The movement into the next room being made, the conversation took a lower tone, each speaking only to his neighbour; one, discussing the King's crossing and the speed of his new yacht, another the excellent health and spirits in which His Majesty had returned; until a door at the lower end of the room being opened, a murmur of voices, and stir of feet were heard, and after a moment's delay. Sir John Fenwick entered, a prisoner, and with a somewhat dazed air advanced to the foot of the table. The Lord Steward rose and gravely bowed to him; and this courtesy, in which he was followed by all except the Admiral, was returned by the prisoner. "Sir John," said the Duke of Devonshire, "the King will be presently here." "I am obliged to your Grace," Fenwick answered, and stood waiting. His gaunt form, clothed in black, his face always stern and now haggard, his eyes--in which pride and fanaticism, at one moment overcame and at another gave place to the look of a hunted beast--these things would have made him a pathetic figure at any time and under any circumstances. How much more when those who gazed on him knew that he stood on the brink of death! and knew, too, that within a few moments he must meet the prince who for years he had insulted and defied, and in whose hands his fate now lay! That some, less interested in the matter than others, harboured such thoughts, the looks of grave compassion which Lords Devonshire and Dorset cast on him seemed to prove. But their reflections--which, doubtless, carried them back to a time when the most brilliant and cynical of courtiers played the foremost part in the Whitehall of the Restoration--these, no less than the mutterings and restless movements of Russell, who, in his enemy's presence, could scarcely control himself, were cut short by the King's entrance. He came in unannounced, and very quietly, at a door behind the Lord Steward; and all rising to their feet, he bade them in a foreign accent, "Good-day," adding immediately, "Be seated, my lords. My Lord Steward, we will proceed."