She opened the door, and out ran a
wretched-looking dog, huge and gaunt, with the red marks of recent
wounds all over his body, and his neck swathed in a discoloured
bandage. He went straight to Richard, and began fawning upon him and
licking his hands. Miserable and most disreputable as he looked, he
recognised in him Dorothy's mastiff.
'My poor Marquis!' he said, 'what evil hath then befallen thee? What
would thy mistress say to see thee thus?'
Marquis whined and wagged his tail as if he understood every word he
said, and Richard was stung to the heart at the sight of his
apparently forlorn condition.
'Hath thy mistress then forsaken thee too, Marquis?' he said, and
from fellow-feeling could have taken the dog in his arms.
'I think not so,' said mistress Rees. 'He hath been with her in the
castle ever since she went there.'
'Poor fellow, how thou art torn!' said Richard. 'What animal of
thine own size could have brought thee into such a plight? Or can it
be that thou hast found a bigger? But that thou hast beaten him I am
well assured.
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