mob, and that his coat must be torn and his linen frayed with the conflict. He was astonished beyond all description; but he was likewise appalled by the discovery that even he was not above the reach of public opinion. It affected him against his will. He felt ashamed, uneasy, confused even on the points where he was most sure. And when he came home, he went to his wife’s boudoir, where she sat alone, to bid her good-night, which was a form he always observed, though this event had separated them entirely. She was permitted now to see Jane once a-day; but as she would give no promise that she would not help her daughter to leave the house, this was the utmost that he had granted her. She was seated alone, reading, pale and weary. She scarcely raised her eyes when he came in, though she put down her book. The fire was low, and there was no light in the room except the reading-lamp. The Duke could not help feeling the difference from former times. A temptation came upon him to throw himself upon her sympathy, and tell her how he had been persecuted. He would have done so had it been on any other subject, but he remembered in time that on this he had no sympathy to expect from his wife. So he stood for a minute or two before the fire, feeling chilled, silenced, an injured man. “No, I have not had a pleasant evening,” he said shortly; “how should my evening be pleasant when every one remarks your absence? I am asked if you are ill; I am asked----” “Other questions, I imagine, that are still more difficult to answer.” “And whose fault is it?” he cried, with vehemence. “If you had taken the steps you ought to have taken, and supported my authority, as was your duty, there would have been no such questions to ask.” The Duchess turned away with some impatience; she made no reply: the question had been often enough discussed in all its bearings. If she had now thrown herself at his feet and begged his pardon and forbearance, what a relief it would have been to him! He would have yielded and saved his position, and recovered the pose of a magnanimous superior. But the Duchess had no intention of the kind. After a while, during which they did not look at each other, she seated gazing into the fire, he standing staring into the vacant air, he took up his candlestick with an air of impatience. “Good night, then,” he said, with in his turn an air of impatience. “Good night,” she said. CHAPTER XV. DELIVERANCE.