"Oh, I beg your grace's pardon, but I consider this meeting very
fortunate," said that officer, respectfully touching his hat.

"Upon what ground?" gravely inquired the duke.

"Your grace is wanted as a witness for the Crown, on the trial of John
Potts and Rose Cameron, charged with the murder of the late Sir Lemuel
Levison. The girl, who was arrested at a house in Westminster Road a few
days ago, has been sent down to Scotland, and the trial will commence, on
the day after to-morrow, at the Assizes now open at Bannff. But,
according to the newspaper report, we thought your grace to be now on
your way to Paris, and we were just about to dispatch a special messenger
to you. So your grace will perceive how fortunate this meeting turns out
to be."

"Yes, I perceive," said the duke, dryly.

"And your grace will not be inconvenienced, I hope," said the chief, as
he bowed and placed a folded paper in the duke's hand.

It was a subpoena commanding the recipient, under certain pains and
penalties, to render himself at the Town Hall of Bannff as a witness for
the Crown, in the approaching trial of John Potts, alias Abraham Peters,
and Rose Cameron.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS

When the emissary of Rose Cameron had gone, the young Duchess of
Hereward, in a whirlwind of long-repressed excitement, slammed, locked
and bolted all the doors leading from her apartments into the hall, and
then fled into her dressing-room and cast herself head long down upon the
floor in the collapse of utter, infinite despair--despair in all its
depth of darkness, without its benumbing calmness!

Her soul was shaken by a tempest of warring passions! Amazement,
indignation, grief, horror, raged through her agonized bosom!

It was well that no human eye beheld her in this deep degradation of woe!
For in the madness of her anguish, she rolled on the floor, and tore the
clothing from her shoulders and the dark hair from her head! She uttered
such groans and cries as are seldom heard on this earth--such as perhaps
fill the murky atmosphere of hell. She impiously called on Heaven to
strike her dead as she lay! She was indeed on the very brink of raving
insanity.

There was but one thought that held her reason on its throne--the
necessity of immediate flight and escape--escape from the man whom she
had just vowed at the altar to love, honor, and obey until death--the man
whom she had worshiped as an archangel!

The man