“He is a brute,” he said at last.

“Your horse?” inquired Margaret sweetly.

“No—­Barker.  And pray what did you answer him?  I hope you gave him a lesson for his impertinence.”

“I told him,” said she, “that I had documents in my possession that would establish his right as well as any he could get in Germany.”

“Barker must have been rather taken aback,” said the other in high glee.  “I am glad you said that.”

“So am I. I do not imagine I shall see much of Mr. Barker in future,” she added demurely.

“Um!  As bad as that?” The Duke was beginning to catch the drift of what Margaret was saying.  She had no intention of telling him any more, however.  Bitterly as she felt towards Barker, she would not allow herself the triumph of telling her friend she had refused to marry him.

“I know it is a very womanly fancy,” she said, “but I want to ride fast, please.  I want exercise.”

“All right,” said the Duke, and they put their horses into a canter.  The Countess felt safe now that her friends had returned and that Claudius had telegraphed he was about to sail.  She felt as though her troubles were over, and as if the world were again at her feet.  And as they galloped along the roads, soft in the warm sun to the horses’ feet, breathing in great draughts of good clean air, the past two months seemed to dwindle away to a mere speck in the far distance of her life, instead of being entangled with all the yesterdays of the dark season just over.

And Claudius—­the man who made all this change in her life, who had opened a new future for her—­how had he passed these months, she wondered?  To tell the truth, Claudius had been so desperately busy that the time had not seemed so long.  If he had been labouring in any other cause than hers it would have been insupportable.  But the constant feeling that all he did was for her, and to her advantage, and that at the same time she was ignorant of it all, gave him strength and courage.  He had been obliged to think much, to travel far, and to act promptly; and for his own satisfaction he had kept up the illusion that he was in Heidelberg by a cunning device.  He wrote constantly, and enclosed the letters to the old notary at the University, who, with Teutonic regularity, stamped and posted them.  And so it was that the date of the letter, written in St. Petersburg, was always two or three days older than that of the postmark.  For Claudius would not put a false date at the head of what he wrote, any more than, if Margaret had written to ask him whether he were really in Heidelberg or not, he would have deceived her in his answer.  Probably he would not have answered the question at all.  The letters were merely posted in Heidelberg; and Margaret had trusted him enough not to notice or be willing to comment upon the discrepancy.