his wife and son. The entire suite of apartments
which her Highness occupied had been redecorated. The panelling, which
was of time-mellowed oak, the Duchess had caused to be painted black, the
chairs and tables of her rooms were covered with black brocade, and the
window curtains were fashioned of the same sombre material. It was a
strange fancy, the exaggeration of a brain strung up, taut and strained
to a quivering line on the border of insanity. Yet the Duchess was not
mad, only sad to desperation, utterly humiliated, shuddering with despair
and shame. Possibly the unhappy woman, shut into the silence of her dumb
personality, had here sought to give expression to her voiceless agony.

The effect of these black walls, black furniture, black hangings, was
odiously funereal. Some one said that her Highness should complete the
picture of mourning by donning the sinister trappings of the Swabian
widow--the bound brow, the nunlike hood, the swathing band with which
South German widows of mediaeval times hid their lips from the sight of
all men, in token of their bereavement and enforced chastity.

Her Highness looked anxiously round her sleeping apartment as she passed
through. To her overstrung nerves each darker shadow held an evil menace.
A breeze crept in through the open casement, and swayed the heavy black
curtains round her Highness's bed, and she started back, thinking that
some hostile hand had moved the folds. In vain she told herself how
baseless were her fears. She chid herself for a craven, but her heart
still fluttered fearfully, and her lips were a-tremble when she reached
the little room. She sank down in her chair with a sigh of relief. Here
in this little room, she reasoned, there could be nothing to fear; here
were no shadowy corners where a lurking enemy might hide.

'O God! O God!' she wailed suddenly aloud, 'am I going mad that I should
tremble at a gust of wind, that I should suffer this insane consciousness
of some haunting presence near me when I know I am, in truth, alone and
safe?' She covered her face with her hands.

'Your Highness,' came a voice, and the unhappy woman started to her feet
in renewed alarm--'Your Highness, have I permission to depart now?
Monsieur de Stafforth wishes me to assist at a supper he gives this
evening. As your Highness knows, my husband is very harsh to me since the
Duke dismissed him, and indeed I dare not be late.'

It was Madame de Stafforth who, having finis