Fate was, however, too strong for him.  He had decided that he would leave London rather than run the risk of meeting the Duchess of Hazlewood.  He went one morning to a favorite exhibition of pictures, and the first person he saw in the gallery was the duchess herself.  As their eyes met her face grew deadly pale, so pale that he thought she would faint and fall to the ground; her lips opened as though she would fain utter his name.  To him she looked taller, more beautiful, more stately than ever—­her superb costume suited her to perfection—­yet he looked coldly into the depths of her dark eyes, and without a word or sign of greeting passed on.

He never knew whether she was hurt or not, but he decided that he would leave London at once.  He was a sensitive man more tender of heart than men as a rule, and their meeting had been a source of torture to him.  He could not endure even the thought that Philippa should have lost all claim to his respect.  He decided to go to Tintagel, in wild, romantic Cornwall; at least there would be boating, fishing, and the glorious scenery.

“I must go somewhere,” he said to himself—­“I must do something.  My life hangs heavy on my hands—­how will it end?”

So in sheer weariness and desperation he went to Tintagel, having, as he thought, kept his determination to himself, as he wished no one to know whither he had retreated.  One of the newspapers, however, heard of it, and in a little paragraph told that Lord Arleigh of Beechgrove had gone to Tintagel for the summer.  That paragraph had one unexpected result.

It was the first of May.  The young nobleman was thinking of the May days when he was a boy—­of how the common near his early home was yellow with gorse, and the hedges were white with hawthorn.  He strolled sadly along the sea-shore, thinking of the sunniest May he had known since then, the May before his marriage.  The sea was unusually calm, the sky above was blue, the air mild and balmy, the white sea-gulls circled in the air, the waves broke with gentle murmur on the yellow sand.

He sat down on the sloping beach.  They had nothing to tell him, those rolling, restless waves—­no sweet story of hope or of love, no vague pleasant harmony.  With a deep moan he bent his head as he thought of the fair young wife from whom he had parted for evermore, the beautiful loving girl who had clung to him so earnestly.

“Madaline, Madaline!” he cried aloud:  and the waves seemed to take up the cry—­they seemed to repeat “Madaline” as they broke on the shore.  “Madaline,” the mild wind whispered.  It was like the realization of a dream, when he heard his name murmured, and, turning, he saw his lost wife before him.

The next moment he had sprung to his feet, uncertain at first whether it was really herself or some fancied vision.

“Madaline,” he cried, “is it really you?”

“Yes; you must not be angry with me, Norman.  See, we are quite alone; there is no one to see me speak to you, no one to reveal that we have met.”