d unofficially." Then he added a strange thing, dragging the words
out. "How could that--be blown to atoms?"

The Duchess scarcely breathed her answer which was as strange as his
questioning.

"Oh! How _could_ it!"

She put out her shaking hand and touched his sleeve, watching his face
as if something in it awed her.

"You _loved_ him?" She whispered it. But Robin heard.

"I did not know I had loved anything--but I suppose that has been it.
His physical perfection attracted me at first--his extraordinary
contrast to Henry. It was mere pride in him as an heir and successor.
Afterwards it was a _beautiful_ look his young blue eyes had. Beautiful
seems an unmasculine word for such a masculine lad, but no other word
expresses it. It was a sort of valiant brightness and joy in living and
being friends with the world. I saw it every time he came to talk to me.
I wished he were my son. I even tried to think of him as my son." He
uttered a curious low sound like a sudden groan, "My son has been
killed."

* * * * *

When he was about to leave the house and stood in the candle-lighted
hall he was thinking of many dark things which passed unformedly through
his mind and made him move slowly. He was slow in his movements as the
elderly maid servant assisted him to put on his overcoat, and he was as
slowly drawing on his gloves when his eyes--slow also--travelled up the
staircase and stopped at the first landing, where he seemed to see an
indefinite heap of something lying.

"Am I mistaken or is--something--lying on the landing?" he said to the
woman.

The fact that he was impelled to make the inquiry seemed to him part of
his abnormal state of mind. What affair of his after all were curiously
dropped bundles upon his hostess' staircase? But--

"Please go and look at it," he added, and the woman gave him a troubled
look and went up the stairs.

He himself was only a moment behind her. He actually found himself
following her as if he were guessing something. When the maid cried out,
he vaguely knew what he had been guessing.

"Oh!" the woman gasped, bending down. "It's poor little Miss Lawless!
Oh, my lord," wildly after a nearer glance, "She looks as if she was
dead!"

CHAPTER XIV

"Now no one will ever know."

Robin waking from long unconsciousness found her mind saying this before
consciousness which was clear had actually brought her back to the
world.

"Now no one w