"You see, Lena knows," said the queen. "Yes, Lena, get out something pretty, and Miss——"
"Cora," supplied the prisoner.
"Cora? What an odd name! But it suits you. There is so much coral in your cheeks. Yes, Miss Cora must wear my English robe—the one with the silver crown."
To dress in the robes of a gypsy queen! If only this were a play, and not so tragically real!
But the thought was not comforting. It meant imprisonment. Cora had determined to be brave, but it was hard. Yet she must hope that something unexpected would happen to rescue her.
"Lena is my maid," explained Helka. "I tell her more than any of the others. And she fetches my letters secretly. Have you not one for me today, Lena?"
The girl slipped her hand in her blouse and produced a paper. The queen grasped it eagerly. "Oh, yes," she said, "I knew he would write. Good David!" and she tore open the envelope. Cora watched her face and guessed that the missive was from the lover. Lena went out to bring the breakfast things.
"If only I could go out and meet him!" said the queen, finishing the letter. "I would run away and marry him. He has been so good to wait so long. Just think! He has followed me from England!"
"And you never meet him?"
"Not since they suspect. It was then they bought the two fierce dogs. I would never dare pass them. Sometimes they ask me to take a ride in the big wagon, but I never could ride in that. You see, I am not all a gypsy. My father was a sort of Polish nobleman and my mother was part English. She became interested in the great question of the poor, and so left society for this—the free life. My father was also a reformer, and they were married twice—to make sure. It is my father's money that keeps me like this, and, of course, the tribe does not want to lose me."