"
"Of course I look well, now that I have you back again. Tell me, darling,
did that hound actually threaten you with cutting off your arm? If he did,
I shall feel half inclined to kill him yet."
The duchess seemed positively to shrink from her better half's near
neighborhood.
"Hereward, was it a Pickford's van?"
The duke seemed puzzled. Well he might be.
"Was what a Pickford's van?"
The lady turned to Mr. Dacre. In her voice there was a ring of anguish.
"Mr. Dacre, tell me, was it a Pickford's van?"
Ivor could only imitate his relative's repetition of her inquiry.
"I don't quite catch you--was what a Pickford's van?"
The duchess clasped her hands in front of her.
"What is it you are keeping from me? What is it you are trying to hide? I
implore you to tell me the worst, whatever it may be! Do not keep me any
longer in suspense; you do not know what I already have endured. Mr.
Dacre, is my husband mad?"
One need scarcely observe that the lady's amazing appeal to Mr. Dacre as
to her husband's sanity was received with something like surprise. As the
duke continued to stare at her, a dreadful fear began to loom in his
brain.
"My darling, your brain is unhinged!"
He advanced to take her two hands again in his; but, to his unmistakable
distress, she shrank away from him.
"Hereward--don't touch me.
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