enough for royal banquets, labyrinths of corridors and galleries leading to chambers enough to serve a garrison, seemed all the more desolate for their size and splendour, and in them their owner had suffered a sort of homesickness.  ’Twas a strange thing to pass through the beautiful familiar places now that they were all thrown open and adorned for the coming guests, reflecting that the gala air was worn for her who should, Fate willing, have made her first visit as mistress, and realising that Fate had not been willing and that she came but as a guest and Countess of Dunstanwolde.  Oh, it was a bitter, relentless thing; and why should it have been—­for what wise purpose or what cruel one?  And with a maddening clutch about his heart he saw again the tragic searching in her eyes when she had said, “Then you have known me long, your Grace,” and afterwards, so soft and strangely slow, “Then you might have been one of those who came to my birthnight feast, and saw my life begin.”

He might have been, Heaven knew.  Good God, why had he not?  Why had he gone back to Flanders?  Now it seemed to his mind the folly of a madman, and yet at the time he had felt his duty to his house commanded that he should not give way to the rising tempest of his passion, but should at least wait a space that time might prove that he could justly trust the honour of his name and the fortune of his peoples into this wild, lovely being’s hands.  Had he been free from all responsibilities, free enough to feel that he risked no happiness but his own, and by his act could wrong none other than himself, he would not have waited to see what time wrought but have staked his future life upon this die.  He had denied himself and waited, and here he stood in the Long Gallery, and ’twas thrown open and adorned for the coming of my Lady Dunstanwolde.

“I meant an honest thing,” he said, gazing out over his fair domain through a dark mist, it seemed to him.  “All my life I have meant honestly.  Why should a man’s life go wrong because he himself would act right?”

The flag fluttered and floated from the battlements of the tower, the house was beautiful in its air of decorated order and stateliness, glowing masses of flowers lighted every corner, and tall exotic plants stood guard about; the faces of lord and lady, dame and knight, in the pictures seemed to look downward with a waiting gaze.  Outside, terraces and parterres were wonders of late summer brilliancy of bloom, and the sunshine glowed over all.  On the high road from town at this hour the cavalcades of approaching guests must ride in coach or chariot or on horseback.  When the equipage of the Earl and his Countess passed through Camylott village, old Rowe would ring a welcoming peal.  But my lord Duke stood still at the window of the Long Gallery where he had said his tender farewell to his beloved mother before she had left her home.  He was thinking of a grave thing and feeling that the violet eyes rested upon him again in a soft passion