“I regret that any cause should take you out, sir,” replied the guest.

As soon as the noise of the wheels had died away, the duke, who had lingered in the hall to see his host depart, turned and entered the drawing room, where he found Cora as before, standing at a window looking out upon the dull November day.

“Will you permit me now to speak on the subject nearest my heart?” he pleaded, taking the hand which had dropped down by her side.

“I had rather that the subject had never been started, but under the circumstances, after what was said last night at dinner, I feel that the sooner we come to a perfect understanding the better it will be,” said Cora, leading the way to a group of chairs and by a gesture inviting him to be seated.  Then, to prevent him further committing himself and incurring a humiliating refusal, she herself took the initiative and said: 

“If any other person than Mr. Rockharrt had made the public announcement that he did yesterday, I should have denounced the act as an unpardonable outrage; but of him I must say that he must have labored under some strange hallucination to have made such reckless assertions without one shadow of foundation.  You yourself must have known that there was not one syllable of truth in his announcement.”

“My dearest Mrs. Rothsay, I supposed that Mr. Rockharrt thought, even as I hoped, that our betrothal was but the question of a few days, or even of a few hours, and that he took the occasion of the family gathering to announce the fact.  He had already given his consent to my suit for the blessing of your hand, and if he committed an indiscretion in that premature announcement, I did not know it.  I thought such announcement might be a local custom, and I blessed him in my heart for observing it.  Cora!” he said, taking her hand and dropping his voice to a pleading tone, “dear Cora, it was only premature.”

“Duke of Cumbervale,” she answered, coldly and gravely, withdrawing her hand, “it is not premature.  It was utterly false and groundless; it was the declaration of an engagement that not only had never taken place, but could never take place—­an engagement forever impossible!”

“Oh, do not say that!  I have kept my faith.  After your grandfather’s rejection of me in your name I could rest nowhere in England.  I went to the Continent, and thence to the East; but still could rest nowhere, because I was pursued by your image.  When I came back to England, I learned that you had been widowed from your wedding day and almost as long as I had been absent.  I determined to renew my suit, for I remembered that it was not you, but your grandfather in your name, who rejected my proposal.  I remembered that you had once given me hope.”

“You refer to a time of sad self-deception on my part, which led me even to unconsciously deceiving you.  My imaginary preference for you was a brief hallucination.  Let it be forgotten.  The memory to me is humiliating.  You must think of me only as the wife of Regulas Rothsay.”