I tell you about it in English? I
can do it more easily and better than in French."

"Certainly, certainly. And tell me all--everything."

Bravely the Princess listened. The tears flowed as she heard the story,
pressing her handkerchief to her eyes, and even trying to smile at times
in grateful sympathy for the narrator's efforts at consolation.

"Tell me how he looked the day you found him. Did he seem to have
been--ill--to have suffered?"

"We thought him asleep. There was no trace of suffering. The color of
his face surprised us."

When the story of his burial was finished, the Princess rose from her
seat, came around and stood by Elinor, and took her hand. "I owe you so
much. You were very good and considerate. I am grateful, very grateful.
He was unfortunate in his life. It is a consolation to know his death
was happy, and that he was reverently buried."

Then Elinor, after hesitating, decided to ask a question.

"If it is no secret, and if you care to do it, would you mind telling me
why he came across the water, out here in the forest, and lived in such
a way?"

"Assuredly! And even if it were a secret I should tell you. In the first
place, he was the Duc de Fontrevault, a very good name in France, as
perhaps you know. He fell in love--oh, so fiercely in love!--with a lady
who was to marry--well, who was betrothed to a king. It sounds like a
fairy tale, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"It does, indeed!"

The Princess was now sitting on the arm of Elinor's chair, looking down
into her face, in a motherly, or elder sisterly, sort of way.

"Well, you would know all about the king if I told you. He died only the
other day, so you will soon guess him. _C'etait un vaurien, un
imbecile_. My father not only loved this--"

She stopped, abruptly, leaning forward with one hand upon the table.
"_Mais, Mon Dieu!_ there is my portrait! My old miniature of twenty
years ago! How came it there?" And she pointed to the opposite chair.

"We found it hanging there when we came, and have never disturbed it."

"You found it hanging there, on the back of that chair?"

"Yes."

"My own chair--where I used to sit! So, then, I was always before him!"

Elinor nodded. In the eyes of the Princess came fresh tears. She
undertook to say more, but failed; and getting up, she walked around the
table and dropped into Pats's chair, gurgling something in French about
the _petit pere_. Then she broke down completely, buried her face
in her ha