The next day the duke set out on his return to Paris, and on the fourth evening thereafter found himself re-established at his comfortable quarters at Meurice's.
He changed his dress, dined, and ordered the files of English and French newspapers for the past week to be brought to him.
He was interested only in political affairs when asking for the papers, and so he was quite as much astonished as grieved when his eyes fell upon this paragraph in the Times:
"A painful rumor reaches us from Paris. It is to the effect that a certain young and lovely duchess, who made her debut in English society as a bride only twelve months since, has left her home under the protection of a certain Polish count, attached to the Russian Embassy."
Stricken to the soul with shame, the unhappy duke sank back in his chair and remained as one paralyzed for several minutes; then slowly recovering himself he took up other papers, one by one, to see if they too recorded his dishonor.
Yes! each paper had its paragraph devoted to the one grand sensation of the day—the flight of the beautiful Duchess of Hereward with the young Russian count; and very few dealt with the deplorable case as delicately as the Times had done.
"So my dishonor is the talk of all Paris and London!" groaned the duke, dropping his head upon his chest. "If all the civilization of the nineteenth century had power to stay my arm in its vengeance, it has lost it now! And nothing is left for me to do but to kill the man and divorce the woman."
There was a certain Colonel Morris, of the Tenth Hussars, staying at Paris on leave.
The duke sat down at his writing-table and dashed off a hasty note to this compatriot, asking him to come to him immediately.
Then he rang the bell and gave the note to his own groom, saying: