looked in quizzically. There was a smile on his face.

"I'm late, I know; but you'll forgive me--you'll forgive me, dear lady,"
he added to Hylda, "for I've been listening to your husband making a
smashing speech for a bad cause."

Hylda smiled. "Then I must go and congratulate him," she answered, and
withdrew her hand from that of Lord Windlehurst, who seemed to hold it
longer than usual, and pressed it in a fatherly way.

"I'm afraid the House is up," he rejoined, as Hylda turned for her opera-
cloak; "and I saw Eglington leave Palace Yard as I came away." He gave a
swift, ominous glance towards the Duchess, which Hylda caught, and she
looked at each keenly.

"It's seldom I sit in the Peers' Gallery," continued Windlehurst;
"I don't like going back to the old place much. It seems empty and
hollow. But I wouldn't have missed Eglington's fighting speech for a
good deal."

"What was it about?" asked Hylda as they left the box. She had a sudden
throb of the heart. Was it the one great question, that which had been
like a gulf of fire between them?

"Oh, Turkey--the unpardonable Turk," answered Windlehurst. "As good a
defence of a bad case as I ever heard."

"Yes, Eglington would do that well," said the Duchess enigmatically,
drawing her cloak around her and adjusting her hair. Hylda looked at her
sharply, and Lord Windlehurst slyly, but the Duchess seemed oblivious of