He had the carriage with the Merivale crest upon its door stop at the lodge gates, and he walked the last half mile up the avenue in a thin March rain, so that no wheels on the gravel should give him away. He came in by the great door without a word. The footman on duty in the hall very nearly dropped the salver he was holding. The Duke raised one gloved finger to his lips, and the young man closed his mouth again. The marble floor shone, for it had been polished that morning, and the whole house smelled of beeswax and wet stone.Then he heard a woman screaming.It came from the morning room, whose door stood open across the hall. The Duke crossed to it, stopped upon the threshold, and what he saw there kept him silent for two days.The morning room was full of people, and every one of them had their back to the door. Lady Arabella Mortimer, the daughter of an earl and the most beautiful young woman in three counties, stood by the tall windows in a gown of rose-colored silk. Her mother, the Countess, sat on the sofa beside the wife of a neighboring baronet who had called to take tea. The housekeeper stood frozen with the teapot in her hands, and a second footman had pressed himself against the sideboard as though he hoped to become part of it.On the carpet lay an armful of daffodils, the first of the year, their wet stems dripping onto the Turkey rug. Beside them stood two small children in nankeen and pinafores and muddy shoes, and the hem of the rose-colored silk was spattered brown to the knee."Look at it," Lady Arabella cried. "Look at my gown! Who let these two animals into a room where there are ladies?"Thomas, who would be six in May, put his dark head up. "They're for Papa," he said. "He comes tomorrow. Miss Fenwick said the first ones are the best, so we picked them all.""Miss Fenwick will say a great deal less in this house after Saturday," Lady Arabella said. "And you, sir, will be at school by the autumn, where they know what to do with boys who track mud across a marble floor. As for your sister—"Charlotte, who could never bear a raised voice, had begun to cry. She was a small, soft child with her mother's brown eyes, and she looked at the beautiful lady as though she were a dog that had bitten."You're not our mama," she said. "Our mama is in the chapel. Papa says so."Lady Arabella's hand came up, open and fast.