Yorke gazed at him with a troubled face.
"You mean that she discovered that you were the duke and not I?" he said.
The duke nodded.
"Yes. She came to me early in the morning, so pale and changed, so thoroughly overwhelmed with disappointment——."
"Hold on," broke in Yorke. "Disappointment? Do you mean that she was disappointed that I was not the duke, that she was cut up, that she cared one straw?"
"My dear Yorke, if you had seen her you would have been as astonished and as full of remorse as I was—though the trick was not yours, but mine. I told her so, I took all the blame, but it was of no use to plead for you. She was broken down with the agony of disappointment. If, as you say, you had arranged a secret marriage with her, she looked upon herself as already the Duchess of Rothbury, and to have the cup dashed from her lips! My dear Yorke, one must make all allowance for her. Human nature is human nature all the world over, especially feminine human nature——."
Yorke's face went from white to red and from red to white again.
"You are talking rot, utter rot, Dolph!" he said. "Leslie—Leslie Lisle—cut up and knocked over because she was not going to be a duchess! Ha, ha!" and he laughed scornfully. "How well you know her! she wouldn't care a pin; I've told you so half a dozen times! Why, she was shrinking from the idea of being a duchess; would have refused me for being what I thought I was, if—if—well, if she hadn't cared for me as she does, God bless her!"
He turned his head away and his eyes grew moist.