She took them and held them out to him. "Give them to her with my love,"

she said.

She bent forward, kissed him upon the forehead, and left the room without even looking back.

A n.o.blewoman always.

CHAPTER XXIV

"LOVE CROWNS THE DEED"

The duke stood on the pavement outside Lord Camborne's house in Grosvenor Street.

It was still pouring heavy drops of rain, which beat a tattoo upon his umbrella.

He glanced back at the ma.s.sive green-painted door which the butler had just closed behind him. Never again would that hospitable door open for him! He would see none of his kind friends any more. Gerald, who had been as a brother to him for so long, would never shake him by the hand again--he knew Lord Hayle's temperament too well to expect it.

Constance, beautiful, frank, and stately, had vanished from his life.

The earl, a prince of the Church and a princely old man, would never again tell him his genial and courtly stories of the past.

The duke stood there alone. Alone!--the word tolled in his ears like a bell, making a melancholy accompaniment to the rain.

He began to walk towards Bond Street in a shaken and melancholy mood.

How swift and strange it all was! How a few months had altered all his life, utterly and irrevocably! An infinitesimal time back he had not a care in the world. He was Prince Fortunatus, enjoying every moment of his life and position in a dignified and becoming fashion.

And what was he now?

He laughed a small, bitter laugh as he asked himself the question. He was still the Duke of Paddington, the owner of millions, the proprietor of huge estates, perhaps the most highly-placed young man in England.

Even now it was not too late to undo much of what he had done.

Everything would be condoned and forgiven to such a man as he.

He could buy a great yacht, go round the world for a year with a choice society of friends of his own standing, and when he returned Court and Society would welcome him with open arms once more--all this he understood very well.

He had but to say a few words and all that was now slipping away from him would be his own once more.

Struggles against conscience and convictions are either protracted or very short. The protracted struggle was over in his case. He had fought out the battle long before. His public action on the night before had been the outcome. But there was still the last after-temptation to be faced, the final and conclusive victory to be won.

It was not far from Lord Camborne's town house to Bond Street, but during the distance the battle within the young man's mind raged fiercely.

He must not be blamed. The whole of his past life must be taken into consideration. It must be remembered that he had just been enduring a succession of shocks, and it must also be taken into account that no one feels the same enthusiasm on a grey, wet morning, when he is alone, as he does in a brilliant, lighted place at midnight, surrounded by troops of friends and sympathisers.

A tiny urchin, wet and ragged, with bare feet, came pattering round the corner. Under his arm he held a bundle of pink papers in an oil-skin wrapper. In front of him, as a sort of soiled ap.r.o.n, was the limp contents-bill of an evening paper.

The duke saw his own name upon it. He realised that by now, of course, the early editions of all the evening papers were on the streets, and that they had copied the news from the _Daily Wire_.

"Pyper, m'lord!" said the urchin, turning up a shrewd and dirty face to the duke, who shook his head and would have pa.s.sed on.

"Yer wouldn't sye no, m'lord, if yer noo the noos!" said the child.

"'Ere's a bloomin' noo hactress wot's goin' to beat the bloomin' 'ead orf of all the other gels, just a cert she is! And there's a mad dook wot's gone and give all is oof to the pore! P'raps I sh.e.l.l get a bit of it--I don't fink!--'ave a pyper, sir?"

The impish readiness of the boy amused the duke, though his words stung.

Yes! all the world was ringing with his name. The knowledge, or rather the realisation of what he had known before, acted as a sudden tonic. In a swift moment he set his teeth and braced himself up. A mad duke, was he?--_au contraire_, he felt particularly sane! The past was over and done--let it be so. The future was before him--let him welcome it and be strong. If he was indeed mad, then it should be a fine madness--a madness of living for humanity!

He looked at the pinched and anxious face of the boy. A sudden thought struck him. He would begin with the boy.

"Hungry?" he said.

"Not 'arf!" said the boy.

"Father and mother?"

"Old man's doin' five years, old woman's dead--Lock Orspital."

"Home?"

"Occasional, as you might sye," said the imp reflectively; "but Hadelphi Harches as hoften as not--blarst 'em!"

"Very well," said the duke. "Now you're going to have as much as you like to eat, good clothes, and a happy life if you come with me. I'll see you through."

"Straight?--no bloomin' reformatory?"

"Come along with me, you little devil," said the duke genially. "Do you think I'm going to let you in? If you do--scoot!"

"I'm on," said the child, much rea.s.sured at being called a little devil. "Carn't be much worse off than nah, wotever 'appens."

Two cabs were found at the corner.

"Jump in that one," the duke said, pointing to the last. "Follow me," he said to the driver, getting into the first cab as he did so, and giving the address of Rose's house in Westminster.

The two cabs started without comment or question.

There was something very authoritative about his Grace of Paddington sometimes.

The two cabs drove up to the little house in Westminster just as the rain cleared off, and a gleam of sunlight bursting through the clouds shone on the budding trees which topped the high wall of the Westminster sanctuary and jewelled them with prismatic fires. High above, the towers of the Abbey seemed washed and clean, rising into an air purged for a moment of grime and smoke, while the wet leaden roof of the nave shone like silver.

James Fabian Rose was on the doorstep of his house, and in the act of unlocking the door with his latchkey.

"Hallo!" he said. "So you're back, duke--home again! The ordeal is over, then!"

"Yes, it's quite over," the duke answered.

"Who's this ruffian?" said Rose, smiling at the little newsboy.

"A recruit!" the duke said. "I'm responsible for him for the future.

And meanwhile he's confoundedly hungry."