They gathered around the white horse, leaning or sitting on the
marble basin, some talking in eager groups, others folding their
arms in silence, listening, or lost heedless in their own thoughts,
while their leader entered the staircase door at the right-hand
corner of the western gate, the nearest way to his wife's apartment
of the building.
Now Dorothy had gone to sleep in perplexity, and all through her
dreams had been trying to answer the question what course she should
take with regard to the nocturnal intrusion. If she told lady
Margaret she could but go with it to the marquis, and he was but
just recovering from an attack of the gout, and ought not to be
troubled except it were absolutely necessary. Was it, or was it not,
necessary? Or was there no one else to whom she might with propriety
betake herself in her doubt--lord Charles or Dr. Bayly? But here now
was lord Herbert come back, and doubt there was none any more. She
dressed herself in tremulous haste, and hurried to lady Margaret's
room, where she hoped to see him.
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