"Then you do not feel happy here, Helen?"
"No, no! I do not love the prince! I have never loved him!" And Helen hid her face on her mother's bosom.
The baroness was much surprised. Helen's words, and even more the tone in which she said them, and her whole strange, passionate manner, suddenly gave her an utterly new insight into her daughter's character. She had a dim perception that large portions of her inner life had so far been utterly unknown to her, and that all her cleverness, of which she was so proud, had not enabled her to see clearly in her own daughter's heart.
"Why did you give your promise then?" she asked.
"I cannot tell. I was--I did not know what I was doing. But now I do know it. I cannot marry the prince; he must give me back my word. If you insist upon the marriage I shall die!"
"And if I do not insist?"
It was now Helen's turn to be surprised. She looked at the baroness with wondering eyes.
"As I say, my dear child, I have made certain discoveries this morning which have startled me, to say the least, very much, and which have brought me the conviction that we have proceeded in this whole matter with a want of caution which might possibly have been quite disastrous to us all."
"I do not understand you, mamma!" said Helen.
"Well, it is hard to understand," said Anna Maria, plaintively. "I hardly know where my head is. I am perfectly miserable!"