she made abundantly clear to Henry Frederick. Her favours--after a
period of coquetry and coy reluctance--were at his disposal; but the
price to be paid for them was a wedding-ring--nothing less. And such was
the infatuation she had inspired that the Duke--flinging scruples and
fears aside, consented. One October day they took boat to Calais, and
were there made man and wife. The widow had caught her Prince and meant
the world to know she was a Princess.

For a few indecisive weeks the Duke put off the evil day of announcing
his marriage to his brother, the King, and to his mother, the Dowager
Princess of Wales, whose frowns he dreaded still more. But his Duchess
was inexorable. She declined to play any longer the _rôle_ of "virtuous
mistress" in an obscure French town, when she ought, as a Princess of
the Blood Royal, to be circling in splendour and state around the
throne.

Between his wife's tears and tantrums on one side of the Channel and the
Royal anger on the other, the Duke was driven to the extremity of his
exiguous Royal wits; until finally, in sheer desperation, he decided to
make the plunge--to break the news to the King. Had he but known how
inopportune the time was he would surely have taken the first boat back
to Calais rather than face his brother's anger. George was distracted by
trouble at home and abroad. His mother was dying; across the Atlantic
the clouds of war were massing; the political atmosphere was charged
with danger and unrest. And when the quaking Duke presented himself
before his brother as he was moodily walking in his palace garden,
George was in no mood to accept quietly any addition to his burden of
worries.

No sooner had the King read the ill-spelled, clumsily-worded note which