The lady turned to Mr. Dacre. In her voice there was a ring of anguish:
"Mr. Dacre, tell me, was it a Pickford's van?"
Ivor could only imitate his relative's repetition of her inquiry:
"I don't quite catch you--was what a Pickford's van?"
The Duchess clasped her hands in front of her: "What is it you are keeping from me? What is it you are trying to hide? I implore you to tell me the worst, whatever it may be! Do not keep me any longer in suspense; you do not know what I already have endured. Mr. Dacre, is my husband mad?"
One need scarcely observe that the lady's amazing appeal to Mr. Dacre as to her husband's sanity was received with something like surprise. As the Duke continued to stare at her, a dreadful fear began to loom upon his brain:
"My darling, your brain is unhinged!"
He advanced to take her two hands again in his; but, to his unmistakable distress, she shrank away from him:
"Hereward--don't touch me. How is it that I missed you? Why did you not wait until I came?"
"Wait until you came?"