e of those peculiar crises of honor that makes a
person betray a trust in order to salve his conscience?"

Bulstrode had come again faithfully, making the pilgrimage to the
forest road, and he was not surprised that it should have finally
turned out so that one day the gate yielded to his touch, and he found
the Duchess if not waiting for him, distinctly there. During their
delightful little talks--and they had been so--not once had the name of
Bulstrode's host been mentioned; and if the lady had a curiosity
concerning her lord and once master, she did not display it to the
visitor.

"I mean to say," Bulstrode replied in answer to her challenge which was
fiery, "that I really don't want to play false to Westboro', more false
than I shall in the course of events be forced to be. Of course, your
secret--I need not say so--is entirely safe. But the Duke comes back
in a day or two, and rather than face him with this silence which you
have imposed upon me I am going back to London before he returns."

The sewing she had chosen to finger--a Duchess, and an American one at
that, is not expected to do more--lay at her feet. By her side was a
basket of considerable proportions, and it was full to the brim with
linen: the very fine white stuff overflowed from the basket like snow.
The Duchess of Westboro's handiwork had already caught the eye of her
guest. And now, as her long hands and her long finger, tipped by its
golden thimble, handled her sewing, Bulstrode watched her interestedly
and found great loveliness in her bending face.

"I didn't think any of you knew how to sew," he mused aloud.

"Any of us!" she smiled. "Do you, by that, mean American Duchesses?
Or do you mean women who have left their husbands? Or in just what
class do you think of me, regarding your last remark?"

She folded up her work and dropped her thimble in the nest of snow.
Bulstrode acknowledged that his conclusion, whatever it had been, was
wrong.

"When I married," the Duchess said, "I was the best four-in-hand whip
for a woman in my set. I don't think I am a keen needlewoman, really,
and I know then I didn't recognize a needle by sight. When my little
boys were born I sent to Paris for everything they wore, and I can
remember that I didn't even know for what the little clothes were
intended, many of them, when they came home in my first son's layette.
I have learned to sew since I came here to The Dials. I've been three
months her