“It was probably she, then, who sent for De la Borne,” Forrest said wearily.

“Perhaps so,” the Princess assented, “but listen to this.  It will surprise you.  She came back and she told De Brensault in this room only a short while ago that her supposed fortune was a myth.  De Brensault took it like a lamb.  He wants to marry her still.”

Forrest looked up in amazement.

“And will he?” he asked.

“Oh, I do not know!” the Princess answered.  “Nigel, I am sick of life myself.  There are times when everything you have been trying for seems not worth while, when even one’s fundamental ideas come tottering down.  Just now I feel as though every stone in the foundation of what has seemed to me to mean life, is rotten and insecure.  I am tired of it.  Shall I tell you what I feel like doing?”

“Yes!” he answered.

“I have a little house in Silesia, where I am still a great lady, half-a-dozen servants, perhaps, farms which bring in a trifle of money.  I think I will go and live there.  I think I will get up in the mornings as Jeanne does, and try to love my mountains, and go about amongst my people, and try to spell life with different letters.  Come with me, Nigel.  There is shooting and fishing there, and horses wild enough for even you to find pleasure in riding.  We have tried many things in life.  Let us make one last throw, and try the land of Arcady.”

He looked at her, at first in amazement.  Afterwards some change seemed to come into his face, called there, perhaps, by what he saw in hers.

“Ena,” he said, “you mean it?”

“Absolutely,” she answered.  “Fortunately we are both free, and we can set our peasants an absolutely respectable example.  You shall be farmer and I will be housewife.  Nigel, it is an inspiration.”

He bent over her fingers.

“I wonder,” he murmured, “if there is good enough left in me to make it worth your while.”

Late that afternoon another caller thundered at the door of the house in Berkeley Square.  The Duke of Westerham desired to see Miss Le Mesurier.  The butler was respectful but doubtful.  Miss Le Mesurier had just arrived from a journey and was lying down.  The Duke, however, was insistent.  He waited twenty minutes in a small back morning-room and presently Jeanne came in to him.

He held out his hands.

“Little girl,” he said, “you know what you promised.  I am afraid that you have forgotten.”

She smiled pitifully.

“No,” she said, “I have not forgotten.  I went away alone because I had to go, because I wanted to be quite alone and quite quiet.  Now I have come home, and there is no one who can help me at all.”

“Rubbish!” he answered.  “There was never trouble in the world where a friend couldn’t help.  What is it now?”

She shook her head.

“I cannot tell you,” she said, “only I am going to marry the Count de Brensault.”