"A trick?" exclaimed the dancer, who was looking the picture of utter confusion and bewilderment. "My jewels?—I don't understand——"
"Madame la Comtesse de Romaine, otherwise Jacques, your fiancé and admirer, Mademoiselle, has time to explain. The private coach which will convey her to Rennes will not be here for half an hour. In the meanwhile," he added, as he took up the parcel of jewels which still lay upon the table, "you will find these at the commissariat of police whenever you care to call for them. Monsieur Cognard will have the privilege of returning them to you."
But Mademoiselle Philippa was far too much upset to wait for explanations. At the invitation of the Minister's accredited agent, she had followed him hither, for he had told her that she would see Jacques de Romaine once more. The disappointment and mingled horror and excitement when she realised what an amazing trick had been played upon her literally swept her off her nimble feet. It was a month or more before she was well enough to fulfill her outstanding engagements.
The de Romaines—mother and daughter—offered no resistance. Indeed, resistance would have been futile, and theirs was not the temperament to allow of hysterics or undignified protestations. Every courtesy was shown to them on their way to Rennes, where they were tried and condemned to five years' imprisonment. But twelve months later the Impérial clemency was exercised in their favour, and they were released; after the Restoration they were handsomely rewarded for their zeal in the service of the King.
The Comte Jacques de Romaine who, as a little lad, had been taken over to England, never came to France till after Waterloo had been fought and won. At the time that his mother impersonated him so daringly and with such sinister results, he was serving in the Prussian Army. Mariette de Romaine subsequently married the Vicomte de Saint-Vaast. She and her husband emigrated with Charles X in 1830, and their son married an Englishwoman, and died in a house at Hampstead in the early 'seventies.
CHAPTER V
THE BOURBON PRINCE
I
"I don't see how I can be of any assistance to you, my good Monsieur Moulin. I quite agree with you that it would be a real calamity if a member of the ex-Royal family were to effect a landing in our province, but——" And Monseigneur the Constitutional Bishop of Alençon shrugged his shoulders in token of his inability to deal with the matter.
He was sitting in a small room of his splendid private château, which was situated near Granville. Through the tall window on his left, the magnificent panorama of the rugged coast of Normandy and of the turbulent English Channel beyond was displayed in its limitless glory. The point of Carolles still gleamed beneath the last rays of the cold, wintry sun, but the jagged Dog's Tooth rocks were already wrapped in twilight gloom.