Yet even as she was ready to begin her tale, she realised how many new difficulties the telling of it would present. She would have to explain her friendship with Sir Robert, would have to admit that she had deceived her aunt not once but many times when they had met and talked together. She would have to relate how Sir Robert, having fought the Prince, had left him wounded and she would have to confess, too, that Sir Robert was no longer her friend but something much deeper and dearer.

Swiftly Mistral made up her mind that she would leave the remainder of her story until tomorrow, she would wait until Sir Robert called to see her, as she knew he would, and then he would help her to face Aunt Emilie with the truth.

She would never be afraid of anything again with him beside her, but now after the tumultuous events of the night it would be too much to endure Aunt Emilie’s anger. It was not difficult to keep silent, for Emilie had no idea there was any sequel to what she had already heard.

‘So the Prince rescued you!’ she said again in tones of the utmost satisfaction. ‘I could not have hoped for anything better. Did he say anything special to you?’

‘He was very kind,’ Mistral replied, ‘and bound up my finger.

‘You had hurt it,’ Emilie asked without sounding particularly concerned.

‘I think I caught it on a nail in the wall,’ Mistral replied. ‘It was bleeding rather badly.’

‘You can have it seen to tomorrow if it is not better by then. Now you had best go to bed, for you look exceedingly dishevelled.’

‘I am afraid I have ruined my gown,’ Mistral said apologetically, ‘and I know this was one of my most expensive ones.’

‘It is of little consequence,’ Emilie said surprisingly. ‘You have plenty of others. Wear your most attractive day dress tomorrow, for the Prince will be calling, you can be sure of that.’

Mistral was just about to say that she thought it unlikely as the Prince was wounded, but she closed her lips. She would wait until the next day when Sir Robert would explain everything.

‘Goodnight, Aunt Emilie,’ she said quietly.

But Emilie did not hear her. She was walking up and down the room, a light in her eyes, a faint smile on her hard lips. Mistral knew the expression well. It meant that her aunt was planning something, was invigorated by her secret thoughts, which seemed always to give her an almost inexhaustible strength and vitality which was often out of all proportion to her age and appearance.

Mistral hurried to her own room, glad not to be questioned further. But it was some time before she undressed. Instead she looked out into the darkness of the night and whispered Sir Robert’s name over and over again.