He begged me to be under no anxiety.  ’We have been long expecting you,’ said he.  ‘All is ready.’

Such I found to be the truth.  A great room had been prepared for me; through the mullioned windows the last flicker of the winter sunset interchanged with the reverberation of a royal fire; the bed was open, a suit of evening clothes was airing before the blaze, and from the far corner a boy came forward with deprecatory smiles.  The dream in which I had been moving seemed to have reached its pitch.  I might have quitted this house and room only the night before; it was my own place that I had come to; and for the first time in my life I understood the force of the words home and welcome.

‘This will be all as you would want, sir?’ said Mr. Dawson.  ’This ’ere boy, Rowley, we place entirely at your disposition.  ’E’s not exactly a trained vallet, but Mossho Powl, the Viscount’s gentleman, ’ave give him the benefick of a few lessons, and it is ’oped that he may give sitisfection.  Hanythink that you may require, if you will be so good as to mention the same to Rowley, I will make it my business myself, sir, to see you sitisfied.’

So saying, the eminent and already detested Mr. Dawson took his departure, and I was left alone with Rowley.  A man who may be said to have wakened to consciousness in the prison of the Abbaye, among those ever graceful and ever tragic figures of the brave and fair, awaiting the hour of the guillotine and denuded of every comfort, I had never known the luxuries or the amenities of my rank in life.  To be attended on by servants I had only been accustomed to in inns.  My toilet had long been military, to a moment, at the note of a bugle, too often at a ditch-side.  And it need not be wondered at if I looked on my new valet with a certain diffidence.  But I remembered that if he was my first experience of a valet, I was his first trial as a master.  Cheered by which consideration, I demanded my bath in a style of good assurance.  There was a bathroom contiguous; in an incredibly short space of time the hot water was ready; and soon after, arrayed in a shawl dressing-gown, and in a luxury of contentment and comfort, I was reclined in an easy-chair before the mirror, while Rowley, with a mixture of pride and anxiety which I could well understand, laid out his razors.

‘Hey, Rowley?’ I asked, not quite resigned to go under fire with such an inexperienced commander.  ’It’s all right, is it?  You feel pretty sure of your weapons?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ he replied.  ’It’s all right, I assure your lordship.’

’I beg your pardon, Mr. Rowley, ’but for the sake of shortness, would you mind not belording me in private?’ said I.  ’It will do very well if you call me Mr. Anne.  It is the way of my country, as I dare say you know.’

Mr. Rowley looked blank.

‘But you’re just as much a Viscount as Mr. Powl’s, are you not?’ he said.