The golden stream of light faded gradually as the sun sank lower and lower. A few solitary rays still strayed into the room; but, little by little, these too vanished, and the space was filled with a faint rosy shimmer, a reflection from the gorgeous evening sky without. Arno and Gabrielle paid no heed to it. He had drawn her to his side, and was speaking in low, earnest tones, but not of downfall or of danger. For them such things existed not; they gave them not a thought. For the first time their hearts frankly met, no shadow, no misunderstanding interposing between them; for the first time they could be all in all to each other. Past and future were dissolved in this one consciousness; they loved, and in their love were infinitely blest.
"Colonel Wilten waits on your Excellency." A servant, coming in, made this dry, formal announcement.
Raven looked up as though he had been roused from a dream. He passed his hand across his brow.
"Colonel Wilten?" he repeated slowly. "Ah, true. I had forgotten that."
Gabrielle's attention was at once aroused.
"Must you see the Colonel to-night?" she asked, seized, as it were, by some vague foreboding. "The reception-hours were over long ago."
The Baron stood up. The radiant expression which had illumined his face was gone now.
"I expected him. There are matters it is necessary for us to discuss. Ask the Colonel to have the kindness to wait for me in the drawing-room. I will be with him directly."
The servant withdrew.
"I must leave you, Gabrielle. You little know what it costs me to part from you, even for a moment," he said, in an agitated voice; "but the affair which brings Wilten to the Castle must be settled at once, if I wish to have my evening free. Then we shall be alone together, and no one shall disturb us. Come, I will take you to your room."