‘I shall never learn my way about,’ said Dorothy.  ’If it were only the staircases, they are more than my memory will hold.’

Lady Margaret gave a merry little laugh.

‘Harry set himself to count them the other day,’ she said.  ’I do not remember how many he made out altogether, but I know he said there were at least thirty stone ones.’

Dorothy’s answer was an exclamation.

But she was not in the mood to dwell upon the mere arithmetic of vastness.  Invaded by the vision of the mighty structure, its aspect rendered yet more imposing by the time which now suited with it, she forgot lady Margaret’s presence, and stood still to gaze.

The twilight had deepened half-way into night.  There was no moon, and in the dusk the huge masses of building rose full of mystery and awe.  Above the rest, the great towers on all sides seemed by indwelling might to soar into the regions of air.  The pile stood there, the epitome of the story of an ancient race, the precipitate from its vanished life—­a hard core that had gathered in the vaporous mass of history—­the all of solid that remained to witness of the past.

She came again to herself with a start.  Lady Margaret had stood quietly waiting for her mood to change.  Dorothy apologised, but her mistress only smiled and said,

’I am in no haste, child.  I like to see another impressed as I was when first I stood just where you stand now.  Come, then, I will show you something different.’

She led the way along the southern side of the court until they came to the end of the chapel, opposite which an archway pierced the line of building, and revealed the mighty bulk of the citadel, the only portion of the castle, except the kitchen-tower, continuing impregnable to enlarged means of assault:  gunpowder itself, as yet far from perfect in composition and make, and conditioned by clumsy, uncertain, and ill-adjustable artillery, was nearly powerless against walls more than ten feet in thickness.

I have already mentioned that one peculiarity of Raglan was a distinct moat surrounding its keep.  Immediately from the outer end of the archway, a Gothic bridge of stone led across this thirty-foot moat to a narrow walk which encompassed the tower.  The walk was itself encompassed and divided from the moat by a wall with six turrets at equal distances, surmounted by battlements.  At one time the sole entrance to the tower had been by a drawbridge dropping across the walk to the end of the stone bridge, from an arched door in the wall, whose threshold was some ten or twelve feet from the ground; but another entrance had since been made on the level of the walk, and by it the two ladies now entered.  Passing the foot of a great stone staircase, they came to the door of what had, before the opening of the lower entrance, been a vaulted cellar, probably at one time a dungeon, at a later period a place of storage, but now put to a very different use, and wearing a stranger aspect than it could ever have borne at any past period of its story—­a look indeed of mystery inexplicable.