possessing the royal ear, he might make such representations as he
pleased to the King of what should occur. Sir Francis hoped he would be
gone before Sir Giles appeared.

But there was yet a third person, who gave the usurious knight more
uneasiness than the other two. This was a handsome young man, with fair
hair and delicate features, whose slight elegant figure was arrayed in
a crimson-satin doublet, slashed with white, and hose of the same
colours and fabric. The young nobleman in question, whose handsome
features and prematurely-wasted frame bore the impress of cynicism and
debauchery, was Lord Roos, then recently entrapped into marriage
with the daughter of Sir Thomas Lake, Secretary of State: a
marriage productive of the usual consequences of such imprudent
arrangements--neglect on the one side, unhappiness on the other. Lord
Roos was Sir Francis's sworn enemy. Like many other such gay moths, he
had been severely singed by fluttering into the dazzling lights held up
to him, when he wanted money, by the two usurers; and he had often vowed
revenge against them for the manner in which they had fleeced him. Sir
Francis did not usually give any great heed to his threats, being too
much accustomed to reproaches and menaces from his victims to feel alarm
or compunction; but just now the case was different, and he could not
help fearing the vindictive young lord might seize the opportunity of
serving him an ill turn,--if, indeed, he had not come there expressly
for the purpose, which seemed probable, from the fierce and disdainful
glances he cast at him.

An angry murmur pervaded the upper table on Sir Francis's appearance;
and something was said which, though he could not gather its precise
import did not sound agreeably to his ears. He felt he had unwittingly
brought his head near a hornet's nest, and might esteem himself lucky if