my friend Rex.«
    »Not long before her marriage, then?« said Deronda, really interested; »for
they had only been a year at Offendene. How came you to know anything of it?«
    »Oh - not ignorant of what it is to be a miserable devil, I learn to gloat
on the signs of misery in others. I found out that Rex never goes to Offendene,
and has never seen the duchess since she came back; and Miss Gascoigne let fall
something in our talk about charade-acting - for I went through some of my
nonsense to please the young ones - something which proved to me that Rex was
once hovering about his fair cousin close enough to get singed. I don't know
what was her part in the affair. Perhaps the duke came in and carried her off.
That is always the way when an exceptionally worthy young man forms an
attachment. I understand now why Gascoigne talks of making the law his mistress
and remaining a bachelor. But these are green resolves. Since the duke did not
get himself drowned for your sake, it may turn out to be for my friend Rex's
sake. Who knows?«
    »Is it absolutely necessary that Mrs. Grandcourt should marry again?« said
Deronda, ready to add that Hans's success in constructing her fortunes hitherto
had not been enough to warrant a new attempt.
    »You monster!« retorted Hans, »do you want her to wear weeds for you all her
life - burn herself in perpetual suttee while you are alive and merry?«
    Deronda could say nothing, but he looked so much annoyed that Hans turned
the current of his chat, and when he was alone shrugged his shoulders a little
over the thought that there really had been some stronger feeling between
Deronda and the duchess than Mirah would like to know of. »Why didn't she fall
in love with me?« thought Hans, laughing at himself. »She would have had no
rivals. No woman ever wanted to discuss theology with me.«
    No wonder that Deronda winced under that sort of joking with a whip-lash. It
touched sensibilities that were already quivering with the anticipation of
witnessing some of that pain to which even Hans's light words seemed to give
more reality - any sort of recognition by another giving emphasis to the subject
of our anxiety. And now he had come down with the firm resolve that he would not
again evade the trial. The next day he rode to Offendene. He had sent word that
he intended to call and to ask if Gwendolen could