"I heard it spoken of two or three days ago, Mr. Crocker, and I believe it to be true."

"He was my friend, Sir Boreas; my particular friend. Isn't it a wonderful thing,--that one's particular friend should turn out to be Duca di Crinola! And he didn't know a word of it himself. I feel quite sure that he didn't know a word of it."

"I really can't say, Mr. Crocker; but as you have now expressed your wonder, perhaps you had better go back to your room and do your work."

"He pretends he knew it three days ago!" said Crocker, as he returned to his room. "I don't believe a word of it. He'd have written to me had it been known so long ago as that. I suppose he had too many things to think of, or he would have written to me."

"Go aisy, Crocker," said Geraghty.

"What do you mean by that? It's just the thing he would have done."

"I don't believe he ever wrote to you in his life," said Bobbin.

"You don't know anything about it. We were here together two years before you came into the office. Mr. Jerningham knows that we were always friends. Good heavens! Duca di Crinola! I tell you what it is, Mr. Jerningham. If it were ever so, I couldn't do anything to-day.

You must let me go. There are mutual friends of ours to whom it is quite essential that I should talk it over." Then he took his hat and marched off to Holloway, and would have told the news to Miss Clara Demijohn had he succeeded in finding that young lady at home. Clara was at that moment discussing with Mrs. Duffer the wonderful fact that Mr. Walker and not Lord Hampstead had been kicked and trodden to pieces at Gimberley Green.

But even aeolus, great as he was, expressed himself with some surprise that afternoon to Mr. Jerningham as to the singular fortune which had befallen George Roden. "I believe it to be quite true, Mr.

Jerningham. These wonderful things do happen sometimes."

"He won't stay with us, Sir Boreas, I suppose?"

"Not if he is Duca di Crinola. I don't think we could get on with a real duke. I don't know how it will turn out. If he chooses to remain an Englishman he can't take the t.i.tle. If he chooses to take the t.i.tle he must be an Italian, then he'll have nothing to live on. My belief is we shan't see him any more. I wish it had been Crocker with all my heart."

CHAPTER IV.

"IT SHALL BE DONE."

Lord Hampstead has been left standing for a long time in Marion Fay's sitting-room after the perpetration of his great offence, and Mrs. Roden has been standing there also, having come to the house almost immediately after her return home from her Italian journey.

Hampstead, of course, knew most of the details of the Di Crinola romance, but Marion had as yet heard nothing of it. There had been so much for him to say to her during the interview which had been so wretchedly interrupted by his violence that he had found no time to mention to her the name either of Roden or of Di Crinola.

"You have done that which makes me ashamed of myself." These had been Marion's last words as Mrs. Roden entered the room. "I didn't know Lord Hampstead was here," said Mrs. Roden.

"Oh, Mrs. Roden, I'm so glad you are come," exclaimed Marion. This of course was taken by the lady as a kindly expression of joy that she should have returned from her journey; whereas to Hampstead it conveyed an idea that Marion was congratulating herself that protection had come to her from further violence on his part. Poor Marion herself hardly knew her own meaning,--hardly had any. She could not even tell herself that she was angry with her lover. It was probable that the very ecstacy of his love added fuel to hers. If a lover so placed as were this lover,--a lover who had come to her asking her to be his wife, and who had been received with the warmest a.s.surance of her own affection for him,--if he were not justified in taking her in his arms and kissing her, when might a lover do so?

The ways of the world were known to her well enough to make her feel that it was so, even in that moment of her perturbation. Angry with him! How could she be angry with him? He had asked her, and she had declared to him that she was not angry. Nevertheless she had been quite in earnest when she had said that now,--after the thing that he had done,--he must "never, never come to her again."

