’So much the better for thee.  But I am no boor, fair damsel.  Then shalt thou mount and ride him forth, and Marquis thy mastiff shall see thee go from the yard.  Then will I mount the keep, and from that point of vantage look down upon the two courts, while Caspar goes to stand by thy dog.  Thou shalt ride slowly along for a minute or two, until these preparations shall have been made; then shalt thou blow thy whistle, and set off at a gallop to round the castle, still ever and anon blowing thy whistle; by which means, if I should fail to see thy Marquis leave the castle, thou mayest perchance discover at least from which side of the castle he comes to thee.’

Dorothy sprang to her feet.

‘I am ready, my lord,’ she said.

‘And so am I, my maiden,’ returned lord Herbert, rising.  ’Wilt go to the top of the keep, wife, and grant me the light of eyes in aid of the moonshine?  I will come thither presently.’

’Thou shalt find me there, Ned, I promise thee.  Mother Mary speed thy quest?’

CHAPTER XXXVI.

The discovery.

All was done as had been arranged.  Lord Herbert saddled Dick, not unaided of Dorothy, lifted her to his back, and led her to the gate, in full vision of Marquis, who went wild at the sight, and threatened to pull down kennel and all in his endeavours to follow them.  Lord Herbert himself opened the yard gate, for the horses had already been suppered, and the men were in bed.  He then walked by her side down to the brick gate.  A moment there, and she was free and alone, with the wide green fields and the yellow moonlight all about her.

She had some difficulty in making Dick go slowly—­quietly she could not—­for the first minute or two, as lord Herbert had directed.  He had had but little exercise of late, and moved as if his four legs felt like wings.  Dorothy had ridden him very little since she came to the castle, but being very handy, lord Charles had used him, and one of the grooms had always taken him to ride messages.  He had notwithstanding had but little of the pleasure of speed for a long time, and when Dorothy at length gave him the rein, he flew as if every member of his body from tail to ears and eyelids had been an engine of propulsion.  But Dorothy had more wings than Dick.  Her whole being was full of wings.  It was a small thing that she had not had a right gallop since she left Wyfern; the strength she had been putting forth to bear the Atlas burden that night lifted from her soul, was now left free to upbear her, and she seemed in spirit to soar aloft into the regions of aether.  With her horse under her, the moon over her, “the wind of their own speed” around them, and her heart beating with a joy such as she had never known, she could hardly help doubting sometimes for a moment whether she was not out in one of those delightful dreams of liberty and motion which had so frequently