g battle with himself.
Yet what could there be for such as he to combat with?"

He had thought of this very thing when he had seen his Grace pass to
his coach which was to bear him to the entertainment at his kinsman's
house. The man, who had grown used to silent observance of him, had
seen in his face the thing he deplored, while he did not comprehend it.

At midnight he sate in his room, which adjoined his Grace's study, and
in which he was ever within call.

"'Tis a thing perhaps none but a woman could understand," he said to
himself in quiet thought.

The clock began to strike twelve. One--two--three--four--five--six--

But the rest he did not hear. The coach-wheels were to be heard rolling
into the courtyard. His Grace was returning. Mr. Hammond rose from his
work, prepared to answer a summons should he hear one. In but a few
minutes he was called and entered the adjoining room.

My lord Duke was standing in the centre of the apartment. He looked
like a man who had met with a shock. The colour had fled from his
countenance, and his eyes were full of pain.

"Hammond," he said, "a great and sudden calamity has taken place. An
hour ago my Lord Dunstanwolde was struck down--in the midst of his
company--by a fatal seizure of the heart."

"Fatal, your Grace?" Mr. Hammond ejaculated.

"He did not breathe after he fell," was my lord Duke's answer, and his
pallor became even more marble-like than before, as if an added
coldness had struck him. "He was a dead man when I laid my hand upon
his heart."

_CHAPTER XXIII_

_Her Ladyship Returns to Town_

Upon the awful occasion of his kinsman's sudden death in the midst of
the glittering throng of his guests, my lord Duke had spoken for the
first time to her ladyship of Dunstanwolde's sister, the gentle
Mistress Anne. His Grace had chanced to encounter this lady under such
circumstances as naturally led them to address each other, and he being
glad to have speech with her on whom his thoughts had dwelt so kindly,
had remained in attendance upon her, escorting her through the crowd of
celebrities and leading her to the supper-room for refreshment. Had she
been wholly a stranger to him, she was one who would have appealed to
his heart and touched it, she was so slight and modest a creature, her
eyes so soft and loving and her low voice so timid. Such women always
moved him and awakened in him that tenderness the weak should always
waken in the strong. But Mist