"
"There was some scandal. When the Princess was born, her father
refused to believe her to be his child. Now, it came to pass, as they
say in the Bible, which I assure you is a very interesting book, that
there were vague rumors immediately after the birth of Princess
Hildegarde that another child had been born."
"What!" I was half out of my chair. "Another child?"
"Another child. The fact that the Prince swore that when children came
he would make them counterparts of their kind and loving father, lent
color to the rumor that the Princess had had one spirited away to
escape this threatened contamination. And one of the nurses was
missing. Whither had she gone remained a mystery, and is still a
mystery, for she never has returned. Did she spirit away the other
child, the other girl? I say girl advisedly; if there had been a son,
the mother would have retained him. Two years after this interesting
episode, the Princess died, and dying, confessed the deception. But
the curious thing is, nobody believed her. Her mind was not strong,
and it was thought to be a hallucination, this second child.
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