“You – know about – it?”
“A great deal more than the Duchesse told us the other night.”
“Then, tell me – please – tell me,” Felicita pleaded with him.
“You don’t know what happened?”
“I knew – nothing.”
She paused.
She could not look at the Marques as she went on in a low voice that he could hardly hear,
“It was – true that I met her in the The Grand Hotel – when I was trying to sell the – needlework I had – learnt to do at the Convent – where I was educated by the nuns.”
He did not speak and after a moment she went on,
“As she said – I was a – pedlar.”
“That is something you will never be again,” the Marques asserted.
He bent forward to kiss her forehead.
“It sounds so – horrible and – humiliating,” Felicita faltered, “but – I had no money – after Mama – died and I thought I w
