other face had ever
done. He tried hard to forget it, saying to himself that it was a fancy,
a foolish imagination, a day-dream; he tried to believe that in a few
days he should have forgotten it.

It was quite otherwise. He left Vere House in a fever of unrest; he went
everywhere he could think of to distract his thoughts. But the fair face
with its sweet, maidenly expression, the tender blue eyes with their
rich poetic depths, the sweet, sensitive lips were ever present. Look
where he would he saw them. He went to the opera, and they seemed to
smile at him from the stage; he walked home in the starlight--they were
smiling at him from the stars; he tried to sleep--they haunted him; none
had followed him as those eyes did.

"I think my heart and brain are on fire," he said to himself. "I will
go and look once again at the fair young face; perhaps if she smiles at
me or speaks to me I shall be cured."

He went; it was noon when he reached the Duke of Hazlewood's mansion. He
inquired for the duchess, and was told she had gone to Hampton Court. He
repeated the words in surprise.

"Hampton Court!" he said. "Are you quite sure?"

"Yes, my lord," was the footman's reply. "Her grace has gone there, for
I heard her talking about the pictures this morning."

He could hardly imagine the duchess at Hampton Court. He felt half
inclined to follow, and then he thought that perhaps it would be an
intrusion; if she had wanted his society, she would certainly have asked
for it. No, he would not go. He stood for a few minutes irresolute,
wondering if he could ask whether the duchess had taken her young
companion with her, and then he remembered that he did not even know her
name.

How was the day to pass? Matters were worse than ever. If he had seen
her, if he could have spoken to her, he might perhaps have felt better;
as it was, the fever of unrest had deepened.

He was to meet the duchess that evening at the French Embassy; he would
tell her she must relax some of her rigor in his favor. She was talking
to the ambassador when he entered, but with a smiling gesture she
invited him to her side.

"I hear that you called to-day," she said. "I had quite forgotten to
tell you that we were going to Hampton Court."

"I could hardly believe it," he replied. "What took you there?"

"You will wonder when I tell you, Norman," she replied, laughingly. "I
have always thought that I have a great capacity for spoiling people. My
fair Ma