Whatever the Duke himself might feel, I returned home gloomy from my share in the affair. I sincerely believed, indeed, that I had done nothing but my duty in informing him of the injury that the Count de Mesnil had striven to do him, and of the insult that had been offered to his wife. He, on his part, too, I firmly believe, imagined that he had done nothing but that which he was bound to do as a soldier and a man of honour; but still there was something in the whole affair--the solitary encounter--the grave prepared--the burial in unhallowed ground, which added to the event all those dark and awful associations that deprived us of the power of classing it with those common encounters, with which he and I were both too familiar to remember them with any great pain when they were over. A little less than an hour had been consumed in the whole affair, at least on the part of the Duke, for I had been absent for a much longer space of time in leading away the horse of the deceased cavalier. However, as our household was not the most matutinal in the world, few of the servants were up, even when I returned; and I doubt not that no one in the whole family but myself had the slightest suspicion that the Duke had for a moment quitted his own dwelling. Thinking it right to make a report of what I had done after I had left him, I now went at once to the library, where I found him, in his robe de chambre, seated at a table, on which neither books nor papers were opened before him, but there lay the fatal locket which he had taken from the person of the Count de Mesnil, and his eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the lock of dark hair that it contained. He instantly took it up when I entered, and of course I ventured to make no observation, though I saw from his haggard look and frowning brow that he was once more adding the torments of suspicion to the pangs which the fatal business of that morning had left behind. He listened attentively to all I had to say, and though he gave a slight shudder when I mentioned the wild way in which the horse had dashed off towards Mesnel Moray, he made no farther comment, but waived me to leave him, saying he would speak with me more another time.