not know how to begin to be tender and forgiving. He knew that he
would not know not to be stern and hard.

But he must find out the history of it all. No doubt the man had
been his son's friend, and had joined the party in Italy at his
son's instance. But yet he had come to entertain the idea that Mrs
Finn had been the great promoter of this sin, and he thought that
Tregear had told him that that lady had been concerned with the
matter from the beginning. In all this there was a craving in his
heart to lessen the amount of culpable responsibility which might
seem to attach itself to the wife he had lost.

He reached Matching about eight, and ordered his dinner to be
brought to him in his own study. When Lady Mary came to welcome
him, he kissed her forehead, and bade her to come to him after his
dinner. 'Shall I not sit with you, papa, whilst you are eating
it?' she asked; but he merely told her that he would not trouble
her to do that. Even in saying this, he was so unusually tender to
her that she assured herself that her lover had not as yet told
his tale.

The Duke's meals were generally not feasts for a Lucullus. No man
living, perhaps, cared less what he ate, or knew less what he
drank. In such matters he took what was provided for him, making
his dinner off the first bit of meat that was brought, and simply
ignoring anything offered to him afterwards. And he would drink
what wine the servant gave him, mixing it, whatever it might be,
with seltzer water. He had never been given much the pleasures of
the table; but this habit of simplicity had grown on him of late,
till the Duchess used to tell him that his wants were so few that