After the usual greetings, and when Dorothy had heard the last news of Mr. Herbert,—­for Mr. Vaughan had made several journeys of late between Brecknock and Oxford, taking Llangattock Rectory in his way, and could tell her much she did not know concerning her friend,—­lady Glamorgan, who was not sorry to see her interested in a young man whose royalist predilections were plain and strong, proposed that Dorothy should take him over the castle.

She led him first to the top of the tower, show him the reservoir and the prospect; but there they fell into such a talk as revealed to Dorothy that here was a man who was her master in everything towards which, especially since her mother’s death and her following troubles, she had most aspired, and a great hope arose in her heart for her cousin Scudamore.  For in this talk it had come out that Mr. Vaughan had studied medicine, and was now on his way to settle for practice at Brecknock.  As soon as Dorothy learned this, she entreated her cousin Vaughan to go and visit her cousin Scudamore.  He consented, and Dorothy, scarcely allowing him to pause even under the admirable roof of the great hall as they passed through, led him straight to the turret-chamber, where the sick man was.

They found him sitting by the fire, folded in blankets, listless and sad.

When Dorothy had told him whom she had brought to see him, she would have left them, but Rowland turned on her such beseeching eyes, that she remained, by no means unwillingly, and seated herself to hear what this wonderful young phyisican would say.

’It is very irksome to be thus prisoned in your chamber, sir Rowland,’ he said.

‘No,’ answered Scudamore, ‘or yes:  I care not.’

‘Have you no books about you?’ asked Mr. Vaughan, glancing round the room.

‘Books!’ repeated Scudamore, with a wan contemptuous smile.

‘You do not then love books?’

’Wherefore should I love books?  What can books do for me?  I love nothing.  I long only to die.’

‘And go——?’ suggested, rather than asked, Mr. Vaughan.

’I care not whither—­anywhere away from here—­if indeed I go anywhere.  But I care not.’

’That is hardly what you mean, sir Rowland, I think.  Will you allow me to interpret you?  Have you not the notion that if you were hence you would leave behind you a certain troublesome attendant who is scarce worth his wages?’

Scudamore looked at him but did not reply; and Mr. Vaughan went on.

’I know well what aileth you, for I am myself but now recovering from a similar sickness, brought upon me by the haunting of the same evil one who torments you.’

‘You think, then, that I am possessed?’ said Rowland, with a faint smile and a glance at Dorothy.

’That verily thou art, and grievously tormented.  Shall I tell thee who hath possessed thee?—­for the demon hath a name that is known amongst men, though it frighteneth few, and draweth many, alas!  His name is Self, and he is the shadow of thy own self.  First he made thee love him, which was evil, and now he hath made thee hate him, which is evil also.  But if he be cast out and never more enter into thy heart, but remain as a servant in thy hall, then wilt thou recover from this sickness, and be whole and sound, and shall find the varlet serviceable.’