It was a kindly wish, as she desired him to enjoy the good things that had fallen into his sham grave. But there did not seem much chance of achieving the impossible. Jim was dead and buried, and the interment had been legally sanctified by her tears. If he came to life it would be difficult to explain how a corpse in his name came to occupy a niche in the Kaimes vault. Also, inquiry might lead to the production of a Siberian exile. If Demetrius told the truth--which he assuredly would do in the face of a betrayal he must guess was her work--there would be no place for her in Society, and she would starve, a social Peri at the gates of a forbidden Paradise. No! Think as she would--and think she did till her brain ached--things had to remain as she had foolishly arranged them. It was a galling thought to think that none but she who suffered was responsible. She could not even lay the blame on the stars; but she could and did on the fetish. It was something of a relief to have thrown its peacock manifestation out of the window. Two hours in the railway carriage tamed her unruly nerves into some sort of submission, and partially schooled her into accepting the inevitable. To make the best of it, to rob the new Duke shamelessly of money and the Curzon Street house, on the plea of disinheritance, were the results at which she arrived. By the time Firmingham appeared through the carriage windows she had ceased to kick against the pricks. The mask was on her face when the train stopped, and it was a quiet and demure lady who alighted at the station. Even the sister-in-law who entered the great house to console the Marchioness was as sympathetic as the most exacting could have required. She suppressed a groan when she passed through the doors of the lordly mansion that was really and truly her own, but managed by a steady exercise of her strong will to greet Colley with great calmness. The butler intimated that Lady Frith wept incessantly in her boudoir, and that the Duke---- "What?" queried Leah, sharply, adding more grammatically, "Who?" "His Grace the Duke, my lady. He is in the study." "Mr. Lionel Kaimes?" "As was, my lady. His Grace came down last night." "Augh! Why wasn't there an accident on the line?" muttered she, who longed to announce herself as a genuine duchess and could not. "I beg pardon, my lady!" "Oh--er--I'll go to my room, Colley. Tell his Grace I shall see him in an hour." When she had changed her dress for one heavier with crape, as a sign of additional grief, and had lain for a miserable forty minutes without closing an eye, and had swallowed a much-needed dose of sal volatile, and had relieved her feelings by scolding an unoffending maid, she went before the footlights to play her most difficult and unpalatable part. The former nobody, seated at his predecessor's desk, rose, looking pale and careworn. "A terrible thing," said the new Duke, giving his hand gravely.