“My darling,” he said, “you are better now, I have been alarmed about you, Philippa; I feared that you were ill.  My darling, give me a word and a smile.”

She had quite recovered herself then; she remembered that she was Duchess of Hazlewood—­wife of the generous nobleman who was at her side.  She was mistress of herself in a moment.

“Have I alarmed you?” she said.  “I did feel ill; but I am better now—­quite well, in fact.”

She said to herself that she had her new life to begin, and the sooner she began it the better; so she made herself very charming to the young duke, and he was in ecstasies over the prize he had won.

Thenceforward[3] they lived happily enough.  If the young duke found his wife less loving, less tender of heart, than he had believed her to be, he had no complaint.

“She is so beautiful and gifted,” he would say to himself.  “I cannot expect everything.  I know that she loves me, although she does not say much about it.  I know that I can trust her in all things, even though she makes no protestations.”

They fell into the general routine of life.  One loved—­the other allowed herself to be loved.  The duke adored his wife, and she accepted his adoration.

They were never spoken of as a model couple, although every one agreed that it was an excellent match—­that they were very happy.  The duke looked up with wondering admiration to the beautiful stately lady who bore his name.  She could not do wrong in his eyes, everything she said was right, all she did was perfect.  He never dreamed of opposing her wishes.  There was no lady in England so completely her own mistress, so completely mistress of every one and everything around her, as her Grace of Hazlewood.

When the season came around again, and the brilliant life which she had laid out for herself was hers, she might have been the happiest of women but for the cloud which darkened, her whole existence.  Lord Arleigh had kept his promise—­he, had been her true friend, with her husband’s full permission.  The duke was too noble and generous himself to feel any such ignoble passion as jealousy—­he was far too confiding.  To be jealous of his wife would never have entered his mind; nor was there the least occasion for it.  If Lord Arleigh had been her own brother, their relationship could not have been of a more blameless kind; even the censorious world of fashion, so quick to detect a scandal, so merciless in its enjoyment of one, never presumed to cast an aspersion on this friendship.  There was something so frank, so open about it, that blame was an impossibility.  If the duke was busy or engaged when his wife wanted to ride or drive, he asked her cousin Lord Arleigh to take his place, as he would have asked his own brother.  If the duke could not attend opera or ball, Lord Arleigh was at hand.  He often said it was a matter of perplexity to him which was his own home—­whether he liked Beechgrove, Verdun Royal or Vere Court best.