CHAPTER II THE WANDERER RETURNS
The hour was growing late, and the family were dining in the great hall. Rupert Ravenspur sat at the head of the table, with Gordon's wife opposite him. The lovers sat smiling and happy side by side. Across the table Marion beamed gently upon the company. Nothing ever seemed to eclipse her quiet gaiety; she was the life and soul of the party. There was something angelic about the girl as she sat there clad in soft diaphanous white.
Lamps gleamed on the fair damask, on the feathery daintiness of flowers, and on the lush purple and gold and russet of grapes and peaches. From the walls long lines of bygone Ravenspurs looked down—fair women in hoops and farthingale, men in armor. There was a flash of color from the painted roof.
Presently the soft-footed servants would quit the castle for the night, for under the new order of things nobody slept in the castle excepting the family. Also, it was the solemn duty of each servitor to taste every dish as it came to table. A strange precaution, but necessary in the circumstances.
For the moment the haunting terror was forgotten. Wines red and white gleamed and sparkled in crystal glasses. Rupert Ravenspur's worn, white face relaxed. They were a doomed race and they knew it; yet laughter was there, a little saddened, but eyes brightened as they looked from one to another.
By and by the servants began to withdraw. The cloth was drawn in the old-fashioned way, a long row of decanters stood before the head of the house and was reflected in the shining, brown pool of mahogany. Big log fires danced and glowed from the deep ingle nooks; from outside came the sense of the silence.
An aged butler stood before Ravenspur with a key on a salver.
"I fancy that is all, sir," he said.
Ravenspur rose and made his way along the corridor to the outer doorway. Here he counted the whole of the domestic staff, carefully passed the drawbridge and then the portcullis was raised. Ravenspur Castle and its inhabitants were cut off from the outer world. Nobody could molest them till morning.