"You may trust upon my doing all I can for you during your absence, both out of consideration for yourself and our friend Moraber.
"You can consult Lady Danvers in the West as to the best means of keeping yourself concealed till this storm has blown by; but, whatever you may think of the circumstances in which you are placed, believe that my judgment is best, and take the advice of your sincere friend,
"Norfolk."
Ralph gazed at the letter for several minutes with a pale cheek and anxious eye but then some one knocked at his door, and the voice of one of Lady Danvers's servants said, "My lady, sir, wishes to speak with you immediately."
"I will come in a moment," replied Ralph; and, folding up the Duke of Norfolk's letter once more, he proceeded with it in his hand to Hortensia's apartments.
CHAPTER XX.
In one of the largest houses of that day in London, and in that fashionable suburb which lay in the immediate vicinity of the palace, sat a young lady in deep mourning, weeping bitterly. She was quite alone in her own room; and the face, once almost ruddy with the hue of country health, looked now pale and delicate. The wits about the court, who by any chance had seen her, either at her father's residence or during a former visit to the court, had not failed to have their remark, their jest, or their gallant speech upon the occasion of her altered appearance.
One man, of exceedingly refined taste, declared that she looked far more lovely since she had cast away what he called that "very vivid rose," which made her look like a lovely dairy-maid.
Another replied that his lordship was fonder, he believed, of lilies than of roses.
Another rejoined that these were not lilies, but faded roses; and another declared that his two noble friends made it out clearly that the lady had the gift of weeping rose-water for her brother's death, as it was evidently by the process of distillation she had become so pale.