But for all his wrath and his suspicions, the real cause of Barker’s strange behaviour never presented itself to his mind.  It never struck him that Barker could aspire to Margaret’s hand; and he merely concluded that the young man had laid a plot for getting his money.  If any one had related to Claudius the scene which took place at Mrs. Van Sueindell’s the very night when he sent his telegram, he would have laughed the story to scorn in perfect good faith, for he could not have believed it possible.  Nor, believing it, would he have cared.  And so he rushed across Europe, and never paused till he had locked himself into his stateroom on board the steamer, and had begun a long letter to Margaret.  He knew that he would see her as soon as a letter could reach her, but that made no difference.  He felt impelled to write, and he wrote—­a letter so tender and loving and rejoicing that were it to appear in these pages no lover would ever dare write to his lady again, lest she chide him for being less eloquent than Claudius, Phil.D. of Heidelberg.  And he wrote on and on for many days, spending most of his time in that way.

Meanwhile, the Duke and Margaret cantered in the Park, and talked of all kinds of things; or rather, the Duke talked, and Margaret thought of Claudius.  Before they returned, however, she had managed to let the Duke know that the Doctor was on his way back; whereat the Englishman rejoiced loudly.  Perhaps he would have given a great deal to know whether they were engaged, to be married; but still Margaret gave no sign.  It was far from her thoughts; and the fact had only presented itself in that form to her on the spur of the moment, the preceding evening, as likely to prove a crushing blow at once to Mr. Barker’s plotting and Mr. Barker’s matrimonial views.  But while the Duke talked, she was thinking.  And as the situation slowly unfolded its well-known pictures to her mind, she suddenly saw it all in a different light.

“I must be mad,” she thought.  “Barker will tell every one; and the Duke ought not to know it except from me!”

“Speaking of Dr. Claudius—­” she began; the Duke was at that moment talking earnestly about the Pueblo Indians, but that was of no importance.  “Speaking of the Doctor, you ought to know—­I would rather that no one else told you—­we are going to be married.”

The Duke was so much surprised—­not so much at the information as at her manner of imparting it—­that he pulled up short.  Seeing him stop, she stopped also.

“Are you very much astonished?” she asked, pushing the gray veil up to her hat, and looking at him smilingly out of her deep, dark eyes.  The Duke spoke no word, but leapt from his horse, which he left standing in the middle of the path, surprised into docility by the sudden desertion.  There were a few wild-flowers growing by the road, which here led through a wooded glade of the Park; they were the flowers called Michaelmas daisies, which bloom until November in America.  He picked a great handful of them, and came running back.