not, he was not given
to talking of them, and a certain reserve would have prevented his
entering upon any discussion of the future Lady Roxholm, whomsoever she
might in the future prove to be. He stood in an easy attitude, watching
with some vague curiosity the expression of his chief's countenance.
But suddenly he found himself checking a slight start, and this was
occasioned by his Lordship's next words.

"In the future I shall take pains to hear what befalls her," the Duke
said. "In two or three years' time we shall hear somewhat. She will
marry a duke--be a King's mistress, or go to ruin in some less splendid
and more tragic way. No woman is born into the world with such beauty
as they say is hers, and such wild fire in her veins, without setting
the world--or herself--in flames. A new Helen of Troy she may be, and
yet she is but the ninth daughter of a drunken Gloucestershire
baronet."

'Twas here that Roxholm found himself checking his start, but he had
not checked it soon enough to escape the observance of the quickest
sighted man in Europe.

"What!" he said, "you have heard of her?"

"I have seen her, your Grace," Roxholm answered, "on the hunting field
in Gloucestershire."

"Is she so splendid a young creature as they say? Was she in boy's
attire, as we hear her rascal father lets her ride with him?"

"I thought her a boy, and had never seen one like her," said Roxholm,
and he was amazed to feel himself disturbed as if he spoke not of a
child, but of a beauty of ripe years.

"Is she of such height and strength and wondrous development as rumour
tells us?" his Grace continued, still observing him as if with
interest. "At twelve years old, 'tis told, she is tall enough for
eighteen, and can fence and leap hedges and break horses, and that she
plays the tyrant over men four times her age."

"I saw her but once, your Grace," replied Roxholm. "She was tall and
strong and handsome."

"Go and see her again, my lord Marquess," said the Captain-General,
turning to his papers. "But do not wait too long. Such beauties must be
caught early."

When he went back to his quarters, my lord Marquess strolled through
the quaint streets of the town slowly, and looking upon the ground as
he walked. For some reason he felt vaguely depressed, and, searching
within himself for a reason, recognised that the slight cloud resting
upon his spirits recalled to him a feeling of his early childhood--no
other than the sense of