He realised, however, that to Zuleika he owed
the tenderness he now felt for Miss O'Mora. It was Zuleika that had
cured him of his aseity. She it was that had made his heart a warm and
negotiable thing. Yes, and that was the final cruelty. To love and be
loved--this, he had come to know, was all that mattered. Yesterday, to
love and die had seemed felicity enough. Now he knew that the secret,
the open secret, of happiness was in mutual love--a state that needed
not the fillip of death. And he had to die without having ever lived.
Admiration, homage, fear, he had sown broadcast. The one woman who had
loved him had turned to stone because he loved her. Death would lose
much of its sting for him if there were somewhere in the world just one
woman, however lowly, whose heart would be broken by his dying. What a
pity Nellie O'Mora was not really extant!

Suddenly he recalled certain words lightly spoken yesterday by Zuleika.
She had told him he was loved by the girl who waited on him--the
daughter of his landlady. Was this so? He had seen no sign of it, had
received no token of it. But, after all, how should he have seen a sign
of anything in one whom he had never consciously visualised? That she
had never thrust herself on his notice might mean merely that she had
been well brought-up. What likelier than that the daughter of Mrs.
Batch, that worthy soul, had been well brought up?

Here, at any rate, was the chance of a new element in his life, or
rather in his death. Here, possibly, was a maiden to mourn him. He would
lunch in his rooms.

With a farewell look at Nellie's miniature, he took the medicine-bottle
from the table, and went quickly out. The heavens had grown steadily
darker and darker, the air more sulphurous and baleful. And the High had
a strangely woebegone look, being all forsaken by youth, in this hour of
luncheon. Even so would its look be all to-morrow, thought the Duke,
and for many morrows. Well he had done what he could. He was free now to
brighten a little his own last hours. He hastened on, eager to see the
landlady's daughter. He wondered what she was like, and whether she
really loved him.

As he threw open the door of his sitting-room, he was aware of a rustle,
a rush, a cry. In another instant, he was aware of Zuleika Dobson at his
feet, at his knees, clasping him to her, sobbing, laughing, sobbing.

XVI

For what happened a few moments later you must not blame him. Some
measure of for