I.

Two weeks later Dartmouth had followed Weir Penrhyn to Wales. He had

written to her father at once, and Sir Iltyd had informed him in reply

that although aware of his rank and private fortune, through Lady

Langdon's intimation, and although possessing a high regard and esteem

for his father, still it was impossible for him to give any definite

answer until he had known him personally, and he therefore invited

him to come as soon as it pleased him and pay Rhyd-Alwyn a visit. Weir

accordingly, and much to Lady Langdon's disgust, had returned to Wales

at once; Dartmouth insisted upon an early marriage, and the longer

they delayed obtaining Sir Iltyd's consent the longer must the wedding

be postponed.

Dartmouth arrived late in the afternoon at Rhyd-Alwyn--a great pile of

gray towers of the Norman era and half in ruins. He did not meet Sir

Iltyd until a few minutes before dinner was announced, but he saw Weir

for a moment before he went up-stairs to dress for dinner. His room

was in one of the towers, and as he entered it he had the pleasurable

feeling, which Weir so often induced, of stepping back into a dead and

gone century. It looked as if unnumbered generations of Penrhyns had

slept there since the hand of the furnisher had touched it. The hard,

polished, ascetic-looking floor was black with age; the tapestry on

the walls conveyed but a suggestion of what its pattern and color had

been; a huge four-posted bed heavily shrouded with curtains stood

in the centre of the room, and there were a number of heavy, carved

pieces of furniture whose use no modern Penrhyn would pretend to

explain. The vaulted ceiling was panelled, and the windows were

narrow and long and high. Sufficient light found its way through them,

however, to dress by, and there was a bright log-fire in the open

fire-place.

"Jones," said Dartmouth, after he had admiringly examined the details

of the room and was getting into his clothes, "just throw those

curtains up over the roof of that bed. I like the antique, but I don't

care to be smothered. Give me my necktie, and look out for the bed

before you forget it."

Jones looked doubtfully up at the canopy. "That is pretty 'igh, sir,"

he said. "Hif I can find a step-ladder--"

"A step-ladder in a Welsh castle! The ante-deluge Penrhyns would turn

in their graves, or to be correct, in their family vaults. No true

Welsh noble is guilty of departing from the creed of his ancestors to

the tune of domestic comforts. It is fortunate a man does not have

to marry his wife's castle as well as herself. Get up on to that

cabinet--it is twice as high as yourself--and you can manage the

curtains quite easily."

Jones with some difficulty succeeded in moving the tall piece of

furniture designated to the bed-side; then with the help of a chair he

climbed to the top of it. He caught one of the tender-looking curtains

carefully between his hands, and was about to throw it over the

canopy, shutting his eyes and his mouth to exclude the possible dust,

when the cabinet beneath him suddenly groaned, swayed, and the next

moment there was a heavy crash, and he was groaning in the midst of

a dozen antique fragments. Harold sprang forward in some alarm and

picked him up. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I am afraid you are hurt; and

what a row I have made! I might have known better than to tell you to

trust your weight on that old thing."

Jones shook himself slowly, extended his arms and legs, announced

himself unhurt, and Dartmouth gave his attention to the cabinet. "I

shall have to initiate myself in my prospective father-in-law's good

graces by announcing myself a spoiler of his household goods," he

exclaimed, ruefully. "And a handsome old thing like that, too; it is

a shame!" He thrust his hands into his pockets and continued looking

down at the ruins with a quizzical smile on his face.

"By every law of romance and of precedent," he thought, "I ought to

find in that cabinet the traditional packet of old letters which would

throw a flood of light upon some dark and tragic mystery. Else why did

I tell Jones to stand upon that particular cabinet instead of that one

over there, which looks as if iron hammers could not break it; and why

did Jones blindly obey me? That it should be meaningless chance is

too flat to be countenanced. I should find the long lost Mss. of that

rhymer who took possession of me that night, and so save myself the

discomfort of being turned into a Temple of Fame a second time. Truly

there has been an element of the unusual throughout this whole affair

with Weir. Once or twice I have felt as if about to sail out of the

calm, prosaic waters of this every-day nineteenth-century life,

and embark upon the phosphorescent sea of our sensational

novelists--psychological, so-called. It is rather soon for the

cabinet to break, however. It suggests an anti-climax, which would be

inartistic. But such material was never intended to be thrown away by

a hero of romance."

