fair-faced girl being Lady Arleigh!" exclaimed
Lady Peters. "I suppose that I had better consent, or he will do
something more desperate. He is terribly in earnest, Philippa."

"He is terribly in love," said the duchess, carelessly, and then Lady
Peters decided that she would accede to Lord Arleigh's request.

Chapter XXIII.

More than once during the week that ensued after his proposal of
marriage to Madaline, Lord Arleigh looked in wonder at the duchess. She
seemed so unlike herself--absent, brooding, almost sullen. The smiles,
the animation, the vivacity, the wit, the brilliant repartee that had
distinguished her had all vanished. More than once he asked her if she
was ill; the answer was always "No." More than once he asked her if she
was unhappy; the answer was always the same--"No."

"You are miserable because your husband is not here," he said to her one
day, compassionately. "If you had known how much you would have missed
him, you would not have let him go."

There was a wondrous depth of pain in the dark eyes raised to his.

"I wish he had not gone," she said; "from the very depths of my heart I
wish that." Then she seemed to recover her natural gayety. "I do not
know, though, why I should have detained him," she said, half
laughingly. "He is so fond of yachting."

"You must not lose all your spirits before he returns, Philippa, or he
will say we have been but sorry guardians."

"No one has ever found fault with my spirits before," said the duchess.
"You are not complimentary, Norman."

"You give me such a strange impression," he observed. "Of course it is
highly ridiculous, but if I did not know you as well as I do, I should
think that you had something on your mind, some secret that was making
you unhappy--that there was a struggle always going on between something
you would like to do and something you are unwilling to do. It is an
absurd idea, I know, yet it has taken possession of me."

She laughed, but there was little music in the sound.

"What imaginative power you have, Norman! You would make your fortune as
a novelist. What can I have to be unhappy about? Should you think that
any woman has a lot more brilliant than mine? See how young I am for my
position--how entirely I have my own way! Could any one, do you think,
be more happy than I?"

"No, perhaps not," he replied.

So the week passed, and at the end of it Lady Peters went with Madaline
to St. Mildred's. At first the f