CHAPTER XXXIII.
JUDGE GOUT.
Dorothy had hardly reached her room when the castle was once more astir.
The rush of the guard across the stone court, the clang of opening lattices, and the voices that called from out-shot heads, again filled her ears, but she never once peeped from her window.

A moment, and the news was all over the castle that the prisoner had escaped.
Lord Charles went at once to his father's room.

The old man woke instantly.

He had but just laid his hand on his mane, not mounted the shadowy steed, and was ill pleased to be already, and the second time, startled back to conscious weariness.

When he heard the bad tidings he was silent for a few moments.
'I would Herbert were at home, Charles, to stop this rat-hole for me,' he said at length.