"Patience!" wearily. "You say patience when my heart is dying inside my breast? Patience? Who, then, is this woman I have called my child?"
"God knows, Highness!" Hans stood bowed before this parental agony.
"But what proof have you that she is not? What proof, I say?"
"Would there be two lockets, Highness?"
"More proof than this will be needed. Produce it. Prolong this agony of doubt not another instant."
"Speak," said Hans to the Gipsy, who was viewing the drama with the nonchalance of a spectator rather than a participant.
"Highness," said the Gipsy, bowing, "he speaks truly. He came with us. For fear that the little highness might be recognized as we traveled, we changed her clothes. He took them, together with the locket. One day the soldiers appeared in the distance. We all fled. We lost the little highness, and none of us ever knew what became of her. She wore the costume of my own children."
"We shall produce that in time," said Von Arnsberg.
"Damnable wretch!" said the duke, addressing the Gipsy.
The other shrugged. He had been promised immunity; that was all he cared about, unless it was the bag of silver and gold this old clock-mender had given him a few hours gone.