"
"How do you do, Mr. Dacre?"
Then the trio withdrew into a little anteroom; it was really time. Even
then the pair conducted themselves as if Mr. Dacre had been nothing and no
one. The duke took the lady's two hands in his. He eyed her fondly.
"So you are uninjured, with the exception of that lock of hair. Where did
the villain take it from?"
The lady looked a little puzzled.
"What lock of hair?"
From an envelope which he took from his pocket the duke produced a shining
tress. It was the lock of hair which had arrived in the first
communication. "I will have it framed."
"You will have what framed?" The duchess glanced at what the duke was so
tenderly caressing, almost, as it seemed, a little dubiously. "Whatever is
it you have there?"
"It is the lock of hair which that scoundrel sent me." Something in the
lady's face caused him to ask a question; "Didn't he tell you he had sent
it to me?"
"Hereward!"
"Did the brute tell you that he meant to cut off your little finger?"
A very curious look came into the lady's face. She glanced at the duke as
if she, all at once, was half afraid of him. She cast at Mr. Dacre what
really seemed to be a look of inquiry. Her voice was tremulously anxious.
"Hereward, did--did the accident affect you mentally?"
"How could it not have affected me mentally? Do you think that my mental
organization is of steel?"
"But you look so well.
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