ks
for one for you, but finds none to please her taste. She would have a
wondrous consort for you. You do wrong to roam so. You should come to
Dunstan's Wolde that she may have you beneath her eye."

But to Dunstan's Wolde he did not go--not even when, in obedience to
her lord's commands, the Countess herself besought him with gracious
hospitality.

To their town house he went but seldom, pleading as reason, affairs
which occupied his time, journeys which removed him to other parts. But
to refuse to cross the threshold was impossible; accordingly there were
times when he must make visits of ceremony, and on one such occasion he
found her ladyship alone, and she conveyed to him her husband's message
and his desire that she herself should press his invitation.

'Twas upon a winter afternoon, and when my lord Duke was announced he
entered the saloon, to behold my lady sitting by the firelight in a
carven gilded chair, her eyes upon the glowing coals, her thoughts
plainly preoccupied. On hearing his name she slightly started, and on
his entry rose and gave him her soft warm hand, which he did not kiss
because its velvet so wooed him that he feared to touch it with his
lips. 'Twas not a hand which he could touch with simple courtesy, but
must long to kiss passionately, and over and over again, and hold close
with whispered words.

"My lord has but just left me," she said. "He will be almost angry at
the chance which led him to go before your coming. The last hour of our
talk was all of your Grace;" and she sat upright against the high back
of her chair. And why was it that, while she sat so straight and still,
he felt that she held herself as one who needs support? "The last hour
of our talk was all of you," she said again, and oh, the velvet of her
eyes was asking him for some aid, some mercy; and his soul leaped in
anguish as he saw it. "He says I must beguile you to be less formal
with us. Before our marriage, he tells me, your Grace came often to
Dunstan's Wolde, and now you seem to desert us."

"No, no!" exclaimed my lord Duke, as if involuntarily, and rose from
his seat and stood looking down into the fire.

"I told him you would exclaim so!" said my lady, and her low-pitched
voice was a thing to make a man tremble. "I know your Grace loves
him--I think any heart must love him----"

My lord Duke turned and looked at her. Their eyes rested on each other
and spoke.

"I thank your Ladyship," he said, "that you s