The great lady lay upon her bed, her disordered dress and disheveled hair revealing the ravages of time, which she usually disguised with so much skill. Her tire-women vainly attempted to soothe her by chafing her feet and hands and fanning her flushed and swollen face.
"Who is that?" she screamed, catching sight of Prue. "Go away—I can not see any one—I am very ill—I am dying! Make haste to pay your court to Masham—Masham! the creature I raised out of the mire—the kitchen-wench, who will queen it to-morrow when I am dead! Oh! oh! oh!" And the hysterics were resumed with wilder frenzy than ever.
"Leave her to me," said Prue to the women. "I can cure her, but I must have her to myself for a few minutes." They looked from one to the other with bewildered eyes, wondering at Prue's audacity, yet unable to resist her calm tone of authority.
When they had withdrawn to the farther end of the room, she bent over the shrieking, raving duchess, and said, in a quiet, penetrating voice, "The necklace is not lost, it is quite safe."
The cries ceased with almost ludicrous suddenness. "What do you say?" gasped the patient.
"I will tell you all about it as soon as you are able to lie still and listen," said Prue, who had laid her plans on her way from Essex Street, and had her story all ready. The duchess quieted down and turned her face partly toward her.
"Is that Prudence Brooke?" she asked. "If you know anything about that accursed necklace, tell me quickly, before it is the death of me."
"I have news of it," said Prue, passing a cool, soothing hand over the hot brow and brushing away the heavy, straggling masses of hair, once the pride of Sarah Churchill and the envy of rival beauties. "If the necklace is returned what reward will you give the finder?"
"Reward? Oh! he shall be well rewarded; the finder need not be afraid to ask his own price," cried the duchess. "And yet the thing is worthless to any one, child—worse than worthless—it is deadly! No one would steal it except to injure me! But they shall swing for it, no matter who is at the bottom of it. It is a conspiracy of those who hate me—"
"It is a mistake," interrupted Prue; "the necklace was not stolen, it was taken by—by accident."