The other man held the paper to Yorke and pointed to a paragraph, and Yorke taking it—and not too courteously—out of his hand, read this:
"We regret to announce the death of Lord Eustace Auchester and his two sons. His lordship was yachting in the Mediterranean, and the vessel, being overtaken by a sudden squall, capsized. Their lordships and the crew, four in number, were all lost. Lord Eustace Auchester was the heir to the Dukedom of Rothbury, which will now descend to his nephew, Lord Yorke Auchester."
Yorke gazed at the printed words for a time as if he failed to grasp their significance. Then his face paled—paled slowly till it was white as death.
"Hold up, old man!" said Vinson. "Dash it all, I wish I'd broken it better! Here, take some wine!"
But Yorke, pushing the wine from him, rose, the paper still in his hand, and, as if he had forgotten the presence of the two men, stared wildly before him. Then, to their horror, he broke into a hoarse laugh.
"Why, she should have waited!" he exclaimed, bitterly, and as if he were speaking to himself. "Yes, if she had waited she would have been a duchess, after all!"