It was inevitable that she should talk to Lord Coombe but she met in him a sort of barrier.

She could not avoid seeing that he was preoccupied.

She remotely felt that he was turning over in his mind something which precluded the possibility of his giving attention to other questions.
"I almost feel as if your interest in her had lapsed," she said at last.
"No.

It has taken a--an entirely new form," was his answer.
It was when his glance encountered hers after he said this that each regarded the other with a slow growing anxiousness.

Something came to life in each pair of eyes and it was something disturbed and reluctant.
The Duchess spoke first.
"She has had no companions," she said painfully.