to humour Carterette,
that she should sooner hear the news yet withheld. "And what follows
after?"

Carterette was half sorry that her great moment had come. She wished
she could have linked out the suspense longer. But she let herself be
comforted by the anticipated effect of her "wonderfuls."

"I'll tell you what comes after--ah, but see then what a news I have for
you! You know that Monsieur d'Avranche--well, what do you think has come
to him?"

Guida felt as if a monstrous hand had her heart in its grasp, crushing
it. Presentiment seized her. Carterette was busy running over the
pages of the letter, and did not notice her colourless face. She had
no thought that Guida had any vital interest in Philip, and ruthlessly,
though unconsciously, she began to torture the young wife as few are
tortured in this world.

She read aloud Detricand's description of his visit to the Castle of
Bercy, and of the meeting with Philip. "'See what comes of a name!'"
wrote Detricand. "'Here was a poor prisoner whose ancestor, hundreds
of years ago, may or mayn't have been a relative of the d'Avranches of
Clermont, when a disappointed duke, with an eye open for heirs, takes a
fancy to the good-looking face of the poor prisoner, and voila! you have
him whisked off to a palace, fed on milk and honey, and adopted into the
family. Then a pedigree is nicely grown on a summer day, and this fine
young Jersey adventurer is found to be a green branch from the old root;
and there's a great blare of trumpets, and the States of the duchy are
called together to make this English officer a prince--and that's the
Thousand and One Nights in Arabia, Ma'm'selle Carterette.'"

Guida was sitting rigid and still. In the slight pause Carterette
made, a hundred confused torturing thoughts swam through her mind and
presently floated into the succeeding sentences of the letter:

"'As for me, I'm like Rabot's mare, I haven't time to laugh at my
own foolishness. I'm either up to my knees in grass or clay fighting
Revolutionists, or I'm riding hard day and night till I'm round-backed
like a wood-louse, to make up for all the good time I so badly lost in
your little island. You wouldn't have expected that, my friend with the
tongue that stings, would you? But then, Ma'm'selle of the red slippers,
one is never butted save by a dishorned cow--as your father used to
say."'

Carterette paused again, saying in an aside: "That is M'sieu' all
over, all so gay. But w