?" cried Lady Victoria, "not come? Why he has been here these
two hours, with Margaret!"

The Duke was fairly overpowered and worn-out with excitement, and he
fell back into a chair.

"How the--" he began, but checked the expletive, which found vent
elsewhere, as expletives will. "Where the devil did he come from?"

"From Europe, I believe," said she. "Don't swear about it."

"Excuse me, Vick, I am bowled out; I was never so taken aback in my
life. Tell me all about it, Vick." And he slowly recovered his senses
enough to appreciate that Claudius had really arrived, and that he, the
friend who had taken so much trouble, had somehow missed him after all.
But he was honestly glad.

"I only saw him a moment, and I came in to your room to wait. Of course
I let him go in there alone."

"Of course," assented her brother gravely.

"Margaret was waiting for him, for she got your telegram that the ship
was in sight at three o'clock, and he got here at five; I thought it was
very quick."

"Devilish quick, indeed," said her profane brother under his breath.
"Tell me all about it," he added aloud.

It was easily enough explained, and before they went to bed that night
every one understood it all. It was simply this--Claudius had come by
another steamer, one of the German line, and had chanced to arrive a
couple of hours before the Cunarder. Margaret had received the Duke's
message, as Lady Victoria had said, and, as Claudius appeared soon
afterwards, she saw no discrepancy.

The tall Doctor left his slender luggage to the mercy of the Custom
House, and, hailing a cab, paid the man double fare in advance to hurry
to the hotel. He could hardly wait while the servant went through the
formality of taking up his name to the Countess, and when the message
came back that he would "please to step up upstairs," as the stereotyped
American hotel phrase has it, he seemed indeed to make of the stairway
but a single step.

One moment more, and he was kneeling at her feet, trembling in every
limb and speechless, but kissing the fair white hands again and again,
while she bent down her flushed dark cheek till it touched his yellow
hair. Then he stood up to his height and kissed her forehead and clasped
his fingers about her waist and held her up to the length of his mighty
arms before him, unconscious, in his overmastering happiness, of the
strength he was exerting. But she laughed happily, and her eyes flashed
in pride of such a man