"You have been wonderfully preserved," she said presently, speaking dreamily, and as much to herself as to me.
"I have, indeed," I answered, thinking she referred only to my escape of the morning.
"There was, firstly, the time on the river when you were hurt with the oar," she continued, gazing absently at me, her hands in her lap; "and then the night when you saw Clarence with Dymphna."
"Or, rather, saw him without her," I interposed, smiling. It was strange that she should mention it as a fact, when at the time she had so scolded me for making the statement.
"And then," she continued, disregarding my interruption, "there was the time when you were stabbed in the passage; and again when you had the skirmish by the river; and then to-day you were within a minute of death. You have been wonderfully preserved!"
"I have," I assented thoughtfully. "The more as I suspect that I have to thank Master Clarence for all these little adventures."
"Strange--very strange!" she muttered, removing her eyes from me that she might fix them on the floor.
The abrupt questioner was the Duchess, who came bustling in at the moment. "What is strange?" she repeated, with a heightened color and dancing eyes. "Shall I tell you?" She paused and looked brightly at me, holding something concealed behind her. I guessed in a moment, from the aspect of her face, what it was: the letter which I had given to Master Lindstrom in the morning, and which, with a pardonable forgetfulness, I had failed to reclaim.
I turned very red. "It was not intended for you now," I said shyly. For in the letter I had told her my story.
"Pooh! pooh!" she cried. "It is just as I thought. A pretty piece of folly! No," she continued, as I opened my mouth, "I am not going to keep your secret, sir. You may go down on your knees. It will be of no use. Richard, you remember Sir Anthony Cludde of Coton End in Warwickshire?"
"Oh, yes," her husband said, rising on his elbow, while his face lit up, and I stood bashfully, shifting my feet.
"I have danced with him a dozen times, years ago!" she continued, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Well, sir, this gentleman, Master Francis Carey, otherwise Von Santonkirch, is Francis Cludde, his nephew!"