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 pardon, for you’ll be the Duke yourself now?”

“Yes, I am the Duke, Mayne, and a very unfortunate one,” Beaumanoir laughed. “There has been a mild sort of smash-up on the railway yonder, and I started to walk to Prior’s Tarrant rather than hang about for a relief train. I was a bit hazy about my direction, so I thought I’d inquire, and at the same time reassure you that it wasn’t a poacher who was abroad in the woods. May I come in while you give me my bearings?”

“Come in, your Grace, and welcome; but it isn’t in my house that I shall direct you. It’s not likely that I’m going to let you wander about my woods on a dark night when I can guide you out of them myself and think it an honor,” was the keeper’s cordially respectful reply.

Beaumanoir was conscious that standing in a lighted doorway was hardly the place for him just then, and he followed into a roomy kitchen, professionally eloquent with its array of guns and sporting prints. Mayne explained that his wife had just gone up to bed, and that all the youngsters, whom perhaps it might please his Grace to remember, were out in the world.