Again Martin exclaimed, "My God!" Then added: "And this man, therefore, is, has been since the death of your husband, the Prince de Rochebazon?"
"Before my husband's death," the other answered quietly, calmly, as though speaking on the most trivial subject. "My husband never was the prince."
Unintentionally, without doubt--perhaps, too, unnoticed by her--his hand released hers, slipping down from the bedside to his knee, where it lay, while he, his eyes fixed full on her now and still seeking to read in her face whether that which she uttered was the frenzy of a dying woman or an absolute truth, said slowly and distinctly:
"Nor you, therefore--that I must utter the words!--the princess?"
"Nor I the princess."
"It is incredible. Beyond all belief."
"It is true."
Again there was a pause; filled up on Martin Ashurst's part with a hurtling mass of thoughts which he could not separate one from the other, though above all others there predominated one--the thought that this was the derangement of a mind unhinged by the weakness of approaching death, clouded by the gradual decay of nature. And, thinking thus, he sat silent, wondering if in very truth--since all she had said seemed so utterly beyond the bound of possibility--it were worth disturbing her with questions.
Yet her next words seemed uttered as though with a determination to force him to believe that what she had said was no delusion.
"There are others who know it--only they will never tell."