The woman, on her part, instead of the proud and insolent beauty she had expected to see, in all the pomp and pride of her bridal day and her new rank, beheld a fair and gentle girl, still clothed in the deepest mourning for her murdered father.

And her heart, which had been hardened against the supposed triumphant rival of the poor peasant girl, now melted with sympathy.

And she, who had persistently forced her way into the bride’s chamber, with the grim determination to spring the news upon her without hesitation or compassion, now cast about in her simple mind how to break such a terrible shock with tenderness and discretion.

“You look very much fatigued.  Pray sit down there and rest yourself, while you talk to me,” said the young duchess, gently, and pointing to a chair near her own.

“Ay, I am tired enough in mind and body, my lady, along of not having slept a wink all last night on account of—­what I’ll tell you soon, my lady.  So I’ll even take you at your kind word, my lady, and presume to sit down in your ladyship’s presence,” sighed the woman, slowly sinking into the indicated seat, and then adding:  “I know as ladyship is not exactly the right way to speak to a duke’s lady as is a duchess; but I don’t know as I know what is.”

“You must say ‘your grace’ in speaking to the duchess,” volunteered Margaret, in a low tone.

“Never mind, never mind,” said the bride, with a slight smile.  “I am quite ready to hear whatever you may have to say to me.  What can I do for you?”

The visitor hesitated and moaned.  All her eager desire to overwhelm Rose Cameron’s rival with the shameful news of her bridegroom’s previous marriage and living wife had evaporated, leaving only deep sympathy and compassion for the sweet young girl, who looked so kindly, and spoke so gentle.  Yet deeply she felt that, even for this gentle girl’s sake, she must reveal the fatal secret!  It was dreadful enough and humiliating enough to have had the marriage ceremony read over herself and an already married man, the husband of a living woman; but it would be infinitely worse, it would be horrible and shameful, to let her go off in ignorance, believing herself to be that man’s wife—­to travel with him over Europe.

All this, the honest woman from Westminster Road knew and felt, yet she had not the courage now to shock that gentle girl’s heart by telling the news which must stop her journey.

“Please excuse me; but I must really beg you to be quick in telling me what I can do to serve you.  My time is limited.  Within an hour we have to catch the tidal train to Dover.  And—­I have much to do in the interim,” said the young duchess, speaking with gentle courtesy to this poor, shabby woman in the rusty widow’s weeds.

“Ah, my lady—­grace, I mean! there is no need of being quick!  When you hear all I have to tell you—­to my sorrow as well as yours, my grace!—­your hurry will all be over; and you will not care about catching the tidal train—­not if you are the lady as I take my—­your grace to be!”