She was a loyal woman, and had loved her husband as much as most good wives, though with an honest determination to love him better; for she was young when they married, and she thought her love stronger than it really was.

She had mourned him sincerely, but the wound had healed, and being a brave woman, with no morbid sensitiveness of herself, she had contemplated the possibility of marrying again, without, however, connecting the idea with any individual.

She had liked Claudius from the first, and there had been something semi-romantic about their meeting in the Schloss at Heidelberg.

On nearer acquaintance she liked him better, though she knew that he admired her, and by the time a fortnight had passed Claudius had become an institution.

They read together and they walked together, and once she took him with her in the black phaeton, whereupon Barker remarked that it was "an immense thing on wheels." Mr.Barker, seeing that his companion was safe for the present, left Baden for a time and lighted on his friend the Duke at Como, where the latter had discovered some attractive metal.