A feverish and burning thirst, such as frequently attends excessive grief or anxiety, consumed him.

He drank cup after cup of tea almost unconsciously, until at length Lady Belgrade said: "This makes four! I am your hostess, duke; but I am also your aunt by marriage, and upon my word I cannot let you go on ruining your health in this way! You shall not have another cup of tea, unless you consent to eat something with it." The young duke smiled wanly, and submitted so far as to take a piece of dry toast on his plate and crumble it into bits.
Meanwhile, the dowager, having finished her breakfast, took up the _Times_ to look over.
Presently she startled the duke by exclaiming: "Thank Heaven!" "What is it ?" hastily inquired the duke, setting down his cup and gazing at the silent reader.

"Any news of Salome ?" he added, and then nearly lost his breath while waiting for the answer.
"Oh, yes, news of Salome! But scarcely authentic news.

Listen! Here is a full account of the wedding--with a description of the bride and bridesmaids, and their dresses and attendants, and of the ceremony and the officiating clergy, and the attending crowd, and the wedding-breakfast, speeches, presents, and so on, all tolerably correct for a newspaper report.

But now listen to this--" Her ladyship here read aloud: "Immediately after the wedding-breakfast, the happy pair left town, by the London and South Coast Railway, _en route_ for Dover, Paris and the Continent." "There! what do you think of that ?" inquired Lady Belgrade, looking up.
"I think it is not the first occasion upon which a paper has anticipated and described an expected event that some unforeseen accident prevented from coming off," answered the duke, with a sigh.
"I thank fortune for this! Now you have really started on your wedding tour in the belief of all London, and all outside of London who take the _Times_; and all _our_ world _do_ take it.