"Now you know the whole truth. If you have to suffer, so also have I. And my lot will be worse than yours. You—" he looked at him, not enviously, but with a sad admiration—"you will get over this—will forget her——."
"No, no!"
"Yes. There are other women whose love you may win. There is one already." He paused. "Yes, if one nail drives out another, so one love may drive out, wipe out all remembrance of another. And so it is with you. But I!" He dropped back and covered his face with his hands. "For me there can be no such hope. The door of love, the gates of the earthly paradise are shut against me, and will remain shut while I live. To me the Fates say mockingly, 'Rank, wealth, station, we give you, but the love of woman, that supreme gift of the gods to man, thou shalt never know it!'"
There was silence for a moment, then he raised himself on his elbow.
"Yorke, you must bear your burden. Forget her. It will be hard. Don't I know how hard? To forget Leslie—those sweet gray eyes, with their melting tenderness, that low, musical voice! But you must forget her. As I said, there are others. There is one. Eleanor——."
Yorke sprang to his feet.
"Forget her! Forget Leslie! What are you talking about? We must be mad, both of us; you to talk as you have done, and I to listen! She's as true as steel! I shall find a telegram waiting for me at the club, and—and all will turn out right."
The duke regarded him gravely.
"Go and see," he said quietly. "If you do not find a message from her, what will you do?"