CHAPTER II

ROSAMUND


Anon, after his visitor had departed, Sir Oliver grew calm again. Then
being able in his calm to consider his position, he became angry anew
at the very thought of the rage in which he had been, a rage which had
so mastered him that he had erected additional obstacles to the already
considerable ones that stood between Rosamund and himself. In full
blast, his anger swung round and took Sir John Killigrew for its
objective. He would settle with him at once. He would so, by Heaven's
light!

He bellowed for Nick and his boots.

"Where is Master Lionel? he asked when the boots had been fetched.

"He be just ridden in, Sir Oliver."

"Bid him hither."

Promptly, in answer to that summons, came Sir Oliver's half-brother--a
slender lad favouring his mother the dissolute Ralph Tressilian's
second wife. He was as unlike Sir Oliver in body as in soul. He was
comely in a very gentle, almost womanish way; his complexion was fair
and delicate, his hair golden, and his eyes of a deep blue. He had a
very charming stripling grace--for he was but in his twenty-first year--