She made room for him by her side.

“I am glad to see you again, Mr. Guest,” she said pleasantly, “for your own sake of course, and also because you were a friend of Emily de Reuss.”

Douglas looked steadily away for a moment.  He had not yet come to that stage when he could speak of her lightly as a casual friend.

“You have not heard from her lately, I suppose?” the Duchess asked.  “I hear that she writes to no one.”

“I have not heard from her since before she left England,” Douglas answered.

The Duchess sighed.

“Poor Emily,” she said.  “You know I am amongst those few who knew her well—­you also, I think, were one of them.  There was no one I was more fond of—­no one whom I have missed so much.”

Again Douglas was silent.  Did this woman understand, he wondered.

“It is a pleasure to me,” she continued, “to find some one with whom I can talk about her—­some one who knew and appreciated her.”

“Do you know,” he asked, “where she is?”

“Yes.”

It was amazing what effect the monosyllable had upon him.  The mask which he carried always with him fell suddenly away.  He turned upon her with an abruptness almost disconcerting.  His eyes were lit with fire, and there was a strange flush upon his cheeks.

“Where,” he demanded—­“where is she?” The Duchess looked at him with sympathy.  She was a kindly woman, and she had probed his secret long ago.

“She is in a little village some five hundred miles across the frontier, in Siberia.  I had imagined that you might have known.”

“Siberia!” He repeated the word in blank amazement.  The Duchess nodded.

“Now I have told you something very interesting,” she said, “and in return I am going to ask you something.  You quarrelled with her, did you not?”

“Scarcely that.  I asked her to marry me,” he answered.

“Which of course was impossible.”

“Impossible?  Why?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Is it conceivable,” she exclaimed, “that you do not know?”

“I knew of no other barrier save the difference in our social positions,” he said gravely.

She was silent for a moment.

“You did not know, then—­be calm, my friend—­that Emily had a husband living?”

A sharp little cry, almost immediately smothered, broke from his lips.  He looked at his companion aghast.  A flood of new light seemed to be breaking in upon him.

“Married!  Emily married!” he exclaimed.  “And she never told me.”

“She probably meant to in her own good time,” the Duchess said.  “Of course I do not know how matters were between you, only I fancied that some change had come to her during the last few months.  I hoped that she was growing to care for somebody.  She is too rare a woman to lead for ever a lonely life.”

“But her husband?” he stammered.