"My dearest girl, what a terrible fright has been yours! Oh, how I rejoice that no hurt has come to you! I should never have forgiven myself for detaining you so long. Ah! and what have we here? Poor creature! he surely is not dead! What a ghastly object! Come away, dearest; it is no sight for you. What? He came to your rescue? One against a band? No wonder he has been roughly handled. Oh, he shall be well tended; I warrant you that. Yes, let him be carried into yonder ante-room. He shall have his wounds washed and dressed, and we will hear his story later. Geraldine, my love, what ails you? What do you see that you should look like that?" For Geraldine’s eyes, fixed upon the face of the wounded man being carried into the hall under the personal direction of the humane Duke, had grown fixed and glassy, and every drop of blood had ebbed from her face, leaving it of a marble hue. As the sense of the Duchess’s questions penetrated to her senses, the girl grasped her by the hand and whispered in tones of unrestrainable emotion,— "It is he! it is he! And he has laid down his life for me!" "It is who? What mean you, child? Do you know the—the gentleman?" asked the Duchess, perplexed and bewildered in her turn. Geraldine’s grip on her hands was firmer and faster. "It is he of whom we were speaking but this evening. It is Sir Grey Dumaresq himself." With an exclamation of amaze, the Duchess stepped forward to get a better view of the white and blood-stained face. She saw now that, despite his torn and muddy garments, his lack of all the fine adjuncts of the man of fashion, even to the falling wig, so essential to the equipment of the "gentleman" of the day, it was no low-born personage who had been carried into their stately house. Something of the refinement of the young man’s face and features could be distinguished even in the midst of the disfiguring wounds and bruises and mire stains. She grasped her husband by the arm, and whispered in his ear,— "Husband, look well at yonder man, for Geraldine declares it to be Sir Grey Dumaresq, of whom we were speaking but a few hours back. What a strange thing, if it be!" Marlborough bent over the young man, less with the intent of identifying him at the present moment as of ascertaining the extent of his injuries, and whether life yet remained whole in him. Experience on the battlefield had given him considerable powers of discerning these things, and he knew that the bludgeons and rapiers of the young bloods of London streets could do as deadly work as the bullets and sword-thrusts of actual battle. Opening the young man’s vest to ascertain whether the heart still beat, he saw something sparkling lying within, and the next moment had uttered a quick, sharp exclamation of astonishment. Beckoning to his wife to approach, he held up the token—the amethyst ring which he himself had given to the stranger who had risked so much for him upon the field of Ramillies.