"You've been wonderful," I whispered, deliberately turning away my head and gazing out across the prairie. I could not have met her eyes just then.
CHAPTER XIX
ENLIGHTENING A PRINCESS
As gently as I could, after I felt that my voice might be trusted not to betray itself, I told her of Monsieur Dragot's deductions, who we thought she really was—not the daughter of that old scoundrel, at all. I let her see the record of his crimes, her mother's discovery of the plates, the kidnaping, and, unless something most recent and unexpected had happened, the queen regent of Azuria was waiting at this minute for the little princess to return.
She had been sitting very still, like a child with parted lips enchantingly absorbed by a fairy tale. When I finished she turned her wondering eyes to mine, and gasped:
"It can't be true!"
"I think it is," I said. "I mean that it is so far as Monsieur can judge from the threads of evidence he holds, and what you've told me makes his theory more convincing."
"Oh—and I've called this man Father for so long! You don't suppose he still might be, somehow?"