The Newfoundland crouched at the stranger’s feet, obedient to the sound of that familiar voice; and then a man’s footstep sounded in the porch, and Theodore de Bergerac came out to meet his secretary. Eustace had been too much occupied by bitter and sorrowful thoughts within the last week to puzzle himself by speculative ideas about his new employer; but of course he had some vague notion--unconsciously conceived--of what M. de Bergerac would be like, and the real M. de Bergerac was the very reverse of that shadowy creature of his imagining. There had been in his mind some faint picture of a little wizen old man, with a weird face and a black-velvet skull-cap. Why a black-velvet skull-cap he could not have said; but possibly that kind of head-gear is in a manner allied with the idea of extreme erudition and much consumption of midnight oil. He had fancied a frail, wasted creature, with long, straggling white hair falling in unkempt locks upon the greasy collar of a dressing-gown; and lo! the man who came to greet him was tall and stalwart, with a bright, frank face, which had once been very handsome, and was handsome still, and iron-gray hair arranged with scrupulous neatness. He walked rather lame, and carried a cane with a head of oxidized silver, exquisitely modelled--a gem in its way, like all the surroundings of its possessor, who had the taste of a Bernard or a Bohn. This was Theodore de Bergerac, the man who at sixty years of age retained the freshness and gaiety of six-and-twenty. The lameness from which he suffered had afflicted him for the last thirty years, for it was the result of a musket-wound received at the siege of Antwerp. The student had been a soldier in those days, and had done good service under the brave leader he loved so well. M. de Bergerac greeted Eustace with friendly courtesy. He spoke the English language perfectly; and it was only by a certain delicate precision of pronunciation--a somewhat measured accent--and by an occasional Gallic locution that strangers discovered his nationality. “Welcome to Greenlands, Mr. Thorburn. If you are fond of the country, I think you will love Berkshire. It has all the richness of southern France, and all the home-like comfort of Normandy. If we were a little nearer the sea, and could catch the breath of the ocean now and then from the summit of our hills, we should be in Paradise. But a man cannot expect to be _quite_ in Paradise; and I suppose this is as near an approach to Eden as we can hope for upon earth. Have you dined? We live as people lived in French provincial towns when I was a boy; and our hours are as early as those of the country-people round about us. I suppose in London the world is beginning to dress for dinner. We dined half a dozen hours ago; but I can promise you an excellent supper. My little _ménagère_ has made arrangements for a perfect banquet in your honour.”