"Indeed, no!" said Lady Rosamond with a laugh. "The English half of him is over-much devoted to our poor King Charles, I warrant you, e'er to suffer the Welsh half to incite him to rebellion! Moreover, it were to his fanatical mind a far nobler ambition, I trow, to win the principality from what he is pleased to call the slavery of drink, than from its subjection to the English sovereign! But, indeed, dear Master Rhys, the youth is not singular in his love for the king, for the Welsh love the Stuarts with all their heart, and my husband assures me they will rise as one man in defence of our troubled monarch should his enemies e'er drive him to extremity." And while her hostess and her old friend plunged into political matters to a depth where Primrose could not well follow them, she glanced again at the curtain across the gallery, where the soft music still rolled on, the player all unconscious of being so long the topic of converse. A soft colour rose in her face. She had then come to Caer Caradoc, there to find in truth one of the brave knights of old, and none other than her own hero! Would there were in the thick curtain a hole but ever so small, through which he might for a moment be revealed! This day was indeed to be a memorable one, for was she not also to see at last, visibly in the flesh, the mysterious Lady of Bryn Afon Castle, whom none in the valley had ever yet beheld, not even the good vicar himself? She had little expected such a pleasure as this. "We met soon after my marriage at Court," she heard Lady Rosamond say presently, in answer to some query of the vicar's, "and have ever since remained good friends, though we have met but little, since I have been much abroad with my husband, for his health's sake. And indeed I have as yet spent but little more time, as you know, at Caer Caradoc, than the Lady Bryn Afon in her strangely-doomed castle. She has a greater love for it, however, than her husband, and has confessed to me that more than once, weary of the busy Court life, she has escaped from it, with his consent, to the solitudes of yon steep, and there by stealth passed a little quiet time, unknown to the villagers, greatly to her own refreshment." "She does not then share his fear and horror of the curse?" said the vicar. "Whether so or no," answered Lady Rosamond, "she has a strange love for the poor ruined stronghold, and tells me she is at times well content to pass her days in quiet contemplation of the beautiful scenery which she can well enjoy from her windows, without going forth to be the gazing-stock of the villagers. It is not without difficulty that I have persuaded her to visit us to-day, and it is wholly to your fair Primrose here that we are indebted for her graciousness, for so much has she heard the earl, her husband, talk of the river-maiden in bygone days, that she must needs come and see her for herself. Come; much pleasant converse hath made us tarry long over our meal.