Each hallowed moment stood out clear, beautiful, eternally significant.

For, at the time, every experience there, sentimental, or grave, or trivial, had come upon her with a peculiar vividness, like a flashing of marvellous lights.

Albert's stalkings--an evening walk when she lost her way--Vicky sitting down on a wasps' nest--a torchlight dance--with what intensity such things, and ten thousand like them, impressed themselves upon her eager consciousness! And how she flew to her journal to note them down! The news of the Duke's death! What a moment--when, as she sat sketching after a picnic by a loch in the lonely hills, Lord Derby's letter had been brought to her, and she had learnt that "ENGLAND'S, or rather BRITAIN'S pride, her glory, her hero, the greatest man she had ever produced, was no morel." For such were here reflections upon the "old rebel" of former days.

But that past had been utterly obliterated--no faintest memory of it remained.

For years she had looked up to the Duke as a figure almost superhuman.