was concerned.

Well, the long and the short of the whole business was that the tenants
of the Chorley Estate were about to receive fair play, and Nicholas was
about to emerge from the chrysalis-like existence in which he had
shrouded himself for fifteen years,--an advantage, certainly, in both
instances. Only so far as Antony's own self was concerned there didn't
seem the least atom of an advantage anywhere. Of course he was fully
aware that he ought to see immense advantages. But he didn't.

"It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,"
says one of the poets. Was it Tennyson? But then that depends very
largely on the manner of the losing. And in this case!

Antony crossed to the dresser and lighted the small lamp. He had just set
it in the middle of the table when he heard the click of his garden gate,
and a footstep on his little flagged path.

CHAPTER XXXIX

ON THE OLD FOUNDATION

Antony stood very still by the table. Once before he had heard that same
footfall on his path,--a light resolute step. His face had gone quite
white beneath its tan. There was a knock on the door. For one brief
second he paused. Then he crossed the room, and opened the door wide.

"May I come in?" asked the Duchessa.

He moved aside, and she came into the room, standing in the lamplight. He
stood near her, words, conventional words, driven from his lips by the
mad pounding and beating of his heart.

"Might I sit down?" asked the Duchessa a little breathlessly. And she
crossed to the settle. Her face was in shadow here, but Antony had seen
that it was strangely white.

Still Antony had not spoken.

The Duchessa looked up at him.

"I am nervous," said she, an odd little tremor in her voice.

"Nervous!" echoed Antony, surprise lending speech to his tongue.

"Nervous," she replied, the odd little tremor still in her voice. "I owe
you an apology, oh, the very deepest apology, and I don't know how to
begin."

"Don't begin at all," said Antony hoarsely, sternly almost.

"Ah, but I must. Think how I spoke to you. You--we had agreed that trust
was the very foundation of friendship, and I destroyed the foundation at
the outset."

"It was not likely you could understand," said Antony.

She caught her breath, a little quick intake.

"Would you say the same if it had been the other way about? Would _you_
have destroyed the foundation?"

Antony was silent.

"Would you?" she insisted.

"I--I h