“You shall sleep where you list, sir,” answered Gregory, and they rose.
“Do you look to honour us long at Castle Marleigh, Sir Crispin?” was Gregory's last question before separating from his guest.
“Nay, sir, 'tis likely I shall go hence to-morrow,” answered Crispin, unmindful of what he said.
“I trust not,” said Gregory, in accents of relief that belied him. “A friend of Roland Marleigh's must ever be welcome in the house that was Roland Marleigh's.”
“The house that was Roland Marleigh's,” Crispin muttered. “Heigho! Life is precarious as the fall of a die at best an ephemeral business. To-night you say the house that was Roland Marleigh's; presently men will be saying the house that the Ashburns lived—aye, and died—in. Give you good night, Master Ashburn.”
He staggered off, and stumbled up the broad staircase at the head of which a servant now awaited, taper in hand, to conduct him to the chamber he demanded.
Gregory followed him with a dull, frightened eye. Galliard's halting, thickly uttered words had sounded like a prophecy in his ears.
CHAPTER XIII. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF KENNETH
When the morrow came, however, Sir Crispin showed no signs of carrying out his proposal of the night before, and departing from Castle Marleigh. Nor, indeed, did he so much as touch upon the subject, bearing himself rather as one whose sojourn there was to be indefinite.