n give
me strength."

But there was a time when it was scarce to be avoided that they should
be bidden as guests to Camylott, inasmuch as at this splendid and
renowned house my Lord of Dunstanwolde had spent some of his happiest
hours, and loved it dearly, never ceasing to speak of its stateliness
and beauty to his lady.

"It is the loveliest house in England, my lady," he would say, "and
Gerald loves it with his whole soul. I think he loves it as well, and
almost in such manner as he will some day love her who is his Duchess.
Know you that he and I walked together in the noted Long Gallery, on
the day I told him the story of your birth?"

My lady turned with sudden involuntary movement and met my lord Duke's
eyes (curiously seldom their eyes met, as curiously seldom as if each
pair avoided the other). Some strange emotion was in her countenance
and rich colour mounted her cheek.

"How was that, my lord?" she asked. "'Twas a strange story, as I have
heard it--and a sad one."

"He was but fourteen," said Dunstanwolde, "yet its cruelty set his
youthful blood on fire. Never shall I forget how his eyes flashed and
he bit his boyish lip, crying out against the hardness of it. 'Is there
justice,' he said, 'that a human thing can be cast into the world and
so left alone?'"

"Your Grace spoke so," said her ladyship to Osmonde, "while you were
yet so young?" and the velvet of her eyes seemed to grow darker.

"It was a bitter thing," said Osmonde. "There was no justice in it."

"Nay, that there was not," my lady said, very low.

"'Twas ordained that you two should be kinsman and kinswoman," said
Dunstanwolde. "He was moved by stories of your house when he was yet a
child, and he was ever anxious to hear of your ladyship's first years,
and later, when I longed for a confidant, though he knew it not, I
talked to him often, feeling that he alone of all I knew could
understand you."

Her ladyship stood erect and still, her eyes downcast, as she slowly
stripped a flower of its petals one by one. My lord Duke watched her
until the last flame-coloured fragment fell, when she looked up and
gazed into his face with a strange, tragic searching.

"Then you have known me long, your Grace?" she said.

He bowed his head, not wishing that his voice should at that moment be
heard.

"Since your ladyship was born," said her lord, happy that these two he
loved so well should feel they were not strangers. "Together we both
saw you