ppetite to enjoy partridge and Johannisberg, even if they had been
found in the hotel.

"Glad they have found out that they must be attentive to business. You
and I, duke, will discuss the good things on the table before us. Come."

The two lingered over the luncheon until it was time for the duke to
start for the depot.

"I will send over for my two sons, that you may bid them good-by," said
Mr. Rockharrt, and he turned to the waiter, and told him to go and
dispatch a messenger to that effect.

Messrs. Fabian and Clarence soon put in an appearance, and expressed
their surprise and regret at the sudden departure of their father's
guest, and their hope and trust to see him again in the near future.
Neither of them seemed to know that the betrothal declared at the dinner
table on the night before had no foundation in fact. The duke thanked
them for their good wishes, invited them to visit him if they should
find themselves in England, and then he took a final leave of the
Rockharrts, entered the carriage, and drove off, through a pouring rain,
to the railway station--and out of their lives forever.

"A fine thing Mistress Rothsay has done!" exclaimed the Iron King, when
his guest had gone, and he explained Cora's action.

Corona had spent the day at Rockhold drearily enough. She felt
reasonably sure that her rejection of the duke's hand would deeply
offend her grandfather and precipitate a crisis in her own life. When
she had finished her letter to her brother, in which she told him of the
death of Mr. Rockharrt's wife and added her own resolution soon to set
out to join him in his distant fort, she began to make preparations for
her journey in the event of having to leave Rockhold suddenly. She knew
her grandfather's temper and disposition, and felt that she must hold
herself in readiness to meet any emergencies brought about by their
manifestations. So she set about her preparations.

She had not much to do. The trunks that she had packed and dispatched to
the North End railway station three months before at the hour when her
own journey was arrested by the accident to her grandfather, had
remained in storage there ever since.

The contents of her large valise, which was to have been her own
traveling companion in her long journey to and through the "Great
American Desert," and which was well packed with several changes of
clothes and with small dressing, sewing and writing cases, supplied all
her wants during