“The carriage will be at the door on time, your grace.”

“Right.  Now attend to my directions.  I am going immediately to North End, and shall leave thereby the six o’clock express, en route for San Francisco.  After I shall have left Rockhold you are to pack up my effects.  I shall send a hack from the hotel to fetch them.  Be very sure to be ready.”

The duke went out and entered the dog cart, received his valise from his valet, gave the order to the groom and was driven off, without having again seen Cora.

But from behind the screen of her lace-curtained window she watched his departure.

“I hope he will soon forget me,” she murmured, as she turned away and went down stairs to the library to look over the morning’ papers, which she had not yet seen.  But before she touched a paper her eyes were attracted by a letter stuck in the letter rack, directed to herself in her brother’s well known handwriting.

“To think that my grandfather should have neglected to give me my letter,” she complained, as she seized and opened it.

It was dated Fort Farthermost, and announced the fact of the regiment’s arrival at the new quarters near the boundary line of Texas, “in the midst of a wilderness infested with hostile Indians, half-breeds, wild beasts, rattlesnakes and tarantulas.  Only two companies are to remain here; my company—­B—­for one.  Two first lieutenants are married men, but they have not brought their wives.  One of the captains is a widower, and the other an old bachelor.  In point of fact, there are only two ladies with us—­the colonel’s wife and the major’s.  And when they heard from me that my sister was coming to join me, they were delighted with the idea of having another lady for company.  All the same, Cora, I do not advise you to come here.  Will write more in a few days; must stop now to secure the mail that goes by this train—­wagon and mule train to Arkansaw City, my dear.”

This was the substance of the young lieutenant’s letter to his sister.

“But ‘all the same,’ I shall go,” said Corona.  And she sat down to answer her brother’s letter.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A DOMESTIC STORM.

It is a truth almost too trite for reference, that in the experience of every one of us there are some days in in which everything seems to go wrong.  Such a day was this 13th of November to the Iron King.

When he reached North End that morning, the first thing that met him in his private office was the news that certain stocks had fallen.  The news came by telegraph, and put him in a terrible temper.

This was about ten o’clock.  Two hours later it was discovered that one of the minor bookkeepers, a new employe who had come well recommended about a month before, had just absconded with all he could lay his hands on—­only a few thousand dollars—­the merest trifle of a loss to Rockharrt & Sons, but extremely exasperating under the circumstances.  So taking one provocation with another, at noon on that 13th of November old Aaron Rockharrt was about the maddest man on the face of the earth.