In the armoury I remained all that night; for I thought it possible that someone might be stationed to watch for me in the cell. Shall I not tell you that a feeling which surmounted my apprehensions of discovery chained me to the armoury?--I was under the same roof with Sibella! The first dawnings of morn burst imperfectly through the high and grated casements; and I heard the creaking door of the armoury begin to open; I darted through my pannel, but the pannel shut heavily and with noise. Some person had already entered the armoury ere the pannel was quite closed. I shuddered for the consequences that might ensue; and I retreated a few steps, and grasped my sword. I heard the person in the armoury walk, and several times pass the pannel. The step was light and gentle. I heard a sigh. My heart took the prompt alarm. I looked through the crevice. It was--I had almost