Nothing more was said on the matter, and the marquis seemed to have forgotten it.  Late at night, at their next halting-place, the messenger rejoined them, having met a drawer, mounted on a sorry horse, riding after them with the bag, but little prospect of overtaking them before they reached London.

‘I thought our hostess seemed an honest woman!’ said lady Anne.

’It is a poor town, indeed, lord Charles, but you see it is an honest one nevertheless!’ said Dr. Bayly.

‘It may be the town never saw so much money before,’ said the marquis, ‘and knew not what to make of it.’

‘Your lordship is severe,’ said the doctor.

‘Only with my tongue, good doctor, only with my tongue,’ said the marquis, laughing.

When they reached London, lord Worcester found himself, to his surprise, in custody of the Black Rod, who, as now for some three years Worcester House in the Strand had been used for a state-paper office, conducted him to a house in Covent Garden, where he lodged him in tolerable comfort and mild imprisonment.  Parliament was still jealous of Glamorgan and his Irish doings—­as indeed well they might be.

But his confinement was by no means so great a trial to him as his indignant friends supposed; for, long willing to depart, he had at length grown a little tired of life, feeling more and more the oppression of growing years, of gout varied with asthma, and, worst of all to the once active man, of his still increasing corpulence, which last indeed, by his own confession, he found it hard to endure with patience.  The journey had been too much for him, and he began to lead the life of an invalid.

There being no sufficient accommodation in the house for his family, they were forced to content themselves with lodging as near him as they could, and in these circumstances Dorothy, notwithstanding lady Glamorgan’s entreaties, would have returned home.  But the marquis was very unwilling she should leave him, and for his sake she concluded to remain.

‘I am not long for this world, Dorothy,’ he said.  ’Stay with me and see the last of the old man.  The wind of death has got inside my tent, and will soon blow it out of sight.’

Lady Glamorgan’s intention from the first had been to go to Ireland to her husband as soon as she could get leave.  This however she did not obtain until the first of October—­five weeks after her arrival in London.  She would gladly have carried Dorothy with her, but she would not leave the marquis, who was now failing visibly.  As her ladyship’s pass included thirty of her servants, Dorothy felt at ease about her personal comforts, and her husband would soon supply all else.

The ladies Elizabeth and Mary were in the same house with their father; lady Anne and lord Charles were in the house of a relative at no great distance, and visited him every day.  Sir Toby Mathews also, and Dr. Bayly, had found shelter in the neighbourhood, so that his lordship never lacked company.  But he was going to have other company soon.