Count Louis rose and clapped his hands, and the musicians began to play, while Rénèe and the Prince led Anne from the dining-hall.
As they reached her room the little German girl came running to meet them with a frightened face.
"What is the matter with her?" demanded William sternly, as the sobbing, protesting Princess collapsed, a shaken heap, on a chair.
"She is ill," said Rénèe. She could not bear to look at him, so pale he was, so suddenly grave and sad, all look of youth gone from him. Rénèe felt personally shamed.
"A strange illness," he replied. "I can but hope that she will improve as she becomes older."
He was turning away when Katrine broke out—
"Your Highness—it is the wine. To-night when I was arranging the room I found these,"—she pointed to a dismal row of empty flasks on a side table,—"and the steward told me he brought them to Madame—and pounds of sugar. It is the wine which makes Her Highness ill."
Rénèe shuddered at the girl's boldness in thus unveiling what the waiting-woman had concealed even from herself; but perhaps, she thought desperately, it was as well that the Prince should know.
"Is that it?" exclaimed the Prince; he flushed, and his voice was full of an extraordinary bitterness. He turned and looked at the intoxicated girl in her disarrayed splendour and her imbecile tears. Rénèe knew as well as if he spoke that he was thinking how dear he had paid for this wedding, which he had so long striven for, and so triumphantly achieved.
Anne struggled up, supporting herself on the arm of the chair.