As soon as he began to feel that eleven o’clock was drawing near, Dr. Bayly proceeded to reconnoitre.  The marquis’s plan, although he could think of none better, was not altogether satisfactory, and it was to his relief that he found nobody in the dining-room.  When he entered the drawing-room, however, there, to his equal annoyance, he saw in the light of one expiring candle the dim figure of a lady; he could not offer her the keys of the wine-cellar!  What was he to do?  What could she be there for?  He drew nearer, and, with a positive pang of relief, discovered that it was Dorothy.  A word was enough between them.  But the good doctor was just a little annoyed that a second should share in the secret of the great ones.

The next room was the antechamber to the marquis’s bedroom:  timorously on tiptoe he stepped through it, fearful of waking the two young gentlemen—­for Scudamore’s place had been easily supplied—­who waited upon his lordship.  Opening the inner door as softly as he could, he crept in, and found the marquis fast asleep.  So slowly, so gently did he wake him, that his lordship insisted he had not slept at all; but when he told him that the time was come—­

‘What time?’ he asked.

‘For meeting the king,’ replied the doctor.

‘What king?’ rejoined the marquis, in a kind of bewildered horror.

The more he came to himself, the more distressed he seemed, and the more unwilling to keep the appointment he had been so eager to make, so that at length even Dr. Bayly was tempted to doubt something evil in the ’design that carried with it such a conflict within the bosom of the actor.’  It soon became evident, however, that it was but the dread of such possible consequences as I have already indicated that thus moved him.

‘Fie, fie!’ he said; ‘I would to God I had let it alone.’

‘My lord,’ said the doctor, ’you know your own heart best.  If there be nothing in your intentions but what is good and justifiable, you need not fear; if otherwise, it is never too late to repent.’

‘Ah, doctor!’ returned the marquis with troubled look, ’I thought I had been sure of one friend, and that you would never have harboured the least suspicion of me.  God knows my heart:  I have no other intention towards his majesty than to make him a glorious man here, and a glorified saint hereafter.’

‘Then, my lord,’ said Dr. Bayly, ’shake off these fears together with the drowsiness that begat them.  Honi soit qui mal y pense.’

‘Oh, but I am not of that order!’ said the marquis; ’but I thank God I wear that motto about my heart, to as much purpose as they who wear it about their arms.’

‘He then,’ reports the doctor, ’began to be a little pleasant, and took a pipe of tobacco, and a little glass full of aqua mirabilis, and said, “Come now, let us go in the name of God,” crossing himself.’

My love for the marquis has led me to recount this curious story with greater minuteness than is necessary to the understanding of Dorothy’s part in what follows, but the worthy doctor’s account is so graphic that even for its own sake, had it been fitting, I would gladly have copied it word for word from the Certamen Religiosum.