iron will of the Iron King could ever coerce her into marriage with any
man, least of all with the man whose memory was identified with her
heart's tragedy. The old man continued his monologue.

"The best thing about the fellow is his constancy. He was after your
imaginary fortune once. I am sure of that. And he was so dazzled by the
illumination of that _ignis fatuus_ that he didn't see you, perhaps, and
didn't recognize how much he really cared for you. At all events, in his
letter to me--and, by the way, it is very strange that he should write
to me after the snubbing I gave him in London," said the Iron King,
reflectively.

Cora did not think that was strange. She, at least, felt sure that it
was as impossible for the young duke to take offense at the rudeness of
the old iron man as at the raging of a dog or the tearing of a bull. But
she did not drop a hint of this to the egotist, who never imagined
passive insolence to be at the bottom of the duke's forbearance.

"In his letter to me," resumed old Aaron Rockharrt, "the young fool
tells me that, immediately after his great disappointment in being
rejected by you, he left England--and, indeed, Europe--and traveled
through every accessible portion of Asia and Africa, in the hope of
overcoming his misplaced affection, but in vain, for that he returned
home at the end of two years with his heart unchanged. There he learned
through the newspapers that you had been recently widowed, through the
murder of your husband in an Indian mutiny. That's how he put it. He
farther wrote that, in the face of such a tragedy as that, he felt bound
to forbear the faintest approach toward resuming his acquaintance with
you until some considerable time should have elapsed, although, he was
careful to add, he always believed that you had given him your heart,
and would have given him your hand had you been permitted to do so. He
ended his letter by asking me to give him your address, that he might
write to you. He evidently supposed you to be keeping house for
yourself, as English widows of condition usually do. Well, my girl, what
do you think I did?"

"You told me, sir, that, being at leisure just then, you answered his
letter immediately," coldly replied Cora.

"Yes; and I told him that you were living with me. I gave him the full
address. And I told him that I was pleased with his frankness and
fidelity, qualities which I highly approved; and I added that if he
wished to renew hi