He had refused to go out this morning, because she had not gone; and now he stood watching her with something like adoration in his face--the beautiful woman, in her flowing draperies of amber and white.

He went up to her and touched her brow lightly with his lips.
"Are you asleep, my darling ?" he asked.
"No," she replied, opening her eyes.
"I have something to read to you--something wonderful." She roused herself.
"Your geese are generally swans, Vere.

What is the wonder ?" "Listen, Philippa;" and, as the duke scanned the newspaper in his hands, he sang the first few lines of his favorite song: "'Queen Philippa sat in her bower alone.' "Ah, here it is!" he broke off.

"I am sure you will say that this is wonderful.

It explains all that I could not understand--and, for Arleigh's sake, I am glad, though what you will say to it, I cannot think." And, sitting down by her side, he read to her the newspaper account of the Arleigh romance.
He read it without interruption, and the queenly woman listening to him knew that her revenge had failed, and that, instead of punishing the man who had slighted her love, she had given him one of the sweetest, noblest and wealthiest girls in England.