The Duke of Cumbervale was slight and elegant in form, with small, perfectly shaped hands and feet—­derived from a long line of idle and useless ancestors—­finely cut Grecian profile, pure, clear, white skin, fine, silken, pale yellow hair and mustache, calm blue eyes, graceful movements, and refined manners.

Regulas Rothsay was a man of the people, who did not know any ancestry behind his laboring father, who could not have told the names of his grandparents.

The Duke of Cumbervale was descended from eight generations of noblemen.

Cora Haught saw and felt this contrast between the two men, so opposite in birth, rank, person, manner, character, and cultivation.

Not all at once could she become an apostate to her faith, pledged to Rule.  But, in truth, she had always loved him more as a sister loves a dear brother than as a maiden loves her betrothed husband.  She had not seen him for three years.  And she had seen so much since they had parted!  In truth, his image had grown dim in her imagination.

She wrote to him briefly from London that her engagements were so numerous as to preclude the possibility of her writing much, but that at the end of the London season they expected to return home.  This was before she had—­

    “Foregathered with the de’il,”

in the shape of the handsome, eloquent, and fascinating Duke of Cumbervale.

Afterward a strange madness had seized her; a sudden revulsion of feeling, amounting almost to repugnance, against the rugged man of the people who had hewn out his own fortune, and who looked, she thought, more like a backwoodsman than a gentleman.  Yes; it was madness—­such madness as is sometimes the wreck of families.

The duke grew daily more impressive in his attentions, and Cora more delighted to receive them.  So the season went on.  People began to connect the names of the Duke of Cumbervale and the beautiful American heiress.

Just about this time old Aaron Rockharrt walked into the breakfast room of their apartments at Langham’s with an American newspaper, which had just come by the morning’s mail, in his hands.

“Here is news!” he said.  “Rothsay has been nominated as governor of ——!  But perhaps this is no news to you, Cora.  You may have received a letter?” he added, turning to his granddaughter.

“I had a letter from Mr. Rothsay yesterday, but he said nothing on the subject,” replied the girl somewhat coldly.

“Well, if he should be elected—­and I really believe he will be, for he is the most popular man in the State—­I shall throw no obstacles in the way of your immediate marriage with him.  You have been engaged long enough—­long enough!  We shall set out for home on the first of next month, and so be in full time for the election.”

Cora did not reply.  She grew pale and cold.

The Iron King looked at his granddaughter, bending his gray brows over keenly penetrating eyes.