"
"Ah!" said the girl, "and how did you come? Not through the house
surely?"
"I came under the fence," said Caroline, "the gates were locked. I
was Marie Antoinette then, but I changed after she said she was."
"Oh! Oh!" the girl groaned, covering her face with slender, ringless
hands.
"But I'd just as soon," Caroline assured her--"honestly I would.
Only you need a Bothwell for her. I only thought of Marie Antoinette
after the tumbrel went by. I suppose she's used to Marie Antoinette,
prob'ly, and so you can't get her to change."
She nodded in the direction of the little lady, now far from them,
white against the shrubbery.
The girl drew in her breath in little gasps, as if she had been
running.
"Y--yes," she assented, "she's used to being Marie Antoinette. Where
is the hole you got through? Is it big enough for--for anybody?"
"Oh, yes," said Caroline indifferently, "but nobody knows about it
but me and a few other k--prisoners, I mean; I've used it when I was
escaping before. I think it was a rabbit-hole first, and then we
made it bigger. Isn't that funny--Alice got in by a rabbit-hole,
too, didn't she? I thought of her as soon as I saw the gardener.
He's very polite, isn't he?"
The girl pressed her lips together.
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