 was that of one of your heroic
women of history refusing to surrender a fortress.
    Everard's wrath was ever of a complexion that could suffer postponements
without his having to fear an abatement of it. He had no business to transact in
London, and he had much at the Castle, so he yielded himself up to his new
sensations, which are not commonly the portion of gentlemen of his years. He
anticipated that Nevil would at least come down to the funeral, but there was no
appearance of him, nor a word to excuse his absence. Cecil was his only
supporter. They walked together between the double ranks of bare polls of the
tenantry and peasantry, resembling in a fashion old Froissart engravings the
earl used to dote on in his boyhood, representing bodies of manacled citizens,
whose humbled heads looked like nuts to be cracked, outside the gates of
captured French towns, awaiting the disposition of their conqueror, with his
banner above him and prancing knights around. That was a glory of the past. He
had no successor. The thought was chilling; the solitariness of childlessness to
an aged man, chief of a most ancient and martial House, and proud of his blood,
gave him the statue's outlook on a desert, and made him feel that he was no more
than a whirl of the dust, settling to the dust.
    He listened to the parson curiously and consentingly. We are ashes. Ten
centuries had come to an end in him to prove the formula correct. The chronicle
of the House would state that the last Earl of Romfrey left no heir.
    Cecil was a fine figure walking beside him. Measured by feet, he might be a
worthy holder of great lands. But so heartily did the earl despise this nephew
that he never thought of trying strength with the fellow, and hardly cared to
know what his value was, beyond his immediate uses as an instrument to strike
with. Beauchamp of Romfrey had been his dream, not Baskelett: and it increased
his disgust of Beauchamp that Baskelett should step forward as the man. No doubt
Cecil would hunt the county famously: he would preserve game with the sleepless
eye of a General of the Jesuits. These things were to be considered.
    Two days after the funeral Lord Romfrey proceeded to London. He was met at
the station by Rosamund, and informed that his house was not yet vacated by the
French family.
    »And where have you arranged for me to go, ma'am?« he asked her
complacently.
    She named an hotel where she had taken rooms for him.
    He nodded, and was
