But the Duke was acutely conscious of his position and the scandal that such action would evoke.
He was thinking not only of himself but of his son when he decided that the best thing he could do was to ignore what had happened and not even admit that his wife had left him for another man.
For a long time he answered all enquiries about the Duchess by saying that she was staying abroad with friends.
When the war with France made this impossible, he said instead that she was in Ireland because she enjoyed the hunting there.
Because the Duke was a very unapproachable person, no one was prepared to challenge such a statement, but at the same time there was, amongst his relatives and friends, a great deal of speculation as to what had happened.
No one knew the truth, although there were a
