."

He looked at her gayly.

"I fear," he said, "you are too late. That point is settled, as I
understand from herself."

"Surely not--so soon!"

"There was an exchange of letters this morning."

"Oh, but you can prevent it--you must!" She clasped her hands.

"No," he said, slowly, "I fear you must accept it. Their relation was a
matter of old habit. Like other things old and frail, it bears shock and
disturbance badly."

She sank back in her chair, raising her hands and letting them fall with
a gesture of despair.

One little stroke of punishment--just one! Surely there was no cruelty
in that. Sir Wilfrid caught the Horatian lines dancing through his head:

"Just oblige me and touch
With your wand that minx Chloe--
But don't hurt her much!"

Yet here was Jacob interposing!--Jacob, who had evidently been watching
his mild attempt at castigation, no doubt with disapproval. Lover or no
lover--what did the man expect? Under his placid exterior, Sir Wilfrid's
mind was, in truth, hot with sympathy for the old and helpless.

Delafield bent over Miss Le Breton.

"You will go and rest? Evelyn advises it."

She rose to her feet, and most of the party rose, too.

"Good-bye--good-bye," said Lord Lackington, offering her a cordial hand.
"Rest and forget. Everything blows over. And at Easter you must come to
me in the country. Blanche will be with me, and my granddaughter
Aileen, if I can tempt them away from Italy. Aileen's a little fairy;
you'd be charmed with her. Now mind, that's a promise. You must
certainly come."

The Duchess had paused in her farewell nothings with Sir Wilfrid to
observe her friend. Julie, with her eyes on the ground, murmured thanks;
and Lord Lackington, straight as a dart to-night, carrying his
seventy-five years as though they were the merest trifle, made a stately
and smiling exit. Julie looked round upon the faces left. In her own
heart she read the same judgment as in their eyes: "_The old man
must know!_"

The Duke came into the drawing-room half an hour later in quest of his
wife. He was about to leave town by a night train for the north, and his
temper was, apparently, far from good.

The Duchess was stretched on the sofa in the firelight, her hands behind
her head, dreaming. Whether it was the sight of so much ease that jarred
on the Duke's ruffled nerves or no, certain it is that he inflicted a
thorny good-bye. He had seen Lady Henry, he said, and the realit