And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot and lighted by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table finishing a bowl of punch.  One of these was stout, elderly, and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling utterance.  This was my Lord Windermoor.  In his companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave, demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair.  Her glance but lighted on him, and she flushed, for in that second she made sure that she had twice betrayed herself—­betrayed by the involuntary flash of her black eyes her secret impatience to behold this new companion, and, what was far worse, betrayed her disappointment in the realisation of her dreams.  He, meanwhile, as if unconscious, continued to regard her with unmoved decorum.

‘O, a man of wood,’ thought Nance.

‘What—­what?’ said his lordship.  ‘Who is this?’

‘If you please, my lord, I am Holdaway’s niece,’ replied Nance, with a curtsey.

‘Should have been here himself,’ observed his lordship.  ’Well, you tell Holdaway that I’m aground, not a stiver—­not a stiver.  I’m running from the beagles—­going abroad, tell Holdaway.  And he need look for no more wages:  glad of ’em myself, if I could get ’em.  He can live in the castle if he likes, or go to the devil.  O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I recommend him to take him in—­a friend of mine—­and Mr. Archer will pay, as I wrote.  And I regard that in the light of a precious good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off against the wages.’

‘But O, my lord!’ cried Nance, ’we live upon the wages, and what are we to do without?’

‘What am I to do?—­what am I to do?’ replied Lord Windermoor with some exasperation.  ’I have no wages.  And there is Mr. Archer.  And if Holdaway doesn’t like it, he can go to the devil, and you with him!—­and you with him!’

‘And yet, my lord,’ said Mr. Archer, ’these good people will have as keen a sense of loss as you or I; keener, perhaps, since they have done nothing to deserve it.’

‘Deserve it?’ cried the peer.  ’What?  What?  If a rascally highwayman comes up to me with a confounded pistol, do you say that I’ve deserved it?  How often am I to tell you, sir, that I was cheated—­that I was cheated?’

‘You are happy in the belief,’ returned Mr. Archer gravely.

‘Archer, you would be the death of me!’ exclaimed his lordship.  ’You know you’re drunk; you know it, sir; and yet you can’t get up a spark of animation.’

‘I have drunk fair, my lord,’ replied the younger man; ’but I own I am conscious of no exhilaration.’

‘If you had as black a look-out as me, sir,’ cried the peer, ’you would be very glad of a little innocent exhilaration, let me tell you.  I am glad of it—­glad of it, and I only wish I was drunker.  For let me tell you it’s a cruel hard thing upon a man of my time of life and my position, to be brought down to beggary because the world is full of thieves and rascals—­thieves and rascals.  What?  For all I know, you may be a thief and a rascal yourself; and I would fight you for a pinch of snuff—­a pinch of snuff,’ exclaimed his lordship.