All the time that the marquis was drawing his story from Tom, they stood trembling, in great bewilderment yet very sensible misery, bruised, drenched, and horribly frightened, more even at what might be than by what had been.  There was only one question, but that was hard to answer:  what were they to do next?  Amanda could contribute nothing towards its solution, for tears and reproaches resolve no enigmas.  There were many ways of issue, whereof Rowland knew several; but their watery trail, if soon enough followed, would be their ruin as certainly as Hop-o’-my-Thumb’s pebbles were safety to himself and his brothers.  He stood therefore the very bond slave of perplexity, ’and, like a neutral to his will and matter, did nothing.’

Presently they heard the approaching step of the marquis, which every one in the castle knew.  It stopped within a few feet of them, and through the thick door they could hear his short asthmatic breathing.

They kept as still as their trembling, and the mad beating of their hearts, would permit.  Amanda was nearly out of her senses, and thought her heart was beating against the door, and not against her own ribs.  But the marquis never thought of the chapel, having at once concluded that they had fled through the open hall.  Had he not, however, been so weary and sad and listless, he would probably have found them, for he would at least have crossed the hall to look into the next court, and, the moon now shining brightly, the absence of all track on the floor where the traces of the brief inundation ceased, would have surely indicated the direction in which they had sought refuge.

The acme of terror happily endured but a moment.  The sound of his departing footsteps took the ghoul from their hearts; they began to breathe, and to hope that the danger was gone.  But they waited long ere at last they ventured, like wild animals overtaken by the daylight, to creep out of their shelter and steal back like shadows—­but separately, Amanda first, and Scudamore some slow minutes after—­to their different quarters.  The tracks they could not help leaving in-doors were dried up before the morning.

Rowland had greater reason to fear discovery than any one else in the castle, save one, would in like circumstances have had, and that one was his bedfellow in the ante-chamber to his master’s bedroom.  Through this room his lordship had to pass to reach his own; but so far was he from suspecting Rowland, or indeed any gentleman of his retinue, that he never glanced in the direction of his bed, and so could not discover that he was absent from it.  Had Rowland but caught a glimpse of his own figure as he sneaked into that room five minutes after the marquis had passed through it, believing his master was still in his study, where he had left his candles burning, he could hardly for some time have had his usual success in regarding himself as a fine gentleman.

Amanda Serafina did not show herself for several days.  A bad cold in her head luckily afforded sufficient pretext for the concealment of a bad bruise upon her cheek.  Other bruises she had also, but they, although more severe, were of less consequence.