‘Wherefore, cousin?’

‘That I might spare thee something of thy labour.’

’That were no kindness.  I am not like thee; I find labour a thing to be courted rather than spared; I am not overwrought.’

Scudamore gazed into her grey eyes, but found there nothing to contradict, nothing to supplement the indifference of her words.  There was no lurking sparkle of humour, no acknowledgment of kindness.  There was a something, but he could not understand it, for his poor shapeless soul might not read the cosmic mystery embodied in their depths.  He stammered—­who had never known himself stammer before, broke the joints of an ill-fitted answer, swept the tiles with the long feather in his hat, and found himself parted from her, with the feeling that he had not of himself left her, but had been borne away by some subtle force emanating from her.

Lord Herbert had again left the castle.  More soldiers and more must still be raised for the king.  Now he would be paying his majesty a visit at Oxford, and inspecting the life-guards he had provided him, now back in South Wales, enlisting men, and straining every power in him to keep the district of which his father was governor in good affection and loyal behaviour.

Winter drew nigh, and stayed somewhat the rushx of events, clogged the wheels of life as they ran towards death, brought a little sleep to the world and coolness to men’s hearts—­led in another Christmas, and looked on for a while.

Nor did the many troubles heaped on England, the drained purses, the swollen hearts, the anxious minds, the bereaved houses, the ruptures, the sorrows, and the hatreds, yet reach to dull in any large measure the merriment of the season at Raglan.  Customs are like carpets, for ever wearing out whether we mark it or no, but Lord Worcester’s patriarchal prejudices, cleaving to the old and looking askance on the new, caused them to last longer in Raglan than almost anywhere else:  the old were the things of his fathers which he had loved from his childhood; the new were the things of his children which he had not proven.

What a fire that was that blazed on the hall-hearth under the great chimney, which, dividing in two, embraced a fine window, then again becoming one, sent the hot blast rushing out far into the waste of wintry air!  No one could go within yards of it for the fierce heat of the blazing logs, now and then augmented by huge lumps of coal.  And when, on the evenings of special merry-making, the candles were lit, the musicians were playing, and a country dance was filling the length of the great floor, in which the whole household, from the marquis himself, if his gout permitted, to the grooms and kitchen-maids, would take part, a finer outburst of homely splendour, in which was more colour than gilding, more richness than shine, was not to be seen in all the island.

On such an occasion Rowland had more than once attempted nearer approach to Dorothy, but had gained nothing.  She neither repelled nor encouraged him, but smiled at his better jokes, looked grave at his silly ones, and altogether treated him like a boy, young—­or old—­enough to be troublesome if encouraged.  He grew desperate, and so one night summoned up courage as they stood together waiting for the next dance.