’If it be so; if it seems to me that it must be so,—­then how can I be anxious to prolong her sufferings?  She does suffer terribly.’  Upon this the Duke frowned, but there was more of tenderness in his frown than in the hard smile which he had hitherto worn.  ’I do not know whether you see it all.’  He well remembered all that he had seen when he and Mary were travelling together.  ’I see it, and I do not pass half an hour with her without sorrowing for her.’  On hearing this he sighed and turned his face away.  ’Girls are so different!  There are many who though they be genuinely in love, though their natures are sweet and affectionate, are not strong enough to support their own feelings in resistance to the will of those who have authority over them.’  Had it been so with his wife?  At this moment all the former history passed through his mind.  ’They yield to that which seems to be inevitable, and allow themselves to be fashioned by the purposes of others.  It is well for them often that they are so plastic.  Whether it would be better for her that she should be so I will not say.’

‘It would be better,’ said the Duke doggedly.

‘But such is not her nature.  She is as determined as ever.’

‘I may be determined too.’

’But if at last it will be of no use,—­if it be her fate either to be married to this man or to die of a broken heart,—­’

’What justifies you in saying that?  How can you torture me by such a threat?’

’If I think so, Duke, I am justified.  Of late I have been with her daily,—­almost hourly.  I do not say that this will kill her now,—­in her youth.  It is not often, I fancy, that women die after that fashion.  But a broken heart may bring the sufferer to the grave after a lapse of many years.  How will it be with you if she should live like a ghost beside you for the next twenty years, and you should then see her die, faded and withered before her time,—­all her life gone without a joy,—­because she had loved a man whose position in life was displeasing to you?  Would the ground on which the sacrifices had been made then justify itself to you?  In that performing your duty to your order would you feel satisfied that you had performed that to your child?’

She had come there determined to say it all,—­to liberate her own soul as it were,—­but had much doubted the spirit in which the Duke would listen to her.  That he would listen to her she was sure,—­and then if he chose to cast her out, she would endure his wrath.  It would not be to her now as it had been when he accused her of treachery.  But, nevertheless, bold as she was and independent, he had imbued her, as he did all those around him, with so strong a sense of his personal dignity, that when she had finished she almost trembled as she looked in his face.  Since he had asked how she could justify to herself the threats which she was using he had sat still with his eyes fixed upon her.  Now, when she had done, he was in no hurry to speak.  He rose slowly and walking towards the fireplace stood with his back towards her, looking down upon the fire.  She was the first to speak again.  ’Shall I leave you now?’ she said in a low voice.