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Updated: June 29, 2025
"Surely you have learned to love it somewhat in your wanderings?" said the older man with trusting nobleness, standing looking at it, his hand on the other's arm. "You could not help it." "No, I could not help it," answered Osmonde, and to himself he said, "He will drive me mad, generous soul; he will drive me mad."
But of such a thing no one dreamed, as, indeed, why should they, and my lord Duke of Osmonde rode over the border into Gloucestershire on his fine beast, and, trotting-up the roads and down the lanes, wore a look upon his face which showed him deep in thought. 'Twas a grey day, unbrightened by any sun.
The World of Fashion said when her ladyship's equipage drove by, that her beauty was like that of the god of day at morning, and that 'twas plain that no man or woman had ever beheld her as his Grace of Osmonde would. "She loves at last," a wit said. "Until the time that such a woman loves, however great her splendour, she is as the sun behind a cloud."
"Since 'twas I who killed him," said her Grace to her inward soul, "'tis I must live his life which I took from him, and making it better I may be forgiven if there is One who dares to say to the poor thing He made, 'I will not forgive." Surely it was said there had never been lives so beautiful and noble as those the Duke of Osmonde and his lady lived as time went by.
"He is too hot to stand, and I shall not soon be ready." He followed her to the Panelled Parlour, the one to which she had taken Osmonde on the day of their bliss, the one in which in the afternoon she received those who came to pay court to her over a dish of tea. In the mornings none entered it but herself or some invited guest.
The custom of the time held that a widowed lady should mourn retired a year, but 'twas near two before her ladyship of Dunstanwolde came forth from her seclusion, and casting her weeds returned to town. And my Lord Duke of Osmonde had come again to Camylott when the news was spread.
"Did you see her?" he asked. "She has but just passed through the room with my Lord Dunstanwolde Mistress Clorinda," he added, with a little rueful laugh. "In Gloucestershire there is but one 'she. When we speak of the others we use their names and call them Mistress Margaret or my Lady Betty or Jane." "I stood at the head of the stairway as she passed," answered Osmonde.
It was by this time the first month of the summer, and to-night there was again a birth-night ball, at which the beauty was to dazzle all eyes; but 'twas of greater import than the one she had graced previously, it being to celebrate the majority of the heir to an old name and estate, who had been orphaned early, and was highly connected, counting, indeed, among the members of his family the Duke of Osmonde, who was one of the richest and most envied nobles in Great Britain, his dukedom being of the oldest, his numerous estates the most splendid and beautiful, and the long history of his family full of heroic deeds.
In one of their retrospective hours, Osmonde had told her of the thoughts he had dreamed on, as they had ridden homeward from the encampment of the gipsies of his fancies of the comrade she would make for a man who lived a roving life.
"There dwells some constant thought in your mind, my lord Duke," he said, on a night in which they sate together alone. "Is it a new one?" "No," Osmonde answered; "'twould perhaps not be so constant if it were. It is an old thought which has taken a new form. In times past" his voice involuntarily falling a tone "I did not realise its presence."
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