"You will remember hearing about the tragedy at the Palace at Corbo fifteen years back. I expect you have heard the details over and over again. When the dynasty of the Estratos was all but wiped out----"
"That is what I said, prince. The popular belief was that the entire tree of that illustrious house was cut off root and branch, and that all its members perished on that evil night, but it was not so. The Princess Miranda escaped the fate of her parents."
"But the child--a baby--was killed with the queen."
"A child was, but it was not hers. You were speaking to the mother of the dead child only a few hours ago. It is Anna Paluda's little one that lies buried in Corbo Cathedral."
Edward paused impressively, but the duke did not speak. He sat with his dark eyes fixed on the face of the man who was telling the tale.
"That poor woman was foster-mother to the little princess, and the two children were in the night nursery at the time of the tragedy. Queen Elene took up the wrong baby, that's all. It's one of those simple mistakes which mean so much. Anna has sunk her revenge for all these years for the sake of the little girl who was almost as much to her as her own, but her revenge is not dead; some one will pay the price when the princess's affairs are settled."
"And the Princess Miranda, what--what became of her?"
Edward threw a keen look at his listener.
"Anna escaped during the excitement, taking the child with her. A few days later, an American gentleman came across them, living in the deserted hut of some charcoal-burner in the woods. This kind-hearted Yankee, touched by the child's helplessness and the romance of the case, adopted her, smuggled her out of the country, and brought her up to the life of an English lady. Circumstances prevented his taking her back to the States with him, and she and Anna have spent a peaceful life on the Cornish moors until the girl's eighteenth birthday, a few months----"
There came the sound of light singing from the room above them, and with a meaning smile, Edward pointed to the ceiling.
"Her Highness the Princess Miranda seems happy to-night, eh, duke?"
As he spoke Edward leant over with a look of concern, and touched the other on the knee, for the Duc de Choleaux Lasuer was sitting silent, and had buried his head in his hands. "What's all this?" he asked, and noted the anguish that lived in the duke's eyes as he raised his head to answer him.