"Yorke! Is it you, Yorke? Have you come back to me?"
She repeated them mechanically, as one repeats a phrase in a foreign language, the meaning of which one does not understand. Then she began to tremble, and a faint, sick dread fell upon her.
All the time she bathed the white face and lips and brushed the dark hair from the low, handsome forehead; doing it mechanically, absently.
Yorke? Had this girl said Yorke, or, was she mistaken?
She waited, breathless, the sick feeling weighing on her heart; and presently the full lips opened again, and again the name—the beloved name—was breathed. There could be no mistake this time. Leslie heard it plainly.
It was Yorke.
Her hand trembled, the beautiful face on her lap grew dim, and seemed to fade away. Then she made an effort and forced the dread from her heart, and a smile to her lips.
What if this girl, the beautiful girl, had called upon Yorke? Surely there was more than one man of that name in the world, the great big wide world; and this woman's Yorke was not, could not be, hers, Leslie's.
She could have laughed at her wicked, worse than wicked, foolish fears! Could have laughed if it had not been for the stress of circumstances.
How could she suspect for a moment that he Yorke—the Duke of Rothbury, her lover, so good and true and stanch—should be the Yorke whom this woman loved, and who had, by her own account, deserted her!