He held out his hand to Dorothy, and bade her welcome to Raglan.

The marquis was a man of noble countenance, of the type we are ready to imagine peculiar to the great men of the time of queen Elizabeth.  To this his unwieldy person did not correspond, although his movements were still far from being despoiled of that charm which naturally belonged to all that was his.  Nor did his presence owe anything to his dress, which was of that long-haired coarse woollen stuff they called frieze, worn, probably, by not another nobleman in the country, and regarded as fitter for a yeoman.  His eyes, though he was yet but sixty-five or so, were already hazy, and his voice was husky and a little broken—­results of the constantly poor health and frequent suffering he had had for many years; but he carried it all ’with’—­to quote the prince of courtesy, sir Philip Sydney—­’with a right old man’s grace, that will seem livelier than his age will afford him.’

The moment he entered, the sewer in the antechamber at the other end of the room had given a signal to one waiting at the head of the stair leading down to the hall, and his lordship was hardly seated, ere—­although the kitchen was at the corner of the pitched court diagonally opposite—­he bore the first dish into the room, followed by his assistants, laden each with another.

Lady Margaret made Dorothy sit down by her.  A place on her other side was vacant.

‘Where is this truant husband of thine, my lady?’ asked the marquis, as soon as Dr. Bayly had said grace.  ’Know you whether he eats at all, or when, or where?  It is now three days since he has filled his place at thy side, yet is he in the castle.  Thou knowest, my lady, I deal not with him, who is so soon to sit in this chair, as with another, but I like it not.  Know you what occupies him to day?’

‘I do not, my lord,’ answered lady Margaret.  ’I have had but one glimpse of him since the morning, and if he looks now as he looked then, I fear your lordship would be minded rather to drive him from your table than welcome him to a seat beside you.’

As she spoke, lady Margaret caught a glimpse of a peculiar expression on Scudamore’s face, where he stood behind his master’s chair.

‘Your page, my lord,’ she said, ’seems to know something of him:  if it pleased you to put him to the question—­’

‘Hey, Scudamore!’ said the marquis without turning his head; ’what have you seen of my lord Herbert?’

‘As much as could be seen of him, my lord,’ answered Scudamore.  ’He was new from the powder-mill, and his face and hands were as he had been blown three times up the hall chimney.’

’I would thou didst pay more heed to what is fitting, thou monkey, and knewest either place or time for thy foolish jests!  It will be long ere thou soil one of thy white fingers for king or country,’ said the marquis, neither angrily nor merrily.  ’Get another flask of claret,’ he added, ‘and keep thy wit for thy mates, boy.’