The wedding took place early in September. Immediately after the announcement of the duke’s intentions, France had rushed upstairs to Julia and indulged in such an outburst of rage that she fled to another part of the castle, and left him to wreak his vengeance on the furniture. Having relieved himself, he was able to meet the relative, for whom his lukewarm affection had turned to hatred, with his usual glassy surface, and, silent at all times, save when delivering himself of anecdotes, he was not in danger of betraying himself in the unguarded word. He held out until a week before the wedding, and then had a heart attack and parted from his sympathetic cousin for his semi-annual pilgrimage to Paris.

“Of course we’ll have to get out of this,” he said to Julia as he was leaving. “He wants us to stay, but you know what that means. Our day is over, curse him. Nothin’ for us but White Lodge. Lucky I couldn’t rent it again. Luck! Mine’s gone. I don’t know when I’ll be back. Am really goin’ to Paris this time. You go to Hertfordshire and settle yourself. Make it comfortable, but no extravagance.”

“Couldn’t we take a flat in town?” asked Julia.

“Town? Not I. There’s good shootin’ and huntin’ in Hertfordshire, and that’s all I’ve got left. Hate town. Thank heaven, I can chuck politics. That’s my only comfort.”

“But you love society; at least, your position in it.”

“What’s the good without a fortune? Besides, we’re not an hour from town at White Lodge, and there’s good enough society in the county. Mind you return every call.”

Then, much to Julia’s delight, he took himself off.

The duke and his new duchess, a youngish aunt of Bridgit Herbert’s, who had angled quietly for him ever since he had emerged from his seclusion and entertained his neighbors, cordially invited Julia to remain at Bosquith for the rest of the season, but she was anxious to get away and readjust herself in solitude. Besides, her presence was necessary at White Lodge; and it is hardly necessary to state that she won the duke’s approval by doing the obvious thing.

In truth she was somewhat dazed, in no state for a display of originality. The unexpected trick of fate had disconcerted her hardly less than her husband, for not only had she grown into her position as the future duchess of Kingsborough during the past five years, but she was profoundly shocked to find that her mother’s planets had made a mistake.

Nothing had occurred to disturb her belief in the ancient and romantic science of astrology since her arrival in England. On the contrary, some of the cleverest and most eminent men she had met professed tolerance of it, and, she suspected, felt something more. On the other hand, she had found England so full of other fads, with no possible scientific basis, that her respect for astrology had grown rather than diminished. But she could only conclude that the whole thing was a monstrous delusion. Like many religions it filled a want, and its picturesque qualities had captured men’s imaginations and enabled it to survive. She received several incredulous letters from her mother on the subject of the duke’s marriage, finally one filled with concentrated astonishment, fury, and despair. This was some time later, when Julia had written that she must cease to hope, as there was no doubt the new duchess would have a family. Mrs. Edis ended her letter characteristically:—

“I have lived in a fool’s paradise for years. Now I simply exist until my time comes to die. I might have endured this annihilation of my only religion, but not of the crowning ambition of my life. In this matter I feel that you are to blame. You should have had children. You should have managed the duke so that he would never have thought of marriage, instead of becoming a woman of an entirely different and alien generation, as I find you in your letters. I should prefer that you do not write to me until I write again. Of course I do not forget that you are my child and the only one I have left, now that your wretched brother and his wife are dead—for I do not count this fidgeting grandchild I have on my hands—but so great is my disappointment in you that I cannot face the prospect of your letters at present—filled as I know they will be with that silly shallow modern philosophy which makes the best of things in the shortest possible time.”

Julia felt sorry for her mother long before she received this letter, but she soon discovered that this was her only regret, barring the fact that she must see more of her husband. For a fortnight she was quite alone at White Lodge, a charmingly situated property not far from the village of Stanmore and facing a wild expanse of heath. The housekeeper engaged the servants, leaving her young mistress to a complete liberty and solitude for the first time in her life. As Julia wandered through the thick woods of the little park between the garden and the heath, or rode alone in the dawn, or explored the historic villages and romantic lanes and properties of Hertfordshire, she realized how weary she was of the pleasant uniformity of London society, of entertaining in the country for sportsmen and statesmen; admitted once for all that to be a great peeress of Britain would bore her to death. Whatever ambitions she might develop, now that she was free to be an individual ignored by the planets, to be a great lady was not of them, and during these delightful weeks she dreamed of discovering some overlaid talent with which she should achieve a real place in life.

It did not occur to her to leave her husband. Noblesse oblige would have kept her at his side in his fallen fortunes, even had she not felt an even keener sympathy for him than when he had struggled for life during the early months of their marriage. She had ceased to fear him, forgotten her prophetic moments, so secure did she feel in her power to manage him, and so little, for the past year at least, had she seen of him. She would console him to the best of her ability for the bitterest disappointment such a man could feel, make White Lodge as brilliant as possible, dress on fifty pounds a year, and ask nothing in return but the liberty to study, and develop the talents she was sure she possessed, deeply buried as they might be. Before a week had passed, she had completely readjusted herself, and looked forward eagerly to several years of comparative quiet during which her mind should mature and make ready for the great discovery.

But a quiet life was not for Julia, then or ever.