Valerie.

At the moment he picked it up his valet entered the room in answer to his
ring.

Some intuition warned the duke to send the man away while he should read
his letter.

"Have a warm bath ready for me at nine o'clock, Dubois, and order
breakfast at half-past," he said.

The man bowed and left the room.

The duke dropped into a chair, and with a strange, vague foreboding of
evil, opened the letter.

Well might he shrink from the dread perusal of the story--the story of
her cowardice and folly, and of his own humiliation and despair.

It was Valerie's full confession, the revelation of her woeful history as
it is known to the reader, with one single reservation--the name of her
lover.

The Duke of Hereward had wonderful powers of self-control. He read the
fatal letter through to the bitter end. Then he folded it up carefully,
and locked it up in a cabinet for safe-keeping.

And when, fifteen minutes later, his valet came to tell him that it was
nine o'clock, and his bath was ready, no one could have guessed from his
looks that a storm had passed through his soul.

He was rather pale, certainly; but that might well be explained by the
fatigue of a long night's journey, and his gray mustache and beard
concealed the close compression of his lips. He went through his morning
toilet and his breakfast with apparently his usual composure.

After breakfast, however, he instituted a cautious but close
investigation of the circumstances attending the flight of the duchess.

The servants, having nothing to gain from concealment and nothing to fear
from communication, spoke freely of the daily visits of the Count de
Volaski, continued through the seven weeks of the duke's absence.

Then the dreadful light of conviction burst full upon his startled
intelligence. Count Waldemar de Volaski had been her acquaintance at the
Court of St. Petersburg! He it was, then, who had been the hero of her
foolish love story and mad marriage, before the duke had ever seen her.
He it was who had been her constant visitor during the duke's absence.
He it was who was the companion of her flight!

The duke did not believe Valerie's solemn declaration, that she left
Paris only to isolate herself from every one and live a single, lonely
life. Valerie had deceived him once, by keeping a fatal secret from him,
and he would not trust her now. He believed that she had gone away with
the Russian count to remain with him. The duke's rage a