s for her vanity. But his joy must be in vindication of what was
noble, not in making suffer what was vile. Yesterday he had been her
puppet, her Jumping-Jack; to-day it was as avenging angel that he would
appear before her. The gods had mocked him who was now their minister.
Their minister? Their master, as being once more master of himself. It
was they who had plotted his undoing. Because they loved him they were
fain that he should die young. The Dobson woman was but their agent,
their cat's-paw. By her they had all but got him. Not quite! And now, to
teach them, through her, a lesson they would not soon forget, he would
go forth.

Shaking with laughter, the gods leaned over the thunder-clouds to watch
him.

He went forth.

On the well-whitened doorstep he was confronted by a small boy in
uniform bearing a telegram.

"Duke of Dorset?" asked the small boy.

Opening the envelope, the Duke saw that the message, with which was a
prepaid form for reply, had been handed in at the Tankerton post-office.
It ran thus:

Deeply regret inform your grace last night
two black owls came and perched on battlements
remained there through night hooting
at dawn flew away none knows whither
awaiting instructions Jellings

The Duke's face, though it grew white, moved not one muscle.

Somewhat shamed now, the gods ceased from laughing.

The Duke looked from the telegram to the boy. "Have you a pencil?" he
asked.

"Yes, my Lord," said the boy, producing a stump of pencil.

Holding the prepaid form against the door, the Duke wrote:

Jellings Tankerton Hall
Prepare vault for funeral Monday

Dorset

His handwriting was as firmly and minutely beautiful as ever. Only in
that he forgot there was nothing to pay did he belie his calm. "Here,"
he said to the boy, "is a shilling; and you may keep the change."

"Thank you, my Lord," said the boy, and went his way, as happy as a
postman.

XV

Humphrey Greddon, in the Duke's place, would have taken a pinch of
snuff. But he could not have made that gesture with a finer air than the
Duke gave to its modern equivalent. In the art of taking and lighting
a cigarette, there was one man who had no rival in Europe. This time he
outdid even himself.

"Ah," you say, "but 'pluck' is one thing, endurance another. A man who
doesn't reel on receipt of his death-warrant may yet break down when he
has h