The _Daily Comet_ came out next day with its threatened sensational blazon: the world of London and beyond greedily assimilated the startling tale, and their Graces the Duke and Duchess of Lancashire began to have an exceedingly unpleasant time of it. The Duke especially; since he had the Duchess, as well as the Press and the rest of the world, to encounter. He had done nothing wrong (with the exception of that bribe to the late Dr. Blaydon) or even foolish, he told himself, for his little arrangement with the doctor had been highly expedient; yet the affair had, by the merest chance, taken this unfortunate turn, and he suddenly found his ducal neck and wrists in a moral pillory, with a shower of rotten eggs unpleasantly imminent. Under the circumstances he judged it wise to confine his perambulations within the precincts of Vaux House; happily its grounds were extensive, and for the first time in his life as he dispiritedly paced them, he omitted to regret the waste they represented of colossally remunerative building sites. He simply dared not show his face in the streets--not even the streets that he owned--and as to going into one of his clubs, including the House of Lords, why, he would as soon have walked into the crater of Vesuvius. So he promenaded up and down and around the somewhat dingy gardens of which the sombre and blighted tone was in complete harmony with his feelings. He could hear passers-by talking on the other side of the high wall which secluded his august pleasure-ground from the vulgar world, and wondered if, nay, made sure, they were discussing him and his methods in a spirit of galling irreverence, if they took their tone from that of the more enterprising journals he had read. Yes; it was an uncomfortable position for any one, let alone an old-established Duke; he became sure certain people were watching him from such upper windows as commanded a view of the grounds, since the wall of even an exclusive Duke is subject to certain architectural limitations; and he went indoors. On his way he saw people looking curiously through the great iron gates at the house of mystery and crime. He fancied he heard a murmur as he crossed their sight, but that was probably a symptom of hypertrophied egoism. In his perturbation of mind he flung himself into a room which he had intended to avoid, and found himself alone with the Duchess. There was something in her eye which forbade retreat. “Well?” The monosyllable was a challenge: more, it was the first flick of a castigation. The Duke merely gave a shrug which was the most non-committal answer that occurred to him. “What is the latest?” the Duchess demanded, in a tone which was not to be trifled with. “I have heard nothing, dear. I have not been out.” “I just saw you come in.” “From the garden.” “Why don’t you go out?” The Duke made a stand. “I don’t care to, while this wretched business is in big letters at every corner.”