"Not if I never see her again."

"You should decidedly go to her."

The other shook his head. "Not if it meant twice the hell it is now."

"Why not?"

"I went to her once. I may say twice," he slowly said, "since we
separated." And as he stopped speaking Bulstrode could only imagine
what the result had been.

"I don't think I'm a Westboro' really, for I couldn't follow any
woman's carriage puling like a schoolboy as my ancestor did. There's a
great deal of my mother's blood in me, and it's a different blend."

Bulstrode's eyes were on the little book between the Duke's
aristocratic hands.

"She has, I grant you, a lot to forgive; but she quite well knows all
the blame I acknowledge, quite well. I don't believe I'm any worse
than the run of mankind, and whether I am or not, I've made all the
amends I can and I have nothing more to say."

His eyeglass had dropped; his face looked worn; he showed his age more
than a happier man would have done at his years His mood of thinking it
out by himself continued for so long that Bulstrode finally asked:

"What, if I may be so near you as to question, do you mean, old chap,
to do?"

Westboro' had it all laid out for himself--his ready answer showed it.

"You say I'm not a lover," he reminded his friend; "no doubt you're
right, but I'm an affectionate chap, at any rate, I can't bear this--"
He looked about hopelessly. The words were forced out by the high mark
of his unhappiness: "--this infernal solitude. Even when a good
comrade like yourself is in it, the house seems to speak to me from the
empty rooms in this wing." (Bulstrode knew he was thinking of the
nurseries with the low latches and little gates.) "I can't stand it.
When I get out of England and abroad the place fetches me back again
like a magnet. I'm a home-keeping sort of man, and I want my home."

His friend gently urged in the silence: "Well?"

"I shall wait," the Duke went on with the plan he had been forced to
make out for himself. "I shall hold on, keep along a bit, and then--_I
shall go to the other woman_." And the Duke, as he raised his eyes to
his companion, fixed his glass firmly and felt that he challenged in
every way Bulstrode's disapproval. "The Duchess will get her
divorce--it goes without saying--will get her divorce. Why she has not
already done so I can't imagine."

As Westboro' appeared inclined to leave the subject there, Bulstrode
pressed him further: "And then?"