“Oh, but it must have been too late,” cried the indignant matron. “I heard he had said ‘I will.’ I heard he had put the ring on her finger. I could not have believed it was true had not you said so. But you cannot let it rest like that. Half-married! it’s wicked, you know,” her Grace cried. And the other Duke, the gracious host, permitted himself, in a moment of expansion, to say something of the same sort. “I wouldn’t interfere with your affairs for the world,” he said; “but I hope, Billingsgate, you don’t mean to let that sweet girl of yours lie under such a stigma----” “A stigma! My daughter! There is no stigma,” cried the head of the Altamonts, growing scarlet. “Well, I don’t want to be a meddler: but the women say so. They are all in a fuss about it; one hears of nothing else wherever one goes. You will have to give in sooner or later,” said the other Duke. “Never!” said his Grace of Billingsgate, and he hastened his departure from his friend’s abode. But the next house he went to the same result was produced. There was a putting together of feminine heads, a whispering, a direction of glances towards him, from eyes which once had looked upon him only with awe; and after a little hesitation and beating about the bush, the same outburst of remark. Half-married! The most important lady in the company took him to task very seriously. “What is to become of her? you should think of that. At present she has you to protect her reputation. But suppose anything were to happen to you? We are all mortal; and think of dear Jane with such a scandal against her. People will say it is the man who has drawn back: they will say all sorts of things; for it is inconceivable that a girl’s father, her own father, should play with her reputation like that.” “Her reputation!” the Duke cried, almost with a shriek of indignation. “My child’s reputation! Who would dare----” “Oh, nobody would dare,” said his assailant--“but everybody would understand. People would make sure that there were reasons. Half-married! There is not one of us that doesn’t feel it. Such a thing was never heard of. Oh, you must not think you will escape it by going away. Wherever you go you will hear the same thing. The news has gone everywhere. Didn’t you see it in the ‘Universe’ at full length? Of course nobody could mistake the Duke of B---- G----. Oh, I hope you will think it over seriously, before it is too late.”