there is
someone stronger than himself.' Who is it?" asked the narrator,
striking her fair hands together in a sort of exultation.

"The Countess of Dunstanwolde!" broke in a voice, and all turned
quickly to look at the speaker. It was the Duke of Osmonde.

How did Monsieur le Duc know at once, they asked laughing, and he
answered them with a slight smile, though someone remarked later that
he had looked pale. He had known that she was a marvellous horsewoman,
he had seen her in the hunting-field when she had been a child, he had
heard of her riding dangerous animals before. Everyone knew that she
was without fear. There was no other woman in England who would dare so
much.

He spoke to them in almost ordinary tones, and heard their exclamations
of admiration or prophetic fright to the end, but when he had driven
homeward and was alone in his own apartment he felt himself cold with
dread.

"And I wait here at the command of a Queen," he said, "and cannot be
loosed from my duty. And Fate may come between again--again!"--and he
almost shuddered the next instant as he heard the sound which broke
from his lips, 'twas so like a short, harsh laugh which mocked at his
own sharp horror. "'Tis not right that a woman should so play with a
man's soul," he cried fiercely; "'tis not fair she should so lay him on
the rack!"

But next, manlike, his own anguish melted him.

"She does not know," he said. "If she _knew_ she would be more gentle.
She is very noble. Had I spoke with her on that to-morrow, she would
have obeyed the commands my love would lay upon her."

"My Lady Dunstanwolde," he heard a day later, "has vowed to conquer her
great horse or be killed by it. Each day she fights a battle with it in
the park, and all the people crowd to look on. Some say it will kill
her, and some she will kill it. She is so strong and without fear."

"To one of her adorers she laughed and said that if the animal broke
her neck, she need battle with neither men nor horses again. The name
of her horse is Devil, and he is said to look like one. _Magnifique!_"
laughed the man who spoke.

By the third day, his Grace of Osmonde's valet began to look anxious.
He had attended his master ten years and had never seen him look as he
did in these days. His impression was that his Grace did not sleep,
that he had not slept for several nights. Lexton had heard him walking
in his room when he ought to have been in bed; one thing was certain,
he d