“The last two years I have spent with the army in Flanders,” said my lord Duke, “and her Ladyship of Dunstanwolde is the wife of my favourite kinsman.”

’Twas this last fact which was the bitterest thing of all, and which made his fate most hard to bear with patience.  What he had dreaded had proven itself true, and more.  Had my Lord Dunstanwolde been a stranger to him or a mere acquaintance he could have escaped all, or at least the greater part, of what he now must endure.  As the chief of his house his share in the festivities attendant upon the nuptials had been greater than that of any other man.  As one who seemed through their long affection to occupy almost the place of a son to the bridegroom, it had been but natural that he should do him all affectionate service, show the tenderest courtesy to his bride, and behold all it most tortured him to see.  His gifts had been the most magnificent, his words of friendly gratulation the warmest.  When they were for a few moments, on the wedding-day, alone, his Lordship had spoken to him of the joy which made him pale.

“Gerald,” he said, “I could speak to none other of it.  Your great heart will understand.  ’Tis almost too sacred for words.  Shall I waken from a dream?  Surely, ’tis too heavenly sweet to last.”

Would it last? his kinsman asked himself in secret, could it?  Could one, like her, and who had lived her life, feel an affection for a consort so separated from her youth and bloom by years?  She was so young, and all the dazzling of the world was new.  What beauteous, high-spirited, country-bred creature of eighteen would not find its dazzle blind her eyes so that she could scarce see aright?  He asked himself the questions with a pang.  To expect that she should not even swerve with the intoxication of it, was to expect that she should be nigh superhuman, and yet if she should fail, and step down from the high shrine in which his passion had placed her, this would be the fiercest anguish of all.

“Were she mine,” he cried, inwardly, “I could hold and guide her with love’s hand.  We should be lost in love, and follies and Courts would have no power.  Love would be her shield and mine.  Poor gentleman,” remembering the tender worship in my Lord’s kind face; “how can she love him as he loves her?  But oh, she should—­she should!”

If in the arrogance of her youth and power she could deal with him lightly or unkindly, he knew that even his own passion could find no pardon for her—­yet if he had but once beheld her eyes answer her lord’s as a woman’s eyes must answer those of him she loves, it would have driven him mad.  And so it came about that to see that she was tender and noble he watched her, and to be sure that she was no more than this he knew he watched her too, calling himself ignoble that Nature so prompted him.

There was a thing she had said to him but a week after the marriage which had sunk deep into his soul and given him comfort.