en he awakened in the morning he
lay and thought of it and counted that a day had passed and another
begun, and found himself pondering, as all those in his case do, on the
events of the future and the incidents which would lead him to them. At
night, sometimes in long rides or walks he took alone, he lived these
incidents through and imagined he beheld her as she would look when
they first met, as she would look when he told her his purpose in
coming to her. If he pleased her, his fancy pictured him the warm flash
of her large eye, the smile of her mouth, half-proud, half-tender, a
look which even when but imagined made his pulses beat.

"I do not know her face well enough," he said, "to picture all the
beauteous changes of it, but there will sure be a thousand which a man
might spend a life of love in studying."

Among the many who passed hours in his company at this time, there was
but one who guessed, even distantly, at what lay at the root of his
being, and this was the man who, being in a measure of like nature with
his own, had been in the same way possessed when deep passion came to
him.

At this period his Grace of Marlborough already felt the tossings of
the rising storm in England, and the emotions which his Duchess's
letters aroused within him, her anger at the intrigues about her, her
tigress love for and belief in him, her determination to defend and
uphold him with all the powers of her life and strength and imperial
spirit, were, it is probable, moving and stimulating things which put
him in the mood to be keen of sight and sympathy.

"There dwells some constant thought in your mind, my lord Duke," he
said, on a night in which they sate together alone. "Is it a new one?"

"No," Osmonde answered; "'twould perhaps not be so constant if it were.
It is an old thought which has taken a new form. In times past"--his
voice involuntarily falling a tone--"I did not realise its presence."

The short silence which fell was broken by the Duke and with some
suddenness.

"Is it one of which you would rid yourself?" he asked.

"No, your Grace."

"Tis well," gravely, "You could not--if you would."

He asked no further question, but went on as if in deep thought, rather
reflecting aloud.

"There are times," he said, "when to some it is easy and natural to say
that such fevers are folly and unreasonableness--but even to those so
slightly built by nature, and of memories so poor, such times do not
come, nor c