The Duchess murmured to herself. Eglington was dead--Eglington was dead
--Eglington was dead! And David Claridge was coming out of the desert,
was coming to-day-now!

"How did it happen?" she asked, faintly, at last.

"Things went wrong wi' him--bad wrong in Parliament and everywhere, and
he didn't take it well. He stood the world off like-ay, he had no temper
for black days. He shut himself up at Hamley in his chemical place, like
his father, like his father before him. When the week-end came, there he
was all day and night among his bottles and jars and wires. He was after
summat big in experiment for explosives, so the papers said, and so he
said himself before he died, to Miss Claridge--ay, 'twas her he deceived
and treated cruel, that come to him when he was shattered by his
experimenting. No patience, he had at last--and reckless in his chemical
place, and didn't realise what his hands was doing. 'Twas so he told
her, that forgave him all his deceit, and held him in her arms when he
died. Not many words he had to speak; but he did say that he had never
done any good to any one--ay, I was standing near behind his bed and
heard all, for I was thinking of her alone with him, and so I would be
with her, and she would have it so. Ay, and he said that he had misused
cruel her that had loved him, her ladyship, that's here. He said he
had misused her because he had never loved her truly, only pride and
vainglory being in his heart. Then he spoke summat to her that was there
to forgive him and help him over the stile 'twixt this field and it
that's Beyond and Away, which made her cry out in pain and say that he
must fix his thoughts on other things. And she prayed out loud for him,
for he would have no parson there. She prayed and prayed as never priest
or parson prayed, and at last he got quiet and still, and, when she