unbidden and unwelcome thoughts, he got up and walked
about his chamber restlessly. "Guida--poor Guida!" he said to himself
many times. He was angry, disgusted that those shameful, irresponsible
thoughts should have come to him. He would atone for all that--and
more--when he was Prince and she Princess d'Avranche. But, nevertheless,
he was ill at ease with himself. Guida was off there alone in
Jersey--alone. Now, all at once, another possibility flashed into
his mind. Suppose, why, suppose--thoughtless scoundrel that he had
been--suppose that there might come another than himself and Guida to
bear his name! And she there alone, her marriage still kept secret--the
danger of it to her good name. But she had said nothing in her letters,
hinted nothing. No, in none had there been the most distant suggestion.
Then and there he got them, one and all, and read every word, every
line, all through to the end. No; there was not one hint. Of course it
could not be so; she would have--but no, she might not have! Guida was
unlike anybody else.

He read on and on again. And now, somehow, he thought he caught in one
of the letters a new ring, a pensive gravity, a deeper tension, which
were like ciphers or signals to tell him of some change in her. For a
moment he was shaken. Manhood, human sympathy, surged up in him. The
flush of a new sensation ran through his veins like fire. The first
instinct of fatherhood came to him, a thrilling, uplifting feeling. But
as suddenly there shot through his mind a thought which brought him to
his feet with a spring.

But suppose--suppose that it was so--suppose that through Guida the
further succession might presently be made sure, and suppose he went to
the Prince and told him all; that might win his favour for her; and the
rest would be easy. That was it, as clear as day. Meanwhile he would
hold his peace, and abide the propitious hour.

For, above all else--and this was the thing that clinched the purpose
in his mind--above all else, the Duke had, at best, but a brief time to
live. Only a week ago the Court physician had told him that any violence
or mental shock might snap the thread of existence. Clearly, the thing
was to go on as before, keep his marriage secret, meet the Countess,
apparently accede to all the Duke proposed, and wait--and wait.

With this clear purpose in his mind colouring all that he might say, yet
crippling the freedom of his thought, he sat down to write to Guida.
He