to
his room.

The landlord looked after him, muttering to himself:

"Ah! so not finding the excellent young signor, he has turned his back on
the beautiful young signora. I know it! The _other_ ancient and
illustrious signor, who raised the devil in Beppo's cottage last year,
and carried off the bride, was her father; but this illustrissimo is
_his_ father, wherefore he cares not to bring away the lovely
signora."

The host then gave the necessary orders for the duke's supper to be
prepared, and when it was ready he took it up to his guest.

The duke had no more questions to ask, and only two orders to
give--breakfast at seven o'clock on the next morning, and a conveyance
to take him to the railway station at half-past seven.

The next day the duke set out on his return to Paris, and on the fourth
evening thereafter found himself re-established at his comfortable
quarters at Meurice's.

He changed his dress, dined, and ordered the files of English and French
newspapers for the past week to be brought to him.

He was interested only in political affairs when asking for the papers,
and so he was quite as much astonished as grieved when his eyes fell upon
this paragraph in the _Times_:

"A painful rumor reaches us from Paris. It is to the effect that a
certain young and lovely duchess, who made her _debut_ in English
society as a bride only twelve months since, has left her home under the
protection of a certain Polish count, attached to the Russian Embassy."

Stricken to the soul with shame, the unhappy duke sank back in his chair
and remained as one paralyzed for several minutes; then slowly recovering
himself he took up other papers, one by one, to see if they too recorded
his dishonor.

Yes! each paper had its paragraph devoted to the one grand sensation of
the day--the flight of the beautiful Duchess of Hereward with the young
Russian count; and very few dealt with the deplorable case as delicately
as the _Times_ had done.

"So my dishonor is the talk of all Paris and London!" groaned the duke,
dropping his head upon his chest. "If all the civilization of the
nineteenth century had power to stay my arm in its vengeance, it has lost
it now! And nothing is left for me to do but to kill the man and divorce
the woman."

There was a certain Colonel Morris, of the Tenth Hussars, staying at
Paris on leave.

The duke sat down at his writing-table and dashed off a hasty note to
this compatriot, asking him to