‘Have patience with me, father,’ said lord Charles gently.  ’I am more ashamed than thou art angry.’

’Thou know’st I did but jest, my son.  But in truth an’thou find it not I will send for lord Herbert.  If he find what thou canst not, that will be no disgrace to thee.  But find it we must.’

’Think you not, my lord, it were best set mistress Dorothy on the search?  She hath a wondrous gift of discovery.’

’A good thought, Charles!  I will even do as thou sayest.  But search the castle first, from vane to dungeon, that we may be assured the roundhead hath indeed vanished.’

As he spoke the marquis turned him round, to search the wide gray fields again for the shadowy horse that roamed them tetherless.  But the steed would not come to his call; he grew chilly and asthmatic, tossed to and fro, and began to dread an attack of the gout.

The sun rose higher; the hive of men and women was astir once more; the clatter of the day’s work and the buzz of the day’s talk began, and nothing was in anybody’s mouth but the escape of the prisoner.  His capture and trial were already of the past, forgotten for the time in the nearer astonishment.  Lord Charles went searching, questioning, peering about everywhere, but could find neither prisoner nor the traitorous hole.

Meantime mistress Watson was not a little anxious until she should have revealed what she knew to the marquis, for the prisoner was in her charge when he disappeared.  In the course of the morning lord Charles came to her apartment to question her, but she begged to be excused, because of a certain disclosure she was not at liberty to make to any but his father.  Lord Charles, whom she had known from his boyhood, readily yielded, and mistress Watson, five minutes after he had left his room, followed the marquis to his study, whither it was his custom always to repair before breakfast.  He was looking pale from the trouble of the night, which had resulted in unmistakeable symptoms of the gout, listened to all she had to tell him without comment, looked grave, and told her to fetch mistress Dorothy.  As soon as she was gone, he called Scudamore from the antechamber, and sent him to request lord Charles’s presence.  He came at once, and was there when Dorothy entered.

She was very white and worn, and her eyes were heavily downcast.  Her face wore that expression so much resembling guilt, which indicates the misery the most innocent feel the most under the consciousness of suspicion.  At the sight of lord Charles, she crimsoned:  it was one thing to confess to the marquis, and quite another to do so in the presence of his son.

The marquis sat with one leg on a stool, already in the gradually contracting gripe of his ghoulish enemy.  Before Dorothy could recover from the annoyance of finding lord Charles present, or open her mouth to beg for a more private interview, he addressed her abruptly.

‘Our young rebel friend hath escaped, it seems, mistress Dorothy!’ he said, gently but coldly, looking her full in the eyes, with searching gaze and hard expression.