"You—but I don't understand——"
"I'll tell you. I want to tell you," the Princess broke in quickly, the words almost jumbled together in her haste. "We must talk before any one comes. Will any one come?"
"No, no," Marie soothed her. "Mrs. Winter is out. She won't be back till four. It's only a little after three."
The Princess thrust her arm through her muff so that she could take both Mary's hands. She pressed them tightly, her fingers jerking as if by mechanism. "I've come—I've got to throw myself on your mercy," she said.
"Don't," Mary implored, "use such words to me. Oh, Marie, how strange—how strange everything is! The night before I left the convent, Peter—dear Peter, who loves you too, always—said that perhaps my dreams meant that you thought of me sometimes—that we might meet. Then I didn't expect to come here. She told me not to come. But she said, 'Anything can happen at Monte Carlo.'"
"Anything can happen anywhere," the Princess answered in a muffled voice. "It is a terrible world. It's been a terrible world for me since I saw you. And now—just when it's turned into heaven, you can send me down to hell."
"It kills me to hear you talk so," Mary said, tears rising in her eyes, and falling slowly. "I! Why, Marie dearest, didn't you just hear me say I'd rather die than hurt you? I don't know what you mean."
"Do you understand that I'm married to the brother of the man you're engaged to marry?"
"Why—yes. You told me that you—that you're the Princess Della Robbia."
"Well, my husband doesn't know. Nobody in my life now, knows anything about—the part that came before. Nobody must know. I'd kill myself rather than have Angelo find out, or even suspect. He thinks I——" She stopped, and choked. "He thinks I am——" The sob would come. She broke down, crying bitterly. "Oh, Mary, I love him so. I worship him. He thinks I'm everything sweet and good and innocent, that I'd give my soul to be, for his sake. And now you've come——"