"Upon what ground?" gravely inquired the duke.
"Your grace is wanted as a witness for the Crown, on the trial of John Potts and Rose Cameron, charged with the murder of the late Sir Lemuel Levison. The girl, who was arrested at a house in Westminster Road a few days ago, has been sent down to Scotland, and the trial will commence, on the day after to-morrow, at the Assizes now open at Bannff. But, according to the newspaper report, we thought your grace to be now on your way to Paris, and we were just about to dispatch a special messenger to you. So your grace will perceive how fortunate this meeting turns out to be."
"Yes, I perceive," said the duke, dryly.
"And your grace will not be inconvenienced, I hope," said the chief, as he bowed and placed a folded paper in the duke's hand.
It was a subpoena commanding the recipient, under certain pains and penalties, to render himself at the Town Hall of Bannff as a witness for the Crown, in the approaching trial of John Potts, alias Abraham Peters, and Rose Cameron.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FLIGHT OF THE DUCHESS
When the emissary of Rose Cameron had gone, the young Duchess of Hereward, in a whirlwind of long-repressed excitement, slammed, locked and bolted all the doors leading from her apartments into the hall, and then fled into her dressing-room and cast herself head long down upon the floor in the collapse of utter, infinite despair—despair in all its depth of darkness, without its benumbing calmness!
Her soul was shaken by a tempest of warring passions! Amazement, indignation, grief, horror, raged through her agonized bosom!