dedness,
then he was narrow-minded. But he was loyal to the heart's core,
faithful unto death, true in every fibre of his being. "He loved one
only, and he clave to her," and there was room in his heart for none
other.

The Dowager had several times hinted to the Duke of York that she
considered it high time that Constance should take up her residence at
Cardiff, for she was a firm believer in "the eternal fitness of things,"
and while too much love was in her eyes deeply reprehensible, a proper
quantity of matrimony, at a suitable age, was a highly respectable
thing, and a state into which every man and woman ought to enter, with
due prudence and decorum. And as a wife married in childhood was
usually resigned to her husband at an age some years earlier than
Constance had now attained, the Dowager was scandalised by her
persistent absence. The Duke, who recognised in his daughter a more
self-reliant character than his own, and was therefore afraid of her,
had passed over the intimation, accompanied with a request that she
would do as she liked about it. That Constance would do as she liked
her father well knew; and she did it. She stayed at home, the Queen of
Langley, where no oppressive pseudo-maternal atmosphere interfered with
her perfect freedom.

But in the October following the death of her mother, a thunderbolt fell
at Constance's feet, which eventually drove her to Cardiff.

The Duke was from home, and, as everybody supposed, at Court. He was
really in mischief; for mischief it proved, to himself and all his
family. Late one evening a courier reached Langley, where in her bower
Constance was disrobing for the night, and Maude was combing out her
mistress's long light hair. A sudden application for admission, in
itself an unusual event at that hour, brought Maude to the door, where
Dona Juana, pale and excited, besought immediate audience of her
Senorita.

The Princess, without looking back, desired her to come forward.

"Senorita, my Lord's courier, Rodrigo, is arrived hither from
Brockenhurst, and he bringeth his Lord's bidding that we make ready his
Grace's chamber for to-morrow."

"From Brockenhurst! Well, what further?"

"And likewise _her_ Grace's chamber--whom Jesu pardon!--for the Lady
newly-espoused that cometh with my Lord."

"Mary Mother!" exclaimed Maude, dropping the silver comb in her sudden
surprise.

Constance had sprung up from her seat with such quick abruptness that
the