This letter also she locked away.  But her hand lingered on the last of all.  She had read it three times already, and knew it practically by heart.  So she left the sheets undisturbed in their envelope.  But she raised the whole to her lips, and pressed it there, while her eyes, as they slowly filled with tears, travelled—­unseeing—­to the wintry street beyond the window.  Eyes and face wore the same expression as Wilfrid Bury had surprised there—­the dumb utterance of a woman hard pressed, not so much by the world without as by some wild force within.

In that still moment the postman’s knock was heard in the street outside.  Julie Le Breton started, for no one whose life is dependent on a daily letter can hear that common sound without a thrill.  Then she smiled sadly at herself. “My joy is over for to-day!” And she turned away with the letter in her hand.

But she did not place it in the same drawer with the others.  She moved across to the little carved triptych, and, after listening a moment to the sounds in the house, she opened its closed doors with a gold key that hung on her watch-chain and had been hidden in the bosom of her dress.

The doors fell open.  Inside, on a background of dark velvet, hung two miniatures, lightly framed in gold and linked together by a graceful scroll-work in gold.  They were of fine French work, and they represented a man and woman, both handsome, young, and of a remarkable distinction of aspect.  The faces, nevertheless, hardly gave pleasure.  There was in each of them a look at once absent and eager—­the look of those who have cared much and ardently for “man,” and very little, comparatively, for men.

The miniatures had not been meant for the triptych, nor the triptych for them.  It had been adapted to them by loving hands; but there was room for other things in the velvet-lined hollow, and a packet of letters was already reposing there.  Julie slipped the letter of the morning inside the elastic band which held the packet; then she closed and locked the doors, returning the key to its place in her dress.  Both the lock and hinges of this little hiding-place were well and strongly made, and when the wings also were shut and locked one saw nothing but a massively framed photograph of the Bruges belfry resting on a wooden support.

She had hardly completed her little task when there was a sudden noise of footsteps in the passage outside.

“Julie!” said a light voice, subdued to a laughing whisper.  “May I come in?”

The Duchess stood on the threshold, her small, shell-pink face emerging from a masterly study in gray, presented by a most engaging costume.

Julie, in surprise, advanced to meet her visitor, and the old butler, who was Miss Le Breton’s very good friend, quickly and discreetly shut the door upon the two ladies.

“Oh, my dear!” said the Duchess, throwing herself into Julie’s arms.  “I came up so quietly!  I told Hutton not to disturb Lady Henry, and I just crept up-stairs, holding my skirts.  Wasn’t it heroic of me to put my poor little head into the lion’s den like this?  But when I got your letter this morning saying you couldn’t come to me, I vowed I would just see for myself how you were, and whether there was anything left of you.  Oh, you poor, pale thing!”