t to him;
for in truth it ever seemed that it must befall so when he met and
talked with man or woman who had come lately from England, Ireland, or
Wales.

And so it did befall, but this time 'twas neither Gloucestershire,
Worcester, Warwick, nor Berks she had visited or entertained guests
from, but plain, lively town gossip she repeated apropos of Sir John
Oxon, whose fortunes seemed in evil case. In five years' time he had
squandered all his inheritance, and now was in such straits through his
creditors that it seemed plain his days of fashionable wild living and
popularity would soon be over, and his poor mother was using all her
wits to find him a young lady with a fortune.

"And in truth she found him one, two years ago," her Ladyship added, "a
West Indian heiress, but at that time he was dangling after the wild
Gloucestershire beauty and was mad for her. What was her name? I forget
it, though I should not. But she was disdainful and treated him so
scornfully that at last they quarrelled--or 'twas thought so--for he
left the country and hath not been near her for months. Good Lord!" of
a sudden; "is not my Lord Dunstanwolde your Grace's distant kinsman?"

"My father's cousin twice removed, your Ladyship," answered Osmonde,
wondering somewhat at the irrelevance of the question.

"Then you will be related to the fantastic young lady too," she said,
"if his lordship is successful in his elderly suit."

"His lordship?" queried Osmonde; "his lordship of Dunstanwolde?"

"Yes," said the old woman, in great good humour, "for he is more in
love than all the rest. Faith, a man must be in love if he will hear
'No' twice said to him when he is sixty-five and then go back to kneel
and plead again."

My lord Duke rose from his seat to set upon the table near by his
chocolate-cup. Months later he remembered how mad the tale had seemed
to him, and that there had been in his mind no shadow of belief in it;
even that an hour after it had, in sooth, passed from his memory and
been forgotten.

"'Tis a strange rumour, your Ladyship," he said. "For myself I do not
credit it, knowing of my lord's early loss and his years of mourning
through it."

"'Tis for that reason all the neighbourhood is agog," answered my lady.
"But 'tis for that reason I give it credit. These men who have
worshipped a woman once can do it again. And this one--Lud! they say,
she is a witch and no man resists her."

A few days later came a letter from m