Ralph started. He and the rest of them had forgotten her.
He got on Yorke's horse, and rode full pelt for White Place.
"Their ladyships left by the first train this morning for the Continent, sir," said the butler; "Paris, I think, but I'm not sure; I was to wait till they sent their address."
Ralph rode back and whispered the result of his message to Lucy; she looked relieved.
"I—I am not sorry!" she said. "If she had come Leslie would have gone, perhaps! No, I am not sorry! Oh, Ralph, if he should die!"
In the afternoon a fly drove up to the door and Grey helped the duke out. He was as white as the face that lay on the pillow upstairs, and for a moment or two he could not speak, but sat with lightly folded hands listening as Ralph told the whole strange story.
"Take me to him," he said at last.
They took him upstairs, and he started at sight of Leslie beside the bed; then he held out his hand, and Leslie put hers into it without a word; indeed, almost indifferently and without removing her eyes from Yorke's face. For her all the world lay there, hovering between life and death!
He stood watching Yorke for some time, then he went downstairs again.
"Will he live?" he asked the doctor.