Lord Champernoun made no answer, for at that moment one of the serving-men had come to his side and whispered some message into his ear. Drusilla saw her grandfather start back as if in alarm. His face, in the light of the table-candles, was seen to have become suddenly very pale. Drusilla instantly thought of her brother Gilbert, and feared that some great ill had happened to him. She looked towards the door behind her grandfather's chair. It opened, and there came into the hall, not her brother nor even Timothy Trollope, but a tall dark man who was a complete stranger to her. He removed his wide slouched hat as he entered, and his long cloak, which was besprinkled with snow-flakes, fell from his shoulders, revealing a much-worn and faded doublet with tarnished braid and ominous stains. He was followed by a much younger man, whom Timothy Trollope, had he chanced to be present, would doubtless have recognized as the foreign-looking youth he had encountered at the door of the Three Flagons. Drusilla noticed that the youth's cloak was bespattered with mud, but she remembered that the roads were bad, and opined that he had had some trifling accident. He took off the garment and laid it with his hat and sword upon one of the oak benches that were against the wall. He seemed to be exceedingly modest, for he stood in the background like one who had been suddenly brought into a strange place, and had not yet mustered the courage to raise his eyes and see for himself what manner of place it happened to be. Lord Champernoun rose from his chair but did not advance to meet the strangers. "Jasper Oglander, did you say?" he cried in astonishment, turning aside to the serving-man. "Jasper Oglander? 'Tis impossible!" "Ay, 'tis Jasper Oglander," said the stranger, stepping forward and standing in front of the old baron. "Dost not know me, father?" Lord Champernoun raised his trembling hand and ran his fingers nervously through his thin locks of white hair. "I understand you not," he faltered. "Jasper Oglander is dead--dead these many years. They have told me so. And yet--" "Haply the news was more welcome to your lordship than my presence here just now," interrupted the stranger with a dark frown on his brow. "Believe me, sir, I had not wished to break in upon your merriment. But having only this afternoon arrived in the port of Plymouth, I deemed it my duty to present myself before you without further loss of time." "Your better duty would have been to acquaint me of your existence a score of years ago," his lordship returned with stern rebuke. And then, his eyes falling upon the figure of the bashful youth, he added: "Prithee, who is the stripling at your heels?" "Your grandson, my lord--Philip Oglander to wit--born in Brazil in the year fifteen hundred and seventy-four." "And his mother?" pursued the baron questioningly. The stranger twirled his newly-trimmed moustachios and answered: