to look
closely at each door, as he was used to do, to find some sign of Dacre
or his friends. Eleanor! was on his lips to cry as the jailer opened the
door of a distant room and bade him enter.

In the centre, by a table, was standing an old man, dressed in black,
with a white head bent well forward upon his shoulders. It was
Reynolds, no longer dressed like a servant, but disguised in a suit of
broadcloth, such as was worn until recently by the oldest gentlemen. The
old man bent still lower, took Geoffrey's hand and kissed it.

"Thank God!" said he, in a whisper, "dear young master, you are alive,
at all events." Reynolds still used old-fashioned forms of speech.

It was a strange thing to Geoffrey to be still called young. He felt as
if he had seen a century at least--the twentieth. He looked at Reynolds
with a slight but decided feeling of disappointment. He had hoped for
Mrs. Carey.

"Yes, Reynolds, I am alive, and glad to see you," he added, as he saw
the tears in the old man's eyes. "Sit down." Geoffrey pushed a chair
toward him; but the old man would as soon have thought of sitting down
in the presence of the King. "And how is Ripon House?"

"Ripon House, your lordship, is much the same. I think I may succeed in
letting it to one of your lordship's old tenants." Geoffrey looked up,
surprised; then he remembered that by Ripon House Reynolds meant the
lodge. "With your lordship's permission I can get thirty guineas a year
for it," Reynolds added.

"By all means, Reynolds," said Geoffrey. "But, Reynolds, I must have no
'your lordship' any more. That is done forever. I was foolish ever to
have consented to it."

"Yes, your lordship," replied Reynolds, simply. "I knew your lordship
would consent, so I have brought the first quarter's rent in advance."
And the old man laid eight five-dollar gold pieces on the table.
Geoffrey grasped his hand.

"Thank you, Reynolds," said he. The old man was more embarrassed than if
he had kissed him.

"Your lordship--your lordship is--" Reynolds stammered, and Geoffrey
interrupted him.

"None of that, remember;" he lifted a finger pleasantly. "But I asked
you about Ripon House."

"The old castle (it was not half so old as the lodge) is shut up, earl,"
said he. "The American is in his own country."

"Reynolds, do you know what became of the King?"

"No, your lord--Earl Brompton."

"Or who it was that betrayed us? Some one must have carried all the
particulars of the