"I know you are my friend," said Giles, pressing her hand. "And you can help me by saying where Anne has gone to."
"Oh, my good man, you must find that out for yourself! I believe she has gone to London with those Princesses of yours. At least that fool of a Morris said they left his inn this morning early to go to London. They drove to the Westbury Station. That is the one we hardly ever use down here. The Barnham Station is the nearest."
"Yes! yes! The Westbury is ten miles away. You go across the moor——"
"My good Ware, have I lived all these years in this place without knowing it as well as I know my own nose? Hold your tongue, or I'll tell you nothing. The coachman who drove these Princesses of yours"—Mrs. Parry always used this phrase disdainfully—"is a new man. Morris hired him from Chelmsford, and he does not know Anne, luckily for her. If it had been the old coachman she might have been in jail by this time. Well, as I say, I was on the moor and saw the carriage coming along. I didn't know that those Princesses were in it till one of them—the younger—got out and stood by the roadside. I was close at hand, and hidden by a gorse bush. She whistled. I tell you, Ware, she whistled. What manners these foreigners have! Three times she whistled. Then some one rose from behind another bush and walked quickly to the carriage. It was Anne. Oh, don't tell me it wasn't," cried Mrs. Parry, vigorously shaking her head. "I knew her walk and the turn of her head. Trust me for knowing her amongst a thousand. Anne Denham it was and none other."
"What happened then?" asked Giles anxiously.
"Why, this Princess Olga embraced and kissed her. Does she know her?"
"Yes. They have been friends for a long time."
"Humph! and Princess Olga's mother comes from Jamaica, where Anne was born," said Mrs. Parry. "Queer. There is some sort of a connection."
"You are too suspicious, Mrs. Parry."
"All the better. But I can see through a stone wall. Believe me, Ware, that if there isn't some connection between those two, I am a Dutchwoman. However, Anne got into the carriage and it drove away."