They stood in silence over the dead for a few moments, and then Mr. Rockharrt drew the white coverlet up over the ashen face, and then leaning on the arm of his servant went out of the room. Three days later the mortal remains of Rose Rockharrt were laid in the cemetery at North End. It was on the first of November, a week after the funeral, that Mr. Rockharrt, for the first time in three months, went to the works. On that day, while Cora sat alone in the parlor, a card was brought to her-- "The Duke of Cumbervale." The Duke of Cumbervale entered the parlor. Cora rose to receive him; the blood rushing to her head and suffusing her face with blushes, merely from the vivid memory of the painful past called up by the sudden sight of the man who had been the unconscious cause of all her unhappiness. Most likely the old lover mistook the meaning of the lady's agitation in his presence, and ascribed it to a self-flattering origin. However that might have been, he advanced with easy grace, and bowing slightly, said: "My dear Mrs. Rothsay, I am very happy to see you again! I hope I find you quite well?" "Quite well, thank you," she replied, recovering her self-control. In the ensuing conversation, Cora made known her grandfather's accident and the death of Rose. "I am truly grieved to have intruded at so inopportune a time," asserted the visitor, and arose to take leave. Then Cora's conscience smote her for her inhospitable rudeness. Here was a man who had crossed the sea at her grandfather's invitation, who had reached the country in ignorance of the family trouble; who had come directly from the seaport to North End, and ridden from North End to Rockhold--a distance of six or seven miles; and she had scarcely given him a civil reception. And now should she let him go all the way back to North End without even offering him some refreshment? Such a course, under such circumstances, even toward an utter stranger, would have been unprecedented in her neighborhood, which had always been noted for its hospitality. Yet still she was afraid to offer him any polite attention, lest she should in so doing give him encouragement to urge his suit, that she dreaded to hear, and was determined to reject. It was not until the visitor had taken his hat in his left hand, and held out the right to bid her good morning, that she forced herself to do her hostess' duty, and say: "This is a very dull house, duke, but if you can endure its dullness, I beg you will stay to lunch with me." A smile suddenly lighted up the visitor's cold blue eyes. "'Dull,' madam? No house can be dull--even though darkened by a recent bereavement--which is blessed by your presence. I thank you. I shall stay with much pleasure." And now I have done it! thought Cora, with vexation.