My lady's face was now composed; the hand she extended, steady; for several moments she regarded the fragment.
"What does it say?" asked the woman anxiously. "Is it—is it important?"
Her mistress did not at once answer; twisting the bit of paper in her fingers, stood as if in thought, and the old nurse repeated her question.
"This note might have been intended for some admirer!" said, at length, the Governor's daughter slowly.
"He looked more like an old privateersman!" murmured the woman. "And there may be some plot—some plan!"
"Privateersman!" The girl's manner underwent a change; she shrugged her shoulders. "What could they hope to do at the Mount! You are imaginative, Marie!" lightly. "Nanette is good-looking, and what little is here would seem to signify a rendezvous. There may be no great harm in that."
"I am sorry, my Lady, to seem to think ill of my own kin," muttered the woman dejectedly, "but—"
"Think no more of it! You have done your duty. Now leave the matter to me, and—thank you, Marie!"
When, however, the old nurse had gone, all pretense of lightness faded from the face of the Governor's daughter, and, opening the bit of paper, once more she scrutinized it swiftly, intently.
"To-morrow—Monastery St. Ranu—" she read. "Yes; it must mean St. Ranulphe—where we are going. And where Beppo knew we were going! Beppo, she went down on the beach with!" Again she studied the fragment, striving to make out a word that had been blotted and was almost illegible. She frowned as she endeavored to decipher it. "Lady E." She gave an exclamation. "That refers, of course, to— But why?" She kept asking herself the question. "Why?" she repeated, when suddenly the brown eyes widened—changed; a new light shone in their depths. "It must be they intend to—what else?"