With its disappearance he bethought himself, and
hurried towards the great door, with Grizzie now at his heels.
He opened it. All was still. Feeling his way in the thick darkness, he
went softly up the stair.
Cosmo had but just left the last remnants of his candle-ends
burning, and climbed glowing to his room, delighted with the
success of his experiment, when those quick-following, hideous
sounds rent the night, like flashes from some cloud of hellish
torture. His heart seemed to stand still. Without knowing why,
involuntarily he associated them with what he had been last about,
and for a moment felt like a murderer. The next he caught up his
light, and rushed from the room, to seek, like his father, that of
their guest.
As he reached the bottom of the first stair, the door of his own
room opened, and out came Lady Joan, with a cloak thrown over her
night-gown, and looking like marble, with wide eyes. But Cosmo felt it
was not she who had shrieked, and passing her without a second
look, led the way down, and she followed.
When the laird opened the door of the guest--chamber, there was his
boy in his clothes, with a candle in his hand, and the lady in her
night-gown, standing in the middle of the floor, and looking down
with dismayed countenances. There lay Lord Mergwain!--or was it but
a thing of nought--the deserted house, of a living soul? The face
was drawn a little to one side, and had a mingled expression, of
horror--which came from within, and of ludicrousness, which had an
outside formal cause.
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