But a few hours later she learned that the Prince’s letter had gone to Buckingham House and that Maria was wholeheartedly supporting him in his campaign of economy.

*

For the next two or three days they were almost unbelievably busy.

There was so much to be packed up in the house, so many letters to be written and so many explanations to be made.

Almost every other hour, it seemed to Gretna, the Prince was hurrying in and out, saying what he had done, enjoying, it was quite obvious, every moment of the drama in which he was playing the lead.

He was more than delighted when he learned that many people were saying that the King spent too much money on the Queen’s needy German relatives and a cartoon was being sold on the streets depicting the King and Queen coming out of the Treasury loaded with moneybags and the Prince following behind in the rags of the prodigal son.

But what pleased the Prince more than anything was the fact that in getting away from London he was going to Brighthelmstone.

He talked of it incessantly and when, two or three days after the Prince and his small suite had left, Gretna drove down with Maria as the Prince had done by hired post-chaise, she could understand his enthusiasm.

But before they left she had an encounter that had left her frightened and fearful.

Maria had gone over to Carlton House to advise the Prince on what pictures he should sell and what should be retained.

And Gretna was alone in St. James’s Square when the butler suddenly announced Lord Wroxhall.

She sprang to her feet and faced him as he crossed the drawing room, looking, she thought, more odious and more sinister than usual. He wore a many-caped riding coat and it was obvious from the rest of his attire that he had been travelling.

“What do you want – my Lord?” Gretna asked coldly.

“You were not expecting me?” he said in surprise, glancing around the room to see if she was alone.

“I know no reason why my hostess, Mistress Fitzherbert, should expect you to – visit this house, my Lord,” Gretna replied.

“Then she cannot have confided in you, my dear,” he answered.

“I don’t know – what you mean.”

He stood looking at her as she had not invited him to be seated and then suddenly he took a step forward which made her shrink instinctively away from him.

“If you come any nearer,” she warned him, “I shall ring the bell – for the servants.”

“You are entrancing when you are angry,” he commented. “How many moods you manage to affect so gracefully and how fortunate the man who watches them and who has the privilege of producing them at will.”

“I am not interested in your compliments, my Lord.”