regret at the rareness of his visits to his lady and himself under their own roof.  Other visits my lord Duke had made, as he had planned, passing from one great house to another in Great Britain, or making stay at the estates of his friends upon the continent of Europe.  Sometimes he was in Scotland, sometimes in Ireland or Wales, hunting, salmon-fishing, the chief guest at great reunions, everywhere discussed and envied his freedom from any love affair, entanglement, or connection with scandal, always a thing which awakened curiosity.

“The world will have you married, Gerald,” said Dunstanwolde.  “And ’tis no wonder!  My lady and I would find you a Duchess.  I think she looks for one for you, but finds none to please her taste.  She would have a wondrous consort for you.  You do wrong to roam so.  You should come to Dunstan’s Wolde that she may have you beneath her eye.”

But to Dunstan’s Wolde he did not go—­not even when, in obedience to her lord’s commands, the Countess herself besought him with gracious hospitality.

To their town house he went but seldom, pleading as reason, affairs which occupied his time, journeys which removed him to other parts.  But to refuse to cross the threshold was impossible; accordingly there were times when he must make visits of ceremony, and on one such occasion he found her ladyship alone, and she conveyed to him her husband’s message and his desire that she herself should press his invitation.

’Twas upon a winter afternoon, and when my lord Duke was announced he entered the saloon, to behold my lady sitting by the firelight in a carven gilded chair, her eyes upon the glowing coals, her thoughts plainly preoccupied.  On hearing his name she slightly started, and on his entry rose and gave him her soft warm hand, which he did not kiss because its velvet so wooed him that he feared to touch it with his lips.  ’Twas not a hand which he could touch with simple courtesy, but must long to kiss passionately, and over and over again, and hold close with whispered words.

“My lord has but just left me,” she said.  “He will be almost angry at the chance which led him to go before your coming.  The last hour of our talk was all of your Grace;” and she sat upright against the high back of her chair.  And why was it that, while she sat so straight and still, he felt that she held herself as one who needs support?  “The last hour of our talk was all of you,” she said again, and oh, the velvet of her eyes was asking him for some aid, some mercy; and his soul leaped in anguish as he saw it.  “He says I must beguile you to be less formal with us.  Before our marriage, he tells me, your Grace came often to Dunstan’s Wolde, and now you seem to desert us.”

“No, no!” exclaimed my lord Duke, as if involuntarily, and rose from his seat and stood looking down into the fire.

“I told him you would exclaim so!” said my lady, and her low-pitched voice was a thing to make a man tremble.  “I know your Grace loves him—­I think any heart must love him——­”