were no scandals about him--and there were none--'twas not because he was
cold of heart or imagination. No man or woman could look into his deep
eye and not know that when love came to him 'twould be a burning passion,
and an evil fate if it went ill instead of happily.

"Being past his callow, youthful days, 'tis time he made some woman a
duchess," Dunstanwolde said reflectively once to his wife. "'Twould be
more fitting that he should; and it is his way to honour his house in all
things, and bear himself without fault as the head of it. Methinks it
strange he makes no move to do it."

"No, 'tis not strange," said my lady, looking under her black-fringed
lids at the glow of the fire, as though reflecting also. "There is no
strangeness in it."

"Why not?" her lord asked.

"There is no mate for him," she answered slowly. "A man like him must
mate as well as marry, or he will break his heart with silent raging at
the weakness of the thing he is tied to. He is too strong and splendid
for a common woman. If he married one, 'twould be as if a lion had taken
to himself for mate a jackal or a sheep. Ah!" with a long drawn
breath--"he would go mad--mad with misery;" and her hands, which lay upon
her knee, wrung themselves hard together, though none could see it.

"He should have a goddess, were they not so rare," said Dunstanwolde,
gently smiling. "He should hold a bitter grudge against me, that I, his
unworthy kinsman, have been given the only one."

"Yes, he should have a goddess," said my lady slowly again; "and there