heart beat fast at the mere supposition.  There was something about Jeanne’s delicate oval face, her straight mouth and level eyebrows, which somehow suggested that gift which to the Princess was so incomprehensible in her sex, the gift of honesty.  Suppose Jeanne were to tell the Count the truth!

“First of all, then,” Jeanne said, “I must ask you whether my stepmother has told the truth about myself and my fortune.”

The Princess knew then that the game was up.  She sank back upon the sofa, and at that moment she would have declared that there was nothing in the world more terrible than an ungrateful and inconsiderate child.

“The truth?” the Count remarked, a little puzzled.  “I know only what the world knows, that you are the daughter of Carl le Mesurier, and that he left you the residue of one of the greatest fortunes in Europe.”

Jeanne drew a letter from her pocket.