"Come, Steenie, we were waiting for you; ha! ha!" cried Morice Conyers, slapping Sir Stephen Berrington heartily on the back.
"Dice and cards had lost their savour without the salt of your company; as for the punch bowl, it was awaiting its master."
Sir Stephen, surrounded at once by a merry throng of youths, laughed gaily. He was steady now on his legs, and there were no ghosts at Langton Hall—or he forgot them amidst boon comrades.
But Michael, standing in the background, remembered the man whose life had rotted for years in a dungeon, and wondered very greatly how Morice Conyers could touch the hand that had sent his father to a living death.
But Morice had no such thought, though his brow knit slightly at sight of Michael, remembering, perhaps, a more recent event under the shadow of a high wall, where a dainty stripling had been sent sprawling by a sturdy, black-browed boy.
Sir Stephen's merry voice broke through an unpleasant memory.
"Another name for our Florizel's train, Morry," he cried gaily. "My son Michael—a rare buck I'll prophesy."
Morice Conyers bowed—a trifle formally. The tall, broad-shouldered figure in its plain but handsome dress, with dark head held proudly, and a quiet look of steady doggedness in the grey eyes, did not promise a boon companion of the Carlton House order.
A voice from behind broke a moment's pause.
It was that of the green-clad stranger to whom Mistress Gabrielle had been talking.