A thundering knock at the door announced the humor of the gentleman, and the meek old lady hurried into the upper hall to see him when he entered the lower, murmuring to herself with mild astonishment:
"What's sent the man back in such a temper, I wonder? My! he's always ranting about one thing or another; no wonder my poor miss hates him."
The man who opened to the colonel recoiled in astonishment from his fell scowl, as he brushed past him and sprang up stairs, three at a time.
In the absence of the mistress of Castle Brand, the unwelcome guest had appropriated to himself a suite of apartments in the castle, announcing his intention of waiting there for the return of the fugitive, and had lived a short but merry season in luxury and splendor; what wonder that he loathed the brutal fates which were conspiring to thrust him out of his paradise into outer darkness.
The maid who was replenishing the colonel's fire, against his return from his ride, heard a savage oath behind her, and, favored by the darkness, slipped behind the door in a fright and stared with all her eyes at the colonel lighting his lamp, and banging down his desk upon the table.
He cursed everything he touched with the most blasphemous imprecations all the time he was removing papers and letters to his private pocket-book—all the time he was cramming his purse with gold and bank notes—all the time he was tossing his rich wardrobe into a valise.
Then he strode to the door, and turning on the threshold, sent a terrible scowl over the magnificent chamber, glittering with the flash of rich ornaments and the sheen of satin curtains. The veins swelled out on his forehead, and his pale lips twitched convulsively.
"All lost—all lost!" groaned the man in a despairing voice, and closed the door with a bang that shook the walls, and echoed through the vast halls like the report of a cannon.
Then he went into the drawing-room where the housekeeper had taken refuge. When she saw him coming along the passage, and with a diabolical sneer of his face, he went to the marble-topped tables, mantel slabs, chiffoniers, and tiny tea-poys all laden with articles of bijouterie, and swept off the most costly of the ornaments into his rapacious valise; packing in paperweights of solid amethyst, vases of cut cornelian, ruby-spar, and frosted silver; pitching above them priceless gems of art in miniature, statuettes cut from topaz and chrysolites, (each cost a little fortune,) and then locking up his valise and making off with it "for all the world as if he was a traveling packman or a thief," as Mrs. Chetwode gasped out to Sally the cook, when she could seek the safety of the kitchen, for fright.
Then this eccentric colonel strode down stairs and took his ample Spanish riding-cloak off the pin and wrapping himself in it, with the startled John's help, he stepped to the dining-room door and drew a lowering glance around the majestic chamber.