“Sir Alfred came to me a few days afterward, and said we were to go to the Court as soon as I was ready. The intelligence was very pleasant to me. I was still deeply and devotedly in love with my husband, and thought that at the Court I should have him all to myself. Another thing was that I fancied people looked coldly upon me. I said to myself that it must be a fancy, for what had I done to deserve it? One morning I met Lady Carlsham, who had always been very kind to me; she turned aside as though she had not seen me. Another friend of mine, Lady Mellott, gave a large ball and did not invite me. I saw Mrs. Stenhouse, one of the queens of London society, who had always appeared to like me. She looked me in the face and gave me what gentlemen call, ‘the cut direct.’ “There seemed to me no reason for such conduct, except the caprice of fine ladies, and I was not sorry to think that at the Court no annoyance of the kind could happen, and that I should have my husband all to myself. I pass over my delight at the beauty and magnificence of the Court; the first three or four days spent there were one dream of delight. Then visitors came, gentlemen from London--among them the Duke of Launceston. “How I hate the name!” she cried, passionately; “the name that has been so pitilessly, so cruelly, linked with mine. He came, and the tragedy of my life began. “No child at its mother’s knee was more innocent than I. The duke was my guest, and I did my best to entertain him. If he asked me to sing, I sang; if he expressed a wish to see my flowers, I walked with him to the grounds. I played chess with him; I tried to learn billiards from him, and I appeal to every good and true wife who loves her husband if there was anything wrong in that? Once, when I was walking with the duke down the high road that led past the woods to Turville, I saw from between the trees the face of the man who had watched me in London. I knew his name afterward--Johnson. I cried aloud in surprise, and he vanished. The duke, in his matter-of-fact way, asked me what was wrong. Feeling ashamed to tell him, I answered evasively. Would to Heaven I had told him. Much of pain and wrong might have been saved me. “I must have been both blind and mad not to see the plot that was being carried on; the significant faces of my servants alone might have told me. Whenever I found myself with the duke, whether by accident or not, there was sure to come some interruption, some servant on a purposeless errand, who would look at me and go away. One in particular became most distasteful to me from his constant surveillance, George Olte, the footman. “I was deeply annoyed one morning. I had been speaking to the Duke of Launceston about some book, and he asked me to find it for him. I went into the library after breakfast for that purpose; he followed me, and we stood by the bookshelf together. I said to him: “‘This is the book, and here is the engraving I was speaking of.’