ve your boxes packed, please, to-night. Your dinner will
be sent up to you."

The Princess left the room, and Jeanne heard the key turn in the lock.

CHAPTER X

Jeanne's packing was after all a very small matter. She ignored the
cupboards full of gowns, nor did she open one of the drawers of her
wardrobe. She simply filled her dressing-case with a few necessaries
and hid it under the table. At eight o'clock one of the servants
brought her dinner on a tray. Jeanne saw with relief that it was one of
the younger parlour maids, and not the Princess' own maid.

"Mary," Jeanne said, taking a gold bracelet from her wrist and holding
it out to her, "I am going to give you this bracelet if you will do
just a very simple thing for me."

The girl looked at Jeanne and looked at the bracelet. She was too
amazed for speech.

"I want you," Jeanne said, "when you go out to leave the door unlocked.
That is all. It will not make any difference to you so far as your
position here is concerned, because your mistress is sending you all
away in a few days."

The girl looked at the bracelet and did not hesitate for a moment.

"I would do it for you without anything, Miss Jeanne," she said. "The
bracelet is too good for me."

Jeanne laughed, and pushed it across the table to her.

"Run along," she said. "If you want to do something else, open the back
door for me. I am coming downstairs."

The girl looked a little perplexed. The bracelet which she was holding
still engrossed most of her thoughts.

"You are not doing anything rash, Miss Jeanne, I hope?" she asked
timidly.

Jeanne shook her head.

"What I am doing is not rash at all," she said softly. "It is
necessary."

Five minutes later Jeanne walked unnoticed down the back stairs of the
house, and out into the street. She turned into Piccadilly and entered
a bus.

"Where to, miss?" the man asked, as he came for his fare.

"I do not know," Jeanne said. "I will tell you presently."

The man stared at her and passed on. Jeanne had spoken the truth. She
had no idea where she was going. Her one idea was to get away from
every one whom she knew, or who had known her, as the Princess' ward
and a great heiress. She sat in a corner of the bus, and she watched
the stream of people pass by. Even there she shrank from any face or
figure which seemed to her familiar. She almost forgot that she, too,
had been a victim of her stepmother's deception. She remembered only
that