She was not angry with him, but with herself she was angry. At the moment, when she was in his arms, she bethought herself how impossible had been the conditions she had imposed upon him. That he should be a.s.sured of her love, and yet not allowed to approach her as a lover! That he should be allowed to come there in order that she might be delighted in looking at him, in hearing his voice, in knowing and feeling that she was dear to him; but that he should be kept at arm's length because she had determined that she should not become his wife! That they should love each other dearly; but each with a different idea of love! It was her fault that he should be there in her presence at all. She had told herself that it was her duty to sacrifice herself, but she had only half carried out her duty. Should she not have kept her love to herself,--so that he might have left her, as he certainly would have done had she behaved to him coldly, and as her duty had required of her. She had longed for some sweetness which would be sweet to her though only a vain encouragement to him. She had painted for her own eyes a foolish picture, had dreamed a silly dream. She had fancied that for the little of life that was left to her she might have been allowed the delight of loving, and had been vain enough to think that her lover might be true to her and yet not suffer himself! Her sacrifice had been altogether imperfect. With herself she was angry,--not with him.

Angry with him, whose very footfall was music to her ears! Angry with him, whose smile to her was as a light specially sent from heaven for her behoof! Angry with him, the very energy of whose pa.s.sion thrilled her with a sense of intoxicating joy! Angry with him because she had been enabled for once,--only for once,--to feel the glory of her life, to be encircled in the warmth of his arms, to become conscious of the majesty of his strength! No,--she was not angry. But he must be made to understand,--he must be taught to acknowledge,--that he must never, never come to her again. The mind can conceive a joy so exquisite that for the enjoyment of it, though it may last but for a moment, the tranquillity, even the happiness, of years may be given in exchange. It must be so with her. It had been her own doing, and if the exchange were a bad one, she must put up with the bargain. He must never come again. Then Mrs. Roden had entered the room, and she was forced to utter whatever word of welcome might first come to her tongue.

"Yes," said Hampstead, trying to smile, as though nothing had happened which called for special seriousness of manner, "I am here.

I am here, and hope to be here often and often till I shall have succeeded in taking our Marion to another home."

"No," said Marion faintly, uttering her little protest ever so gently.

"You are very constant, my lord," said Mrs. Roden.

"I suppose a man is constant to what he really loves best. But what a history you have brought back with you, Mrs. Roden! I do not know whether I am to call you Mrs. Roden."

"Certainly, my lord, you are to call me so."

"What does it mean?" asked Marion.

"You have not heard," he said. "I have not been here time enough to tell her all this, Mrs. Roden."

"You know it then, Lord Hampstead?"

"Yes, I know it;--though Roden has not condescended to write me a line. What are we to call him?" To this Mrs. Roden made no answer on the spur of the moment. "Of course he has written to f.a.n.n.y, and all the world knows it. It seems to have reached the Foreign Office first, and to have been sent down from thence to my people at Trafford. I suppose there isn't a club in London at which it has not been repeated a hundred times that George Roden is not George Roden."

"Not George Roden?" asked Marion.

"No, dearest. You will show yourself terribly ignorant if you call him so."

"What is he then, my lord?"

"Marion!"

"I beg your pardon. I will not do it again this time. But what is he?"

"He is the Duca di Crinola."

"Duke!" said Marion.

"That's what he is, Marion."

"Have they made him that over there?"

"Somebody made one of his ancestors that ever so many hundred years ago, when the Traffords were--; well, I don't know what the Traffords were doing then;--fighting somewhere, I suppose, for whatever they could get. He means to take the t.i.tle, I suppose?"

"He says not, my lord."

"He should do so."

"I think so too, Lord Hampstead. He is obstinate, you know; but, perhaps, he may consent to listen to some friend here. You will tell him."

"He had better ask others better able than I am to explain all the ins and outs of his position. He had better go to the Foreign Office and see my uncle. Where is he now?"

"He has gone to the Post Office. We reached home about noon, and he went at once. It was late yesterday when we reached Folkestone, and he let me stay there for the night."

"Has he always signed the old name?" asked Hampstead.

"Oh yes. I think he will not give it up."

"Nor his office?"

"Nor his office. As he says himself, what else will he have to live on?"