come to this part of his narrative, he had waited
quiet so long that his companion had naturally taken the evening to be
at its end. The Duke had thrown his cigar away, and lifting from the
table near him a leather case, opened it and handed over to Bulstrode
the photograph of two little bare-legged boys in sailor clothes. They
stood hand in hand, a pretty pair. Looking at it, and gently turning
it over on the other side, Bulstrode read:

"Frederick Cecil John Edward, Marquis of Wotherington, three years old.
Guy Perceval, Lord Feversham, aged two years."

Westboro's voice had a dull sound as he took the case from his friend's
hand.

"They are Westboro's I think, neck and crop. Scarlet fever--in three
days, Bulstrode--both in three days."

And that had been all.

Bulstrode had left the Duke and gone up-stairs. On the other side of
his cheerful rooms the empty nurseries in the ghostly moonlight held
their doors wide open as if to welcome at the low gates those bright
heads if they should come.

Jimmy, whose sentimentality consisted in his acting immediately when
anything was to be done, mixed a whiskey and soda from the array of
drinks that always exists at an Anglo-Saxon's elbow, and after a turn
or two in his dressing-room brought practically out:

"It's ridiculous! Sheer nonsense. There should be children here. The
woman is selfish and puritanical, and the man is no lover--_that's_
what's the matter! But Westboro' certainly loves her in his big, cold,
affectionate way." Jimmy smiled at his own fashion of putting it. And
how any woman, with a mind and common-sense, could help loving
Westboro' Castle and countryside, as well as Cecil, tenth Duke of the
line, the American visitor failed to see.

As the Duke of Westboro' thought of the members of his recent house
party--the women of it passed before his mental mirror. There were
several images of an American lady whose frocks and hats, whose wit and
grace, whose dark beauty had made her stay at Westboro' brilliant and
memorable. Possibly the remembrance of Mrs. Falconer, one night at
dinner, was what most persistently lingered in the Duke's mind. She
had sat on his left in a gown he remembered as becoming, and her jewels
had shone like fire on her bosom. He had particularly remarked them in
thinking of the idle jewels of his own house, left behind by the flight
of the Duchess. Mary Falconer had been more brilliant than her
ornaments, and Westboro