en yet his suspicions
of the Baron were unsatisfied), "I would with some pleasure become
a nocturnal conspirator myself, and I have all the necessary
qualities--romance, enterprise, and sympathy."

"Mungo knows all," said the lady; "Mungo will explain."

"With infinite deference, mademoiselle, Mungo shall not be invited to do
anything of the kind."

"But he must," said she firmly. "It is due to myself, as well as to you,
and I shall tell him to do so."

"Your good taste and judgment, mademoiselle, are your instructors.
Permit me."

He took the candlestick from her hands, gravely led the way to her
chamber door, and at the threshold restored the light with an excess
of polite posturing not without its whimsicality. As she took the
candlestick she looked in his face with a twinkle of amusement in her
eyes, giving her a vivacity not hitherto betrayed.

Guessing but half the occasion of her smiles, he cried abruptly, and
not without confusion: "Ah! you were the amused observer of my farce in
wading across from the shore. _Peste!_"

"Indeed and I was!" said she, smiling all the more brightly at the scene
recalled. "Good night!"

And, more of a rogue than Count Victor had thought her, she disappeared
into her chamber, leaving him to find his way back to his own.

CHAPTER XV -- A RAY OF LIGHT

For the remainder of the night Count Victor's sleep was delicious or
disturbed by dreams in which the gloomy habitation of that strange
Highland country was lit with lamps--the brightest a woman's eyes.
Sometimes she was Cecile, dancing--all abandoned, a child of dalliance,
a nymph irresolute--to the music of a flageolet; sometimes another whose
radiance fascinated, whose presence yet had terror, for (in the manner
of dreams that at their maddest have some far-compassing and tremendous
philosophy such as in the waking world is found in poems) she was more
than herself, she was the other also, at least sharing the secrets of
that great sisterhood of immaculate and despoiled, and, looking in his
face, compelled to see his utter unworthiness.

He rose early and walked in the narrow garden, still sodden with rain,
though a bold, warm sun shone high to the east. For ordinary he was not
changeable, but an Olivia in Doom made a difference: those mouldering
walls contained her; she looked out on the sea from those high peering
windows; that bower would sometimes shelter her; those alien breezes
flowing continually round Doom