The doctors of divinity and of medicine differed concerning the cause of his sad condition.  The doctor of medicine said it arose entirely from a check in the circulation of the animal spirits; the doctor of divinity thought, but did not say, only hinted, that it came of a troubled conscience, and that he would have been well long ago but for certain sins, known only to himself, that bore heavy upon his life.  This gave the marquis a good ground of argument for confession, the weight of which argument was by the divine felt and acknowledged.  But both doctors were right, and both were wrong.  Could his health have been at once restored, a great reaction would have ensued, his interest in life would have reawaked, and most probably he would have become indifferent to that which now oppressed him; but on the slightest weariness or disappointment, the same overpowering sense of desolation would have returned, and indeed at times amidst the warmest glow of health and keenest consciousness of pleasure.  On the other hand, if by any argument addressed to his moral or religious nature his mind could have been a little eased, his physical nature would most likely have at once responded in improvement; but he had no individual actions of such heavy guilt as the divine presumed to repent of, nor could any amount or degree of sorrow for the past have sufficed to restore him to peace and health.  It was a poet of the time who wrote,

   ’The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
    Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made:’ 

sickness had done the same thing as time with Rowland, and he saw the misery of his hovel.  The cure was a deeper and harder matter than Dr. Bayly yet understood, or than probably Rowland himself would for years attain to, while yet the least glimmer of its approach would be enough to initiate physical recovery.

CHAPTER XLVII.

The poet-physician.

Time passed, but with little change in the condition of the patient.  Winter began to draw on, and both doctors feared a more rapid decline.

Early in the month of November, Dorothy received a letter from Mr. Herbert, informing her that her cousin, Henry Vaughan, one of his late twin pupils, would, on his way from Oxford, be passing near Raglan, and that he had desired him to call upon her.  Willing enough to see her relative, she thought little more of the matter, until at length the day was at hand, when she found herself looking for his arrival with some curiosity as to what sort of person he might prove of whom she had heard so often from his master.

When at length he was ushered into lady Glamorgan’s parlour, where her mistress had desired her to receive him, both her ladyship and Dorothy were at once prejudiced in his favour.  They saw a rather tall young man of five or six and twenty, with a small head, a clear grey eye, and a sober yet changeful countenance.  His carriage was dignified yet graceful—­self-restraint and no other was evident therein; a certain sadness brooded like a thin mist above his eyes, but his smile now and then broke out like the sun through a grey cloud.  Dorothy did not know that he was just getting over the end of a love-story, or that he had a book of verses just printed, and had already begun to repent it.