"Very fine weather," said he.

"Oh, very fine," said Katie.

"A fine moon."

"Oh, very fine."

At this mention of the moon, each thought of those moonbeams which had
streamed in through the narrow windows on those past few nights--nights so
memorable to each; and each thought of them with the same feelings.

Ashby tried to find something new to say. He thought of the position in
which they all were--its danger--their liability to recapture--the
necessity of flight, and yet the difficulty of doing so--things which he
and Dolores had just been considering.

"This," said he, "is a very embarrassing position."

Katie by this understood him to mean the relations which they bore to one
another, and which had become somewhat confused by her affair with Harry.
She thought this was Ashby's way of putting it.

She sighed. She looked at Harry and Talbot. They seemed coming to an
understanding. Harry was certainly making an explanation which seemed
unnecessarily long. And here was Ashby hinting at an explanation with
herself. She had forgotten all her fine speech with which she had come
down. She knew not what to say. She only felt a jealous fear about Harry,
and another fear about an explanation with Ashby.

Ashby meanwhile thought nothing about Katie, but was full of eagerness to
learn what was going on between Dolores and Brooke.

And thus it was certainly an embarrassing situation.

There were three couples involved in this embarrassing situation, and
among them all it is difficult to say which was most embarrassed. It was
bad enough to meet with the old lover, but it was worse to feel that the
eye of the new lover was upon them. Moreover, each new lover felt jealous
of the old one; and the mind of each had thus to be distracted between two
discordant anxieties. In short, it was, as Ashby had well said, a most
embarrassing situation.

Suddenly, in the midst of all this, a figure entered the hall which
attracted all eyes. It was a figure of commanding importance; a man rather
elderly, in the uniform of a general-officer--all ablaze with gold. There
was a universal shock at such an apparition. The first thought of every
one was that the castle had been captured by some new enemy--that this was
the leader, and that they all were prisoners.

But one by one, to Ashby, Harry, Brooke; to Katie, Talbot, and
Dolores--came the recognition of the fact that under this magnificent
exterior lay concealed the person of their co