Page:A Bayard from Bengal.djvu/63

Rh attachment, and how she had striven to acquaint Mr Bhosh with her sentiments but was rendered inarticulate by maidenly bashfulness.

"Can you not then slip a love-letter into his hand?" inquired the Duchess.

"Cui bono?" responded the Princess, sadly. "Seeing that he never approaches near enough to me to receive such a missive, and I dare not entrust it to one of my maidens!"

"Why not to Me?" said the Duchess. "He will not refuse it coming from myself; moreover, I have influence over him and will soften his heart towards thee."

Accordingly the Princess indicted a rather impassioned love-letter, in which she assured Mr Bhosh that she had divined his secret passion and fully reciprocated it, also that she was the total indifferent to Lord Jack, with much other similar matters.

Having obtained possession of this litera scripta, what does the unscrupulous Duchess next but deliver it impromptu into the hands of Lord Jack, who, after perusing it, was