very assuredly there
was a note of keen delight mingled with the astonishment.

Antony pulled off his cap.

"Fancy meeting you here!" cried the Duchessa di Donatello. "Why ever
didn't you let me know that you were in these parts? Or, perhaps you have
only just arrived, and were going to come and see me?"

There was the fraction of a pause. Then,

"I've been at Byestry since the beginning of May," said Antony.

"At Byestry," exclaimed the Duchessa. "But why ever didn't you tell me
when you wrote, instead of saying it was impossible to come and see me?"

"I didn't know then that Woodleigh and Byestry lay so near together,"
said Antony. And then he stopped. What on earth was he to say next?

The Duchessa looked at him. There was an oddness in his manner she could
not understand. He seemed entirely different from the man she had known
on the _Fort Salisbury_. Yet--well, perhaps it was only fancy.

"You know now, anyhow," she responded gaily. "And you must come and see
me." Then her glance fell upon his clothes. Involuntarily a little
puzzlement crept into her eyes, a little amazed query.

"What are you doing at Byestry?" she asked. The question had come.
Antony's hand clenched on the side of the pony-trap.

"Oh, I'm one of the under-gardeners at Chorley Old Hall," he responded
cheerfully, and as if it were the most entirely natural thing in the
world, though his heart was as heavy as lead.

"What do you mean?" queried the Duchessa bewildered.

"Just that," said Antony, still cheerfully, "under-gardener at Chorley
Old Hall."

"But why?" demanded the Duchessa, the tiniest frown between her
eyebrows.

"Because it is my work," said Antony briefly.

There was a moment's silence.

"But I don't quite understand," said the Duchessa slowly. "You--you
aren't a labourer."

Antony drew a deep breath.

"That happens to be exactly what I am," he responded.

"What do you mean, Mr. Gray?" There was bewilderment in the words.

"Exactly what I have said," returned Antony almost stubbornly. "I am
under-gardener at Chorley Old Hall, or, in other words, a labourer. I get
a pound a week wage, and a furnished cottage, for which I pay five
shillings a week rent. My name, by the way, is Michael Field."

The Duchessa looked straight at him.

"Then on the ship you pretended to be someone you were not?" she asked
slowly.

Antony shrugged his shoulders.

"That was the reason you wrote and said you couldn't see me?"

Aga