Chloe stretched a hand for her guitar.  Duchess Susan listened to some notes, and cried that it went to her heart and hurt her.  ’Everything we like a lot has a fence and a board against trespassers, because of such a lot of people in the world,’ she moaned.  ’Don’t play, put down that thing, please, dear.  You’re the cleverest creature anybody has ever met; they all say so.  I wish I——­Lovely women catch men, and clever women keep them:  I’ve heard that said in this wretched place, and it ’s a nice prospect for me, next door to a fool!  I know I am.’

‘The duke adores you, madam.’

’Poor duke!  Do let him be—­sleeping so woebegone with his mouth so, and that chin of a baby, like as if he dreamed of a penny whistle.  He shouldn’t have let me come here.  Talk of Mr. Beamish.  How he will miss you, Chloe!’

‘He will,’ Chloe said sadly.

‘If you go, dear.’

‘I am going.’

‘Why should you leave him, Chloe?’

‘I must.’

‘And there, the thought of it makes you miserable!’

‘It does.’

‘You needn’t, I’m sure.’

Chloe looked at her.

The duchess turned her head.  ’Why can’t you be gay, as you were at the supper-table, Chloe?  You’re out to him like a flower when the sun jumps over the hill; you’re up like a lark in the dews; as I used to be when I thought of nothing.  Oh, the early morning; and I’m sleepy.  What a beast I feel, with my grandeur, and the time in an hour or two for the birds to sing, and me ready to drop.  I must go and undress.’

She rushed on Chloe, kissed her hastily, declaring that she was quite dead of fatigue, and dismissed her.  ’I don’t want help, I can undress myself.  As if Susan Barley couldn’t do that for herself! and you may shut your door, I sha’n’t have any frights to-night, I’m so tired out.’

‘Another kiss,’ Chloe said tenderly.

’Yes, take it’—­the duchess leaned her cheek—­’but I’m so tired I don’t know what I’m doing.’

‘It will not be on your conscience,’ Chloe answered, kissing her warmly.

Will those words she withdrew, and the duchess closed the door.  She ran a bolt in it immediately.

‘I’m too tired to know anything I’m doing,’ she said to herself, and stood with shut eyes to hug certain thoughts which set her bosom heaving.

There was the bed, there was the clock.  She had the option of lying down and floating quietly into the day, all peril past.  It seemed sweet for a minute.  But it soon seemed an old, a worn, an end-of-autumn life, chill, without aim, like a something that was hungry and toothless.  The bed proposing innocent sleep repelled her and drove her to the clock.  The clock was awful:  the hand at the hour, the finger following the minute, commanded her to stir actively, and drove her to gentle meditations on the bed.  She lay down dressed, after setting her light beside the clock, that she might see it at will, and