He himself untied the cords. D’Ormont raised the veil and uncovered her face. There came a cry of amazement from the spectators; and Ralph, up in his observation post, from which he had a view of the prisoner in full daylight, was hard put to it not to betray his presence by a similar exclamation, when there was revealed a young woman in all the splendor of her youth and beauty. Then a voice rose above the murmurs of astonishment. The Prince of Arcola stepped forward, and his starting eyes glaring in a twitching face, stammered: “It’s she!... It _is_ she.... I recognize her.... But what a frightful thing it is!” “What is it?” snapped the Baron. “What’s frightful? Explain!” And the Prince of Arcola uttered these incredible words: “_She is no older than she was two and twenty years ago!_” The woman was sitting, and sitting quite upright, her clenched fists resting on her knees. Her hat must have fallen off in the course of the attack on her, and her hair, half-undone, fell behind her in a thick mass, partly held up by a gold comb, while two rolls with tawny gleams in them were drawn back evenly above her brow, and were waved a little above her temples. Her face was of a wonderful beauty, its lines of an astonishing purity; and it was animated by an expression which, even in her impassibility, even in her fear, appeared to be a smile. With her rather delicate chin, rather high cheek bones, deep-set eyes, and heavy eyelids, she recalled those women of Leonardo da Vinci, or rather of Bernardino Luini, all the charm of whom is in a smile you do not actually see, but which you divine, which at once moves and disquiets you. She was simply dressed: a dust cloak which she let fall, a gray woollen dress which, fitting tightly, gave the lovely curves of her figure their full value. “Well!” said Ralph, who could not take his eyes off her, softly to himself. “She appears quite inoffensive, this magnificent and infernal creature! And they’re nine or ten to one against her!” She scrutinized with keen eyes the group of men round her, d’Etigues and his friends, and strove to see clearly those others in the shadow. Then she said: “What is it you want? I do not recognize any of you. What have you brought me here for?” “You’re our enemy,” declared Godfrey d’Etigues. She shook her head gently. “Your enemy? There must be some mistake. Are you quite sure that you’re not making a mistake? I am Madame Pellegrini.” “You’re not Madame Pellegrini.” “But I assure you ...” “You’re not!” the Baron exclaimed in a loud voice. Then he added--and the words were little less disconcerting than those uttered a little while before by the Prince of Arcola: “_Pellegrini was one of the aliases adopted in the eighteenth century by the man whose daughter you pretend to be._” She did not answer for a few seconds, seeming to be taken aback by the absurdity of the statement. Then she said tartly: “Then what is my name--according to you?”