For a long time Iona sat in the heather looking down at the castle and trying to sort out her ideas and impressions of the people who lived in it. As she thought of the Duke, it seemed as if a warm glow spread over her whole being. She began to guess now a little of what he had endured and suffered in these past years.
He must have been aware that his stepmother was intriguing against him, just as he must have known that she loved his half-brother and longed for him to inherit the Dukedom. It must have been hard to live a life of utter loneliness surrounded by enemies who were his own kith and kin.
Always his expression was masked, always there was a proud indifference in him to everybody and everything, and yet he had remained true to his own ideals, uninfluenced by anything save his ow
