Love was impossible in such a place as that; and did he want confirmation of the fact that Katrine was a somnambulist, he felt that he had it here before him. For no girl of her years would dare to come down in the dead of the night, and enter that room, haunted as it was with such terrible memories.
He stood watching her as she crouched there, looking straight before her, and as she suddenly sprang up, and went to a picture painted upon a panel in the wall, he found himself growing excited by the fancy that, perhaps, in the clairvoyant state of sleep, she might be able to discover the mystery that had baffled them all.
He stood there wrapt in his thoughts, till he saw her turn from the frame, that she had tried to move in a dozen different ways, her fingers playing here and there with marvellous quickness about the corners and prominent bits of carving, as if she expected that any one might prove to be a secret spring.
Again she tried another picture; darted to the group of statuary in the corner, and tried to lift it back, as if expecting that which she sought might be hidden beneath it; and again there was the movement, full of dejection and despair, as she stood facing him with the light full upon her eyes.
She turned away, despondently; and then started upright, with her eyes flashing, and one hand raised in the involuntary movement of one who listens intently to some sound.
Had she heard something, or was it fancy—a part of her dream?
Paul Capel thought the latter, for, light as a fawn, he saw Katrine dart across the room to where the candle stood.
The next moment they were in total darkness.