"Yes, you can see that by her face, even now; and it is ever so much happier and brighter than when I saw it first. Ah, Ralph, I wish she were as happy as we are!"
Ralph Duncombe, as he drove along the road to White Place with the diamond pendant in his pocket, felt like a man struggling with a tremendous enigma. Lady Eleanor had evidently made a terrible and unaccountable blunder in stating and believing that it was Yorke Auchester whom Leslie was going to marry. How could she have made such a mistake? And what had happened to break off the marriage? Had the duke jilted Leslie? At the thought—though he was in love with Lucy now—his face grew red with anger and he felt that, duke or no duke, he would have called him to account but for Leslie's injunction.
When he reached White Place he found Lady Eleanor pacing up and down the room with an open letter in her hand, and she turned to greet him with a smile on her flushed face.
"You have good news?" he said.
"Yes." She nodded twice with a joyous light in her eyes. "I have heard from Lord Auchester. He is coming back the day after to-morrow. He and the Duke of Rothbury——."
Ralph started, and his face darkened.
"The Duke of Rothbury?" he said. "I am glad of that, Lady Eleanor, for I wish to see him. And, Lady Eleanor, I have something to tell you—something you will be glad to hear. There has been a strange and awkward mistake. It was not Lord Auchester who was going to marry Miss—Miss Lisle, but the Duke of Rothbury."
Lady Eleanor's face paled, and she caught her breath.
"Not—Yorke! The duke! Ah, no, no! That cannot be!"
"Pardon me, but I am right," he said, rather sternly.