Of a different kind was the change which now began to take place towards her on the part of another member of the household.

While she had been intent upon Richard as he stood before the marquis, not Amanda only but another as well had been intent upon her.  Poor creature as Scudamore yet was, he possessed, besides no small generosity of nature, a good deal of surface sympathy, and a ready interest in the shows of humanity.  Hence as he stood regarding now the face of the prisoner and now that of Dorothy, whom he knew for old friends, he could not help noticing that every phase of the prisoner, so to speak, might be read on Dorothy.  He was too shallow to attribute this to anything more than the interest she must feel in the results of the exploit she had performed.  The mere suggestion of what had afforded such wide ground for speculation on the part of Amanda, was to Scudamore rendered impossible by the meeting of two things—­the fact that the only time he had seen them together, Richard was very plainly out of favour, and now the all-important share Dorothy had had in his capture.  But the longer he looked, the more he found himself attracted by the rich changefulness of expression on a countenance usually very still.  He surmised little of the conflict of emotions that sent it to the surface, had to construct no theory to calm the restlessness of intellectual curiosity, discovered no secret feeding of the flame from behind.  Yet the flame itself drew him as the candle draws the moth.  Emotion in the face of a woman was enough to attract Scudamore; the prettier the face, the stronger the attraction, but the source or character of the emotion mattered nothing to him:  he asked no questions any more than the moth, but circled the flame.  In a word, Dorothy had now all at once become to him interesting.

As soon as she found a safe opportunity, Amanda told him of Dorothy’s being found in the turret chamber, a fact she pretended to have heard in confidence from mistress Watson, concealing her own part in it, But as Amanda spoke, Dorothy became to Rowland twice as interesting as ever Amanda had been.  There was a real romance about the girl, he thought.  And then she looked so quiet!  He never thought of defending her or playing the true part of a cousin.  Amanda might think of her as she pleased:  Rowland was content.  Had he cared ever so much more for her judgment than he did, it would have been all the same.  How far Dorothy had been right or wrong in visiting Heywood, he did not even conjecture, not to say consider.  It was enough that she who had been to him like the blank in the centre of the African map, was now a region of marvels and possibilities, vague but not the less interesting, or the less worthy of beholding the interest she had awaked.  As to her loving the roundhead fellow, that would not stand long in the way.