oline stood for the moment fascinated, then made a swift retreat, for
she saw those great, black eyes turned full upon her, and fled in a
panic.

A shriek--the crash of a falling lamp, and a mass of dusky drapery
huddled together on the floor, brought the girl out of her covert.
Something must have happened--the lady had hurt herself--perhaps could
not arise from want of help. She went down the gallery, passing first
one window then another, taking the moonlight from each, when the fallen
lady uttered another cry, sprang to her feet and fled down the gallery,
leaving her lamp overturned, with the wick still burning.

Caroline took up the lamp, and placing it on a bracket, left the
gallery, vexed with herself for the fright she had occasioned this
strange lady by wandering about so heedlessly in the dark. Still she
could not sleep, but went to her own room and sat waiting there for the
morning to dawn.

Perhaps an hour after Caroline left the picture gallery, a figure
clothed in white from head to foot, came through an end door, walking
firmly through the darkness, and touching the floor with the noiseless
tread of her naked feet. She walked straight to the silver lamp and took
it from the bracket. Now her face was revealed. It was Lady Hope.

She held the lamp before her, and moved on very slowly, looking ahead
through the darkness with those wide open, staring eyes.

After that, when all the fires of that vivid illumination had burned out
in the park, and were quenched in the castle, a bright star seemed
wandering up and down the vast building; now at one window, then at
another, lighting it up with fitful gleams, then leaving it in darkness,
and appearing again in some far off casement.

Once or twice the form of a woman in white cast its cloudy outline
across the plate glass of an unshuttered window; but no person was in
the park to observe her, and she wandered on with a lamp in her firm
hand, which brightened over the pallid outlines of her face, and kindled
up her night drapery like sunshine over drifted snow. Up and down along
the corridors, and through the long drawing-room, the figure swept,
carrying her lamp, and moving noiselessly over the floor with her white,
naked feet.

Upon that unconscious face a look of deep pain had stamped itself in
place of haughty triumph, and the wide open black eyes had a far-off
look, as if their glance could penetrate the walls and the very sky
beyond.

On and on the