It was a passport the Duke had used for many years and he often boasted of the number of times he had crossed the Channel.
It still had her mother’s name on it and, as it was handwritten in copperplate writing, it was not difficult for Loretta to add her own name so skilfully that it would have taken a very observant official to suspect that it had not been done in the Post Office.
Then she remembered that she had not asked Marie if she had a passport.
She felt certain, however, that though it was long ago that the maid had come to England, she would never have discarded anything so precious as a passport that would entitle her to return to her own country if ever she wished to do so.
Loretta found her assumption was correct, when on arriving outside Marie’s cottage, she saw the French