He kicked about among the fragments of the ruined cabinet, but was

rewarded by no hollow ring. It was a most undutifully matter-of-fact

and prosaic piece of furniture in its interior, however much it may

have pleased the æsthetic sense outwardly. He gave it up after a time,

and finished dressing. "Nothing in that but firewood," he announced to

Jones, who had been watching his researches with some surprise. "Pile

it up in a corner and leave it there until I have made my peace with

Sir Iltyd."

He gave his necktie a final touch, then went down to the drawing-room,

where he found the candles lit and Sir Iltyd standing on the hearth-rug

beside his daughter. The old gentleman came forward at once and

greeted him with stately, old-fashioned courtesy, his stern, somewhat

sad features relaxing at once under Dartmouth's rare charm of manner.

He was a fine-looking man, tall and slim like his daughter, but very

fair. His head, well developed, but by no means massive, and scantily

covered with gray hair, was carried with the pride which was the bone

and fibre of his nature. Pride, in fact, albeit a gentle, chastened

sort of pride, was written all over him, from the haughty curve of his

eyebrow to the conscious wave of his small, delicate hand--pride, and

love for his daughter, for he followed her every movement with the

adoring eyes of a man for the one solace of a sad and lonely old age.

"It is so awfully good of you to let me come up here so soon,"

exclaimed Dartmouth. "But what do you suppose I have done to prove my

gratitude?"

"Made the castle your own, I hope."

"I have. I proceeded at once to make myself at home by smashing up

the furniture. One of your handsomest cabinets is now in ruins upon my

bedroom floor."

Sir Iltyd looked at him with a somewhat puzzled glance. He had lived

in seclusion for nearly thirty years, and was unaccustomed to the

facetiousness of the modern youth. "Has anything happened?" he

demanded anxiously.

Dartmouth smiled, but gave an account of the disaster in unadorned

English, and received forgiveness at once. Had he confessed to having

chopped his entire tower to pieces, Sir Iltyd would have listened

without a tightening of the lips, and with the air of a man about to

invite his guest to make a bonfire of the castle if so it pleased him.

As for Weir, her late education made her appreciate the humor of the

situation, and she smiled sympathetically at Harold over her father's

shoulder.

They went into dinner a few moments later, and Sir Iltyd talked a

good deal. Although a man of somewhat narrow limitations and one-sided

views, as was but natural, taking into consideration the fact that his

mental horizon had not been widened out by contact with his

fellow-men for twenty-five years, he was, for a recluse, surprisingly

well-informed upon the topics of the day. Dartmouth could not forbear

making some allusion to the apparent paradox, and his host smiled and

told him that as history had been his favorite study all his life, he

could hardly be so inconsistent as to ignore the work which his more

active contemporaries were making for the future chronicler. He

then drew from Dartmouth a detailed account of that restless young

gentleman's political experience in Russia, and afterward questioned

him somewhat minutely about the American form of government. He seemed

to be pleased with the felicity of expression and the well-stored mind

of his would-be son-in-law, and lingered at the table longer than was

his habit. There were no formalities at Rhyd-Alwyn. Weir remained

with them, and when her father finally rose and went over to the

hearth-rug, as if loth to leave the society of the young people, she

went and stood beside him. He laid his arm across her shoulders, then

turned to Dartmouth with a sigh. "You would take her from me," he

said, sadly, "do you know that you will leave me to a very lonely

life?"

"Oh, you will see enough of us," replied Harold, promptly. "We shall

be back and forth all the time. And Crumford Hall, I can assure you,

is not a bad place to come to for the shooting."

Sir Iltyd shook his head: "I could not live out of Wales," he said;

"and I have not slept under another roof for a quarter of a century.

But it is good of you to say you would not mind coming once in a while

to this lonely old place, and it would make the separation easier to

bear."

He left them shortly after, and as he took Harold's hand in

good-night, he retained it a moment with an approving smile, then

passed a characteristic Welsh criticism: "It is a small hand," he

said, "and a very well-shaped hand; and your feet, too. I am willing

to acknowledge to you that I am weak enough to have a horror of large

hands and feet. Good-night. I have to thank you for a very pleasant

evening."