'Yes,' he replied, 'but you know the other half is pledged already.'
She sprang up with clenched hands.
'What? To Valerie? Already?'
'No, Madame, to the Duke.'
'Ah, the Duke is well served!' she said sadly as he bowed at the door, but she laughed to herself when it closed behind him, 'Yet you will come when I send for you, Jack!'
CHAPTER XV.
COLENDORP.
As the night deepened the wind again rose, its many voices howled about the Castle and compelled the ear to listen. It volleyed yelling through the ravines, it roared among the lean pine-trees like the surf on an open coast, it swept round the Castle walls in long-drawn infuriated screaming that seemed charged with echoes of wild pain and remoteness and fear. The narrow moon had long since sunk behind the rack of storm-driven clouds, and left the mountains steeped in a tumultuous milk-coloured darkness of snow and wind.
Within the massive walls the reception rooms were closed and empty at last; the guests had separated and night had taken possession, but not rest.