ague fit.

"ARONDELLE! _You here!_" she exclaimed, starting towards
him.

But she met only the empty air, the form had vanished.

In unbounded amazement she stared all around to see where it could have
gone, and in what part of the darksome hall she herself then stood.

She found herself opposite to the entrance of a long, narrow passage
opening from the hall and leading to the door of a staircase
communicating with the dungeons of Malcolm's Tower.

She looked down that passage. It was black as the mouth of Hades!

A nameless terror seized her, and she fled precipitately down the hall,
nor stopped until she had reached her own room, rushed in, and shut and
bolted the door. Then she sank down into the nearest chair, feeling cold
as ice, and trembling from head to foot.

Her maid had over-acted her instructions, and had not only turned the
lights low, but had turned them out entirely.

There was no need of artificial light, however; for the windows were open
and the room was flooded with the brilliant moonshine of these northern
latitudes.

Salome did not know or care how the room was lighted. She sat there
thrilled with awe of what she had just experienced.

Had she really seen the marquis?--or his spirit? Or had she been the
victim of an optical illusion?

If she had seen the marquis, what could have brought him secretly into
the house and up into the hall of the bed-rooms, at that hour of the
night? And why did he not answer her, when she called him?

It surely could not have been the marquis whom she saw! He never would
have crept into the house and up to their private-rooms, at that hour of
the night, or fled from her, when she called him?

What was it then that she had seen in the likeness of her lover?

Was it the disembodied spirit of Arondelle? _Could_ the spirit of a
living man appear in one place, while the body of the man was present in
another? She had heard and read of such wonders, yet she could not accept
them as facts.

No, this was no spirit.

What then? Had she been the subject of an optical illusion? She had heard
of those wonders also!

But no! This was too real, too solid, too substantial for an optical
illusion!

Was the form she had seen possibly that of some other person, some guest
of the house, who had lost his way.

No, and a thousand noes! She knew every guest staying at the castle, and
knew that not one of them bore the slightest resemblance to the Marquis
of Arondell