ers, and that she had seen him killed in a duel on her account?
Who would have imagined it in cette demoiselle si sage! Would she
not say who it was!

But though truth forced more than one affirmative to be pumped out
of Anne, she clung to that last shred of concealment, and kept her
own counsel as to the time, place, and persons of the duel, and thus
she so far offended Pauline as to prevent that damsel from having
any scruples in regarding her as an obnoxious and perilous rival,
with a dark secret in her life. Certainly Miss Dunord did earnestly
assure her that to adopt her Church, invoke the Saints, and have
Masses for the dead was the only way to lay such ghosts; but Anne
remained obdurate, and thus was isolated, for there were very few
Protestants in the fugitive Court, and those were of too high a
degree to consort with her. Perhaps that undefined doubt of her
discretion was against her; perhaps too her education and knowledge
of languages became less useful to the Queen when surrounded by
French, for she was no longer called upon to act as reader; and the
little Prince, during his residence in the convent, had time to
forget her and lose his preference for her. She was not discharged,
but except for taking her turn as a nursery-maid when the Prince was
at St. Germain, she was a mere supernumerary, nor was there any
salary forthcoming. The small amount of money she had with her had
dwindled away, and when she applied to Lady Strickland, who was
kinder to her than any one else, she was told that the Queen was far
too much distressed for money wherewith to aid the King to be able
to pay any one, and that they must all wait till the King had his
own again. Her clothes were wearing out, and scarcely in condition
for attendance on the Prince when he was shown in state to the King
of France. Worse than all, she seemed entirely cut off from home.
She had written several times to her uncle when opportunity seemed
to offer, but had never heard from him, and she did not know whether
her letters could reach him, or if he were even aware of what had
become of her. People came with passports from England to join the
exiled Court, but no one returned thither, or she would even have
offered herself as a waiting-maid to have a chance of going back.
Lady Strickland would have forwarded her, but no means or
opportunity offered, and there was nothing for it but to look to the
time that everybody declared to be approaching w