The Duke threw himself back in the carriage with the air of one who waits for Providence to reply.

“Oh, well, you see, you can’t make the world into a moral tale to please you,” said the Duchess, absently.

Then, after a pause, she asked, “Are you still going to let them have the house, Freddie?”

“I imagine that if Jacob Delafield applies to me to let it to him, that I shall not refuse him,” said the Duke, stiffly.

The Duchess smiled behind her fan.  Yet her tender heart was not in reality very happy about her Julie.  She knew well enough that it was a strange marriage of which they had just been witnesses—­a marriage containing the seeds of many untoward things only too likely to develop unless fate were kinder than rash mortals have any right to expect.

“I wish to goodness Delafield weren’t so religious,” murmured the Duchess, fervently, pursuing her own thoughts.

“Evelyn!”

“Well, you see, Julie isn’t, at all,” she added, hastily.

“You need not have troubled yourself to tell me that,” was the Duke’s indignant reply.

* * * * *

After a fortnight at Camaldoli and Vallombrosa the Delafields turned towards Switzerland.  Julie, who was a lover of Rousseau and Obermann, had been also busy with the letters of Byron.  She wished to see with her own eyes St. Gingolphe and Chillon, Bevay and Glion.

So one day at the end of May they found themselves at Montreux.  But Montreux was already hot and crowded, and Julie’s eyes turned in longing to the heights.  They found an old inn at Charnex, whereof the garden commanded the whole head of the lake, and there they settled themselves for a fortnight, till business, in fact, should recall Delafield to England.  The Duke of Chudleigh had shown all possible kindness and cordiality with regard to the marriage, and the letter in which he welcomed his cousin’s new wife had both touched Julie’s feelings and satisfied her pride.  “You are marrying one of the best of men,” wrote this melancholy father of a dying son.  “My boy and I owe him more than can be written.  I can only tell you that for those he loves he grudges nothing—­no labor, no sacrifice of himself.  There are no half-measures in his affections.  He has spent himself too long on sick and sorry creatures like ourselves.  It is time he had a little happiness on his own account.  You will give it him, and Mervyn and I will be most grateful to you.  If joy and health can never be ours, I am not yet so vile as to grudge them to others.  God bless you!  Jacob will tell you that my house is not a gay one; but if you and he will sometimes visit it, you will do something to lighten its gloom.”

Julie wondered, as she wrote her very graceful reply, how much the Duke might know about herself.  Jacob had told his cousin, as she knew, the story of her parentage and of Lord Lackington’s recognition of his granddaughter.  But as soon as the marriage was announced it was not likely that Lady Henry had been able to hold her tongue.