speak so,
and stare at me so! Is this really all you have to say? I see I ought
not to have come. 'Twas thoughtlessly done.'

Another breeze broke the thread of discourse for a time.

'Very well. I perceive you are dead and lost to me,' he could next be
heard to say, '"Captain Ogbourne" proves that. As I once loved you I
love you now, Harriet, without one jot of abatement; but you are not the
woman you were--you once were honest towards me; and now you conceal your
heart in made-up speeches. Let it be: I can never see you again.'

'You need not say that in such a tragedy tone, you silly. You may see me
in an ordinary way--why should you not? But, of course, not in such a
way as this. I should not have come now, if it had not happened that the
Duke is away from home, so that there is nobody to check my erratic
impulses.'

'When does he return?'

'The day after to-morrow, or the day after that.'

'Then meet me again to-morrow night.'

'No, Fred, I cannot.'

'If you cannot to-morrow night, you can the night after; one of the two
before he comes please bestow on me. Now, your hand upon it! To-morrow
or next night you will see me to bid me farewell!' He seized the
Duchess's hand.

'No, but Fred--let go my hand! What do you mean by holding me so? If it
be love to forget all respect to a woman's present position in thinking
of her past, then yours may be so, Frederick. It is not kind and gentle
of you to induce me to come to this place for pity of you, and then to
hold me tight here.'

'But see me once more! I have come two thousand miles to ask it.'

'O, I must not! There will be slanders--Heaven knows what! I cannot
meet you. For the sake of old times don't ask it.'

'Then own two things to me; that you did love me once, and that your
husband is unkind to you often enough now to make you think of the time
when you cared for me.'

'Yes--I own them both,' she answered faintly. 'But owning such as that
tells against me; and I swear the inference is not true.'

'Don't say that; for you have come--let me think the reason of your
coming what I like to think it. It can do you no harm. Come once more!'

He still held her hand and waist. 'Very well, then,' she said. 'Thus
far you shall persuade me. I will meet you to-morrow night or the night
after. Now, let me go.'

He released her, and they parted. The Duchess ran rapidly down the hill
towards the outlying mansion of Shakeforest Tower