"They want to dissolve her marriage?" she asked.
"So it appears."
"And against her will?"
"Against her right."
"She must be very unhappy!" said Gertrude.
Her visitor looked at her, smiling; he raised his hand to the back of his head and held it there a moment. "So she says," he answered.
"That 's her story. She told me to tell it you."
"Tell me more," said Gertrude.
"No, I will leave that to her; she does it better."
Gertrude gave her little excited sigh again. "Well, if she is unhappy," she said, "I am glad she has come to us."
She had been so interested that she failed to notice the sound of a footstep in the portico; and yet it was a footstep that she always recognized.
She heard it in the hall, and then she looked out of the window.
They were all coming back from church--her father, her sister and brother, and their cousins, who always came to dinner on Sunday. Mr. Brand had come in first; he was in advance of the others, because, apparently, he was still disposed to say what she had not wished him to say an hour before.
He came into the parlor, looking for Gertrude. He had two little books in his hand. On seeing Gertrude's companion he slowly stopped, looking at him.
"Is this a cousin?" asked Felix.
Then Gertrude saw that she must introduce him; but her ears, and, by sympathy, her lips, were full of all that he had been telling her.
"This is the Prince," she said, "the Prince of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein!"
Felix burst out laughing, and Mr. Brand stood staring, while the others, who had passed into the house, appeared behind him in the open door-way.