A few days before it took place he began to look pale and ill. She saw that he could not eat, that he did not sleep or rest. Her heart was touched by his simple fidelity, his passionate love, although the one fell purpose of her life remained unchanged. "If you dislike going, Vere," she said to him one day, "do not go--stay at Verdun Royal." "The world would laugh if I did that, Philippa," he returned; "it would guess at once what was the reason, because every one knows how dearly I love you. We should be called _Darby_ and _Joan_." "No one would ever dare to call me _Joan_," she said, "for I have nothing of _Joan_ in me." The duke sighed--perhaps he thought that it would be all the better if she had; but, fancying there was something, after all, slightly contemptuous in her manner, as though she thought it unmanly in him to repine about leaving her, he said no more. One warm, brilliant day he took leave of her and she was left to work out her purpose. She never forgot the day of his departure--it was one of those hot days when the summer skies seemed to be half obscured by a copper-colored haze, when the green leaves hang languidly, and the birds seek the coolest shade, when the flowers droop with thirst, and never a breath of air stir their blossoms, when there is no picture so refreshing to the senses as that of a cool deep pool in the recesses of a wood. She stood at the grand entrance, watching him depart, and she knew that with all her beauty, her grace, her talent, her sovereignty, no one had ever loved her as this man did. Then, after he was gone, she stood still on the broad stone terrace, with that strange smile on her face, which seemed to mar while it deepened her beauty. "It will be a full revenge," she said to herself. "There could be no fuller. But what shall I do when it is all known?" She was not one to flinch from the course of action she had marked out for herself, nor from the consequences of that course; but she shuddered even in the heat, as she thought what her life would be when her vengeance was taken. "He will never forgive me," she said, "he will look upon me as the wickedest of women. It does not matter; he should not have exasperated me by slighting me." Then the coppery haze seemed to gather itself together--great purple masses of clouds piled themselves in the sky, a lurid light overspread the heavens, the dense oppressive silence was broken by a distant peal of thunder, great rain-drops fell--fierce, heavy drops. The trees seemed to stretch out their leaves to drink in the moisture, the parched flowers welcomed the downpour; and still the Duchess of Hazlewood stood out on the terrace, so deeply engrossed in her thoughts that she never heeded the rain. Madaline hastened out to her with a shawl. "Dear duchess," she cried, "it is raining; and you are so absorbed in thought that you do not notice it." She laughed a strange, weird laugh, and raised her beautiful face with its expression of gloom.