He went up to her and touched her brow
lightly with his lips.
"Are you asleep, my darling?" he asked.
"No," she replied, opening her eyes.
"I have something to read to you--something wonderful."
She roused herself.
"Your geese are generally swans, Vere. What is the wonder?"
"Listen, Philippa;" and, as the duke scanned the newspaper in his hands,
he sang the first few lines of his favorite song:
"'Queen Philippa sat in her bower alone.'
"Ah, here it is!" he broke off. "I am sure you will say that this is
wonderful. It explains all that I could not understand--and, for
Arleigh's sake, I am glad, though what you will say to it, I cannot
think."
And, sitting down by her side, he read to her the newspaper account of
the Arleigh romance.
He read it without interruption, and the queenly woman listening to him
knew that her revenge had failed, and that, instead of punishing the man
who had slighted her love, she had given him one of the sweetest,
noblest and wealthiest girls in England. She knew that her vengeance had
failed--that she had simply crowned Lord Arleigh's life with the love of
a devoted wife.
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