“Why, Bolton, you and I know such things are done every day,—and I have loathed them like another and could give excellent reason for my loathing. I know your heart and hers.— The case is not ordinary. Check me if you dare when I say I know your story from first to last, and acquit you of any obligation to your wife. The case rests with Diana therefore, and there I won’t persuade her. With all I can do for her, she must still face contempt and cold-shouldering and sneers and misjudgment from many. Her life will be uneasy and the brunt will fall on her. I love and admire her, but know not if she has in her the stuff to face such hardship as this. Child, I will say no more, but leave you. Choose how you will I am your friend, and none shall say a harsh word of you in Catherine Queensbury’s presence. So now I leave you.” She rose from her chair and left them without a look behind. The Duke closed the door as she went, and returned. “Beloved, you have heard her. No man hath a right to ask such a sacrifice from any woman. Especially if he knows himself unworthy of such a purity and sweetness as yours. I have seduced no woman from the path of virtue. I have kept my hearth from such as would dishonour it, but short of this I have lived as a man amongst other men and what that means you know. The Duchess would not fail you, but she says true— Yours is a heart to suffer when they pierce it as they will. The case is now before you. I counsel you to dismiss me and I will make no complaint.” He dropped her hand lest even the touch should move her, and went away and stood by a great window, looking down upon the people passing. In all his life he was never to forget the sight of the budding lilacs in the courtyard, and the faint spring sunshine. It seemed he stood there long—he knew not how long, and then she came softly up beside him and put her hand in his. “For life and death,” she said, and turning he caught her in his arms, his stern face broken up into such joy as seemed a foretaste of heaven. There is no pen can write of such joy. ’Tis only known to God and to lovers—lovers also who must catch it from the heart of pain. That night he wrote to his Duchess— “_Madam_, “I wish to acquaint you before any other shall know it that I have determined to take into my house with all the rights of a wife but only not the title, Mrs. Fenton,—whose name will be known to you. I would not you should hear this from another. My heart is hers. Our union will be such as God knows I wish yours and mine could have been but is not. In entering upon this new life I desire to ask your Grace if I can in any way contribute further to your comfort than I have already done. I shall esteem it a favour to be at your command in this respect and in any other conformable with the honour and love I have for Mrs. Fenton.