an honest wife. He had so
planned it, but Fate saved her!"

"A mock marriage," says the Duke, "and she saved from it! How?"

"Because the day she went to him to be married, as he had told her, he
was not at his lodgings, and did not return."

"'Twas the very day he disappeared--the day you saw him?" Osmonde
exclaimed.

"Yes," was the answer given, as her Grace crossed the room. "And 'twas
because I had seen him that the poor thing came to me with her
story--and I cared for her."

She, too, had been sitting at her embroidery frame, and had crossed the
room for silks, which lay upon the table near to Mistress Anne. As she
laid her hand upon them she looked down and uttered a low exclamation,
springing to her sister's side.

"Anne, love!" she cried. "Nay, Anne!"

Mistress Anne's small, worn face had dropped so low over her frame that
it at last lay upon it, showing white against the silken roses so gaily
broidered there. She was in a dead swoon.

Later Osmonde heard further details of this story--of how the poor
child, having no refuge in the great city, had dared at last to go to
Dunstanwolde House in the wild hope that her ladyship, who had last
seen Sir John, might tell her if he had let drop any word concerning
his journey--if he had made one. She had at first hung long about the
servants' entrance, watching the workmen who were that day walling in
the wing of black cellars my lady had wished to close before she left
the place, and at length, in desperation, had appealed to a young
stone-mason, with a good-humoured countenance, and he had interceded
for her with a lacquey passing by.

"But had I not spoke Sir John's name," the girl said when my lord Duke
spoke kindly to her of her story and her Grace's goodness; "had I not
spoke his name, the man would not have carried my message. But he said
she would see me if I had news of Sir John Oxon. He blundered, your
Grace, thinking I came from Sir John himself, and told her Grace 'twas
so. And she bade him bring me to her."

Her Grace she worshipped, and would break here into sobs each time she
told the story, describing her fright when she had been led to the
apartment where sate the great lady, who had spoke to her in a voice
like music and with such strange, deep pity of her grief, and in a
passion of tenderness had told the truth to her, taking her, after her
swoon, in her own strong, lovely arms, as if she had been no rich
Countess but a poor woman, such a