"Did no one know that you had left the palace of Amboise?" asked the duchess. "Only a few of the servants, who were bribed to keep silence. The Duchess of Bourbon lately has been away, and I have seen but little of her. Some of the other ladies have been ill, and one of them is about to be married. Cunegunda gave it out that I had been attacked by some contagious childish malady, I do not know what, and this kept them away from my apartments, and we stole out early one morning and mounting our mules came away." "Were you not afraid to go on a journey without any one of authority in your train, and with no one to guard you from highwaymen?" "No, Lady Anne. Cunegunda loves me, you know, and she was better than any one of rank. She made a little stuff gown for me, and she said that traveling alone and unattended we should attract no attention, and could go on our way unmolested. "I have been quite happy during the trip, for it was all so new and so strange to me, and it was so pleasant not to be surrounded by people who were always watching me. But it was my fault that we excited suspicion. I went down to the inn kitchen to see what the common people do when they are having a festival, and I felt that I must give a gold piece to the baby who had been named Mary in memory of my dear mother. It appears that ordinary people do not give away so much money, and that is what made the company at the inn suspicious." "And no wonder, you innocent little girl," returned the Lady Anne, smiling. "A person of the station represented by your dress would have given, if anything, just the smallest piece of silver which is fastened to a bit of leather to keep it from being lost." "I am afraid," went on the princess, "of the consequences of our trip to Cunegunda if our absence should be discovered, and as we have been away longer than we had planned, I fear that even those who were bribed to keep silence will think that something has happened to us, and will feel it their duty to report our absence. Cunegunda is afraid of this, and she is terrified when she thinks of Anne of Beaujeu. But as we shall go to-morrow morning, perhaps we shall be in Amboise before we have been missed." "Indeed, you are not going to-morrow morning, my dear little sister and cousin," said Anne, using the term employed by royalties when addressing each other. "Then I am afraid that we shall have a great deal of trouble when we do return," said the princess coldly. "Of course we can not help ourselves; we must remain here if you command it, but I can not see how if will benefit you to make us stay against our will. I had hoped that it would be different when you had been told who you were detaining; I am sorry now that I revealed our secret." She turned her head slightly, and a tear rolled over her temple and dropped into the meshes of her bright hair.