For, above all else--and this was the thing that clinched the purpose in
his mind--above all else, the Duke had, at best, but a brief time to
live. Only a week ago the Court physician had told him that any violence
or mental shock might snap the thread of existence. Clearly, the thing
was to go on as before, keep his marriage secret, meet the Countess,
apparently accede to all the Duke proposed, and wait--and wait.

With this clear purpose in his mind colouring all that he might say,
yet crippling the freedom of his thought, he sat down to write to Guida.
He had not yet written to her, according to his parole: this issue was
clear; he could not send a letter to Guida until he was freed from that
condition. It had been a bitter pill to swallow; and many times he had
had to struggle with himself since his arrival at the castle. For
whatever the new ambitions and undertakings, there was still a woman
in the lonely distance for whose welfare he was responsible, for whose
happiness he had yet done nothing, unless to give her his name under
sombre conditions was happiness for her. All that he had done to remind
him of the wedded life he had so hurriedly, so daringly, so eloquently
entered upon, was to send his young wife fifty pounds. Somehow, as this
fact flashed to his remembrance now, it made him shrink; it had a certain
cold, commercial look which struck him unpleasantly. Perhaps, indeed,
the singular and painful shyness--chill almost--with which Guida had
received the fifty pounds now communicated itself to him by the
intangible telegraphy of the mind and spirit.

All at once that bare, glacial fact of having sent her fifty pounds acted
as an ironical illumination of his real position. He felt conscious that
Guida would have preferred some simple gift, some little thing that women
love, in token and remembrance, rather than this contribution to the