In this place he kept his books of alchemy and magic, and some of his stranger instruments.  It would have been hard for himself even to say what he did or did not believe of such things.  In certain moods, especially when under the influence of some fact he had just discovered without being able to account for it, he was ready to believe everything; in others, especially when he had just succeeded, right or wrong, in explaining anything to his own satisfaction, he doubted them all considerably.  His imagination leaned lovingly towards them; his intellect required proofs which he had not yet found.

Hither then he had retired—­to work out the sequences of the horoscopes he had that night constructed.  He was far less doubtful of astrology than of magic.  It would have been difficult, I suspect, to find at that time a man who did not more or less believe in the former, and the influence of his mechanical pursuits upon lord Herbert’s mind had not in any way interfered with his capacity for such belief.  In the present case, however, he trusted for success rather to his knowledge of human nature than to his questioning of the stars.

Before this, the second day, was over, it was everywhere whispered that he was occupied in discovering the hidden way by which entrance and exit had been found through the defences of the castle; and the next day it was known by everybody that he had been successful—­as who could doubt he must, with such powers at his command?

For a time curiosity got the better of fear, and there was not a soul in the place, except one bedridden old woman, who did not that day accept lord Herbert’s general invitation, and pass over the Gothic bridge to see the opening from the opposite side of the moat.  To seal the conviction that the discovery had indeed been made, permission was given to any one who chose to apply to it the test of his own person, but of this only Shafto the groom availed himself.  It was enough, however:  he disappeared, and while the group which saw him enter the opening was yet anxiously waiting his return by the way he had gone, having re-entered by the western gate he came upon them from behind, to the no small consternation of those of weaker nerves, and so settled the matter for ever.

As soon as curiosity was satisfied, lord Herbert gave orders which, in the course of a few days, rendered the drain as impassable to manor dog as the walls of the keep itself.

In the middle of the previous night, Marquis had returned, and announced himself by scratching and whining for admittance at the door of Dorothy’s room.  She let him in, but not until the morning discovered that he had a handkerchief tied round his neck, and in it a letter addressed to herself.  Curious, perhaps something more than curious, to open it, she yet carried it straight to lord Herbert.

’Canst not break the seal, Dorothy, that thou bringest it to me?  I will not read it first, lest thou repent,’ said his lordship.