again, to his own!'"

"Then," says her Grace, more slowly still, "that was his name? I have
heard it before."

"I heard it again," said the old story-teller, eager to reach his
climax. "And 'tis that ends the story so finely. 'Twas by chance talk
of travellers I heard it nigh six months later. The very day after he
stood here and searched for his package he disappeared from sight and
has not been heard of since. And the last who set eyes on him was my
Lady Dunstanwolde, who is now a Duchess at Camylott, where your camp
is. 'Twas her name brought the story back to me."

Her Grace rose, catching her breath with a laugh. She turned her face
towards the window, as if, of a sudden, attracted by somewhat to be
seen outside.

"'Tis a good story," she said, but for a moment the crimson roses on
her cheeks had shuddered to whiteness. Why, no man could tell. Her host
did not see her countenance--perhaps my lord Duke did not.

"'Tis a good story!" she laughed again.

"And well told," added my lord Duke.

Her Grace turned to them both once more. Through some wondrous exercise
of her will she looked herself again.

"As we are in luck to-day," she said, "and it has passed the time, let
us count it in the reckoning."

A new, almost wild, fantastic gayety seized her. She flung herself into
her playing of the part of a gipsy woman with a spirit which was a
marvel to behold. She searched his Grace's pockets and her own for
pence, and counted up the reckoning on the table, saying that they
could but afford this or that much, that they must save this coin for a
meal, that for a bed, this to pay toll on the road. She used such
phrases of the gipsy jargon as she had picked up, and made jokes and
bantering speeches which set their host cackling with laughter. Osmonde
had seen her play a fantastic part before on their whimsical holidays,
but never one which suited her so well, and in which she seemed so full
of fire and daring wit. She was no Duchess, a man might have sworn, but
a tall, splendid, black-eyed laughing gipsy woman, who, to the man who
was her partner, would be a fortune every day, and a fortune not of
luck alone, but of gay spirit and bravery and light-hearted love.

That night the moon shone white and clear, and in the mid hours my lord
Duke waked from his sleep suddenly, and saw the brightness streaming
full through the oriel window, and in the fair flood of it his love's
white figure kneeling.

"Gerald," she cr