Such a brief while ago she had stolen nightly from the haunted rooms to meet him here beside the silvery lake.
It almost seemed that she would come to him presently, gliding like a fairy across the green lawn to the glad shelter of his arms.
Some impulse prompted him to seek the haunted rooms, to spend an hour of solitary musing in their quiet shade.
He knew of a retired stairway by which he could make his way unperceived, and following the blind fate that led him, he went up to the hall and up the narrow, secluded stairs which little Golden had shown him, and by which she had obtained egress to her lover.
He went along the dark corridor with a strangely beating heart, and paused before the closed door of the haunted room.
He placed his hand on the knob, but to his surprise it refused to yield to his touch.
Disappointed, he was about turning away, when a heavy step crossed the floor inside, the key clicked in the lock, and the door was cautiously opened.
A flood of light streamed out into the corridor, and showed Bertram Chesleigh the tall form, and dark, saturnine face of John Glenalvan.
There was a moment of complete astonishment on the part of each of the two men.
Both recoiled from each other in the first suddenness of the shock, and then an angry oath burst from John Glenalvan's lips.