e
upon the private matter already spoken of, and which would in all
likelihood take him, despite his wishes, across the Channel and to the
French Court. He might be commanded away at the very moment that he
wished most to be on English soil, in London itself. For howsoever
ardent and long hidden a man's passion, he must, if he be delicate of
feeling, await that moment which is ripe for him to speak. And this he
pondered on as his chariot rolled through the streets to bear him to
make his first visit to her ladyship of Dunstanwolde.

"I have known and dreamed of her almost all her life," he thought.
"'Tis but three years since she first saw my face; through the first
year she was another man's wife, and these two last his mourning widow.
When I behold her to day I shall learn much."

The sun was shining gloriously, and the skies' blue was deep and clear.
He looked up at it as he drove, and at the fresh early summer greenness
of the huge trees and thick grass in the parks and gardens; and when
his equipage rolled into the court at Dunstanwolde House, he smiled to
himself for pleasure to see its summer air, with the lacqueys making
excuse to stand outside in the brightness of the day, little Nero, the
black negro page, sunning himself and his pugs and spaniels on the plot
of grass at the front, and the windows thrown open to let in the soft
fresh air, while the balconies before the drawing-room casements were
filled with masses of flowers--yellow and white perfumed things, sent
up fresh from the country and set in such abundance that the balconies
bloomed like gardens. The last time he had beheld her, she had stood by
her husband's coffin, swathed in long, heavy draperies of black,
looking indeed a wonderful tragic figure; and this was in his mind as
he walked up the broad staircase, followed by the lacquey, who a moment
later flung open the door of the saloon and announced him with solemn
majesty.

But oh! the threshold once crossed, the great white-and-gold decorated
apartment seemed flooded with sunlight and filled with the fragrance of
daffodils and jonquils and narcissus blown in through the open window,
and Mistress Anne sate sweet and modest in a fine chair too big for her
dear small body; but my lord Duke scarce could see her, for 'twas as if
the sun shone in his eyes when there rose from a divan to meet him a
tall goddess clad in white and with a gold ribband confining her black
hair and her waist, and a branch