he?"

"That's all very well, but I don't like him. And I believe he's in love
with his cousin. He went quite white when you spoke about the
engagement."

"Mother--how absurd you are. He's only seen her once----"

"Well, my dear, that's a book you ought to read; really, I haven't
enjoyed anything so much for weeks. I simply----"

Up in her bedroom Lizzie flung wide her window and laughed at the golden
moon. Then she lay, for hours, staring at the pale light that it flung
upon her ceiling.

Oh! what a fool she was! But she was happy, happy, happy. And he needed
someone to look after him--he did, indeed!

CHAPTER XI

HER GRACE'S DAY

I

The Duchess had suffered, during the last five or six years, from
sleeplessness, and throughout these hot days and nights of June and July
sleep almost deserted her. Grimly she gave it no quarter, allowing to no
one that she was sleeping badly, pretending even to Christopher that all
was well.

Nevertheless those long dark hours began to tell upon her. She had known
many nights sleepless through pain, certain nights sleepless through
anxiety, but they, terrible though they had been, had not worn so stern
a look as these long black spaces of time when all rest and comfort
seemed to be drawn from her by some mysterious hand.

To herself now she admitted that she dreaded that moment when Dorchester
left her; she began to do what she had never in her life done before, to
fall asleep during the daytime. Small mercy to anyone who might attract
any attention to those little naps.

She fell asleep often towards six or seven and, therefore, without any
comment, Dorchester, seeing her fatigue, left her to sleep until late in
the morning. She had not for many years left her room before midday, but
she had been awake with her correspondence and the papers by half-past
seven at the latest. Now it was often eleven before she awoke.

She found that she did not awake with the energy and freshness that she
had always known before. About her there always hovered a great cloud of
fatigue--something not quite present, but threatening at any moment to
descend.

On a certain morning late in July she awoke after two or three hours'
restless sleep. As she woke she was conscious that those hours had not
removed from her that threatening cloud: she heard a clock strike
eleven. Dorchester was drawing back the curtains and from behind the
blinds there leapt upon her a blazing, torrid day.