Drake shook his head.
"Not you, countess. I will tell her."
"You, Drake!"
"Yes—I," he said, biting his lips. "She found little difficulty in telling me, there at Shorne Mills——No, no; I ought not to have said that. But I am anxious to spare Nell, and my anxiety makes me hard. Wait a moment."
He went to the window, and, putting aside the curtains, looked out at the night, seeing nothing; then he came back.
"Put the dinner back for a quarter of an hour, and send word to her and ask her to go into your boudoir. I will wait her there."
"Is there no other way, Drake?" she asked, pitying him from the bottom of her heart.
"There is none," he said frankly. "It is my fault. I ought to have found out her address; but it is no use reproaching oneself. Send to her, countess!"
She left the room, and Drake went back to the duke, talked for a moment or two, then went up to the countess' room and waited. He had to face an ordeal more severe than any other that had hitherto fallen to his not uneventful life; but faced it had to be; and he would have gone through fire and water to save Nell a moment's pain. Besides, Luce was to be considered, though, it must be confessed, he felt little pity for her.
Presently the door opened; but it was Burden who entered. She was looking pale and emaciated, as if she were either very ill, or recovering from illness, and Drake, even at that moment of strain and stress, noticed her pitiable appearance.