And I saw the sound of my voice jar the Lady Ysolinde like a blow on the face.
"You do not believe!" she said, standing straight before me.
"I do not believe--I know!" answered I, curtly enough.
"Nevertheless the thing is true," she said, with a curious, pleading expression, as if she had been charged with wrong-doing and were clearing herself, though none had accused her by word or look.
"It is most true," the Princess went on.

"She fled from the palace an hour before sundown.

She was seen mounting a horse belonging to Von Reuss at the Wolfmark gate, with two of his men in attendance upon her.
She is known to have received a note by the hand of an unknown messenger an hour before." I did not wait for the permission of the Princess, but tore up the women's staircase to Helene's room, where I found nothing out of place--not so much as a fold of lace.

After a hurried look round I was about to leave the room when a crumpled scrap of paper, half hidden by a curtain, caught my eye.
I stooped and picked it up.

It was written in an unknown and probably disguised hand--a hand cumbersome and unclerkly: "Come to me.