"It is an instinct," he said seriously, "a premonition of some sort of danger—the sort of thing that turns you creepy just before cattle stampede." "Run away and play," said the unimaginative Hank, "go into the garden and lasso worms—you’re losing your nerve." The Duke stood undecided. "I want something and yet I don’t know exactly what I want. I need a moral tonic." "You’ll find the step ladder in the greenhouse," suggested Hank. VIII A few moments later the Duke from his accustomed elevation was conducting his erratic courtship. It was not perhaps so much of a coincidence, that he seldom failed to discover Alicia in the mornings. She was an enthusiastic gardener. It was a hobby she had only recently taken up. It is said by the people of 70—their back windows overlooked the garden and they were notoriously uncharitable—that the gardening craze, which rightly should come with the spring, did not show in her until after the Duke’s arrival; that until then her visits to the garden had been few and far between, and her interest of a perfunctory character. This morning she was not as self-possessed as usual. Indeed she appeared to be a little nervous, but she made no pretence of avoiding him. "How is the cat?" he asked. It was his gambit. "Poor Tibs is as serviceable as the weather," she smiled. She saw his eyes shift to the conservatory. "Don’t be afraid," she bantered, "Mr. Slewer is not there; he came in the other day without my knowledge," she hastened to add, "the servant showed him into the drawing-room and he took the unpardonable liberty of walking through into the garden." "Bill has no drawing-room manners," he said regretfully, "he heard my voice and it lured him: you’d never suspect me of being syrenish, would you?" She raised her grave eyes to his. "You frightened me dreadfully," she said. "Were you men in earnest?" "Not a bit," he lied cheerfully, "we were just rehearsing a little play." "But you were," she persisted, "you looked dreadful and that wretched man’s face was devilish." "S-sh!" he reproved, "the poor chap was a bit upset, and very naturally. One cannot lose one’s wife without——" "Please don’t be horrid," she begged, flushing. "I thought that you were not looking as happy as you are usually," she added with a touch of malice. "I was in the bluest of funks," he confessed, "especially when he pushed you back. You see Hank was covering him and Hank is a terribly short-tempered man. I was wondering how we could explain away Bill’s dead body without creating a scandal." In spite of his matter-of-fact tone, she knew he was offering a true explanation for his pallor—only she substituted his name for Hank’s, and felt she was nearer the truth. "You’re a strange man"—her pretty forehead was wrinkled with perplexity—"suppose all this that happened here yesterday had occurred in—Texas."