only drive over?"

"I sent for my servant to bring my things, and I shall stay now I find
you. You always seem to forget we are cousins, and that people ought
to take an interest in their relations!"

"Tell me about your house--Dane Mount it is called, is it not?" I
asked, presently. We had been silent for a moment, walking down a
shady path, great pine-trees on each side.

"No, I won't tell you about it; you must come over there some day and
stop with me for a night or so. You ought to see the home of your
ancestors, you know. Promise me you will when I come back from
Scotland!"

We had gone deep into the wood by now. It was quite dusky. The thick
trees met overhead, and only an occasional sunbeam penetrated through.

I felt stupid. The words did not come so easily as when I am with the
Duke.

"How silent you are, Comtesse!"

"Is it not time to go back?" I said, stupidly.

"No, not nearly time. I want you to tell me all about yourself--where
you lived, and all that happened until you flashed into my life at
the Tilchester ball. See, we will sit down on this log of wood and be
quite comfortable."

We sat down.

"Now begin, Comtesse: 'Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, I
came from--where?'"

"Do you really want to hear the family history?" I asked.

"Yes."

I told him an outline of things and how grandmamma and I had lived
at the cottage, and of all her wise sayings, and about the Marquis
and Roy and Hephzibah, and the simple things of my long-ago past.
It seemed as if I was speaking of some other person, so changed has
all my outlook on life and things become since I went to Paris with
Augustus.

"And now we come to the day we met in the lane," he said. "You were
not even engaged then, were you?"

"Oh no! Grandmamma had never had a fainting-fit; she would have found
the idea too dreadful at that time." I stopped suddenly, realizing
what I had said. I could not tell him how and why I had married
Augustus; he must think what he pleased.

He evidently thought a good deal, by the look in his eyes. I wish--I
wish when he looks it did not make my heart beat so; it is foolish and
uncomfortable.

"What a fool I was not to come with the automobile the night before
your wedding and carry you off to Gretna Green," he said, in a voice
that might have been mocking or serious, I could not tell which.

"Tell me, Comtesse, if I had tapped at your window, would you have
looked out and come with me?"