Judging from the expression of his countenance, the duke was conscious of no overwhelming desire to witness an exhibition of Mr. Dacre’s prowess.

When the cab reached Datchet House his grace dashed up the steps three at a time.  The door flew open.

“Has the duchess returned?”

“Hereward!”

A voice floated downward from above.  Some one came running down the stairs.  It was her Grace of Datchet.

“Mabel!”

She actually rushed into the duke’s extended arms.  And he kissed her, and she kissed him—­before the servants.

“So you’re not quite dead?” she cried.

“I am almost,” he said.

She drew herself a little away from him.

“Hereward, were you seriously hurt?”

“Do you suppose that I could have been otherwise than seriously hurt?”

“My darling!  Was it a Pickford’s van?”

The duke stared.

“A Pickford’s van?  I don’t understand.  But come in here.  Come along, Ivor.  Mabel, you don’t see Ivor.”

“How do you do, Mr. Dacre?”

Then the trio withdrew into a little anteroom; it was really time.  Even then the pair conducted themselves as if Mr. Dacre had been nothing and no one.  The duke took the lady’s two hands in his.  He eyed her fondly.

“So you are uninjured, with the exception of that lock of hair.  Where did the villain take it from?”

The lady looked a little puzzled.

“What lock of hair?”

From an envelope which he took from his pocket the duke produced a shining tress.  It was the lock of hair which had arrived in the first communication.  “I will have it framed.”

“You will have what framed?” The duchess glanced at what the duke was so tenderly caressing, almost, as it seemed, a little dubiously.  “Whatever is it you have there?”

“It is the lock of hair which that scoundrel sent me.”  Something in the lady’s face caused him to ask a question; “Didn’t he tell you he had sent it to me?”

“Hereward!”

“Did the brute tell you that he meant to cut off your little finger?”

A very curious look came into the lady’s face.  She glanced at the duke as if she, all at once, was half afraid of him.  She cast at Mr. Dacre what really seemed to be a look of inquiry.  Her voice was tremulously anxious.

“Hereward, did—­did the accident affect you mentally?”

“How could it not have affected me mentally?  Do you think that my mental organization is of steel?”

“But you look so well.”

“Of course I look well, now that I have you back again.  Tell me, darling, did that hound actually threaten you with cutting off your arm?  If he did, I shall feel half inclined to kill him yet.”

The duchess seemed positively to shrink from her better half’s near neighborhood.

“Hereward, was it a Pickford’s van?”

The duke seemed puzzled.  Well he might be.