Three days after Lord Arleigh's most inauspicious marriage.

The Duchess of Hazlewood sat in her drawing-room alone.

Those three days had changed her terribly; her face had lost its bloom, the light had died from her dark eyes, there were great lines of pain round her lips.

She sat with her hands folded listlessly, her eyes, full of dreamy sorrow, fixed on the moving foliage of the woods.

Presently Lady Peters entered with an open newspaper in her hand.
"Philippa, my dear," she said, "I am very uncomfortable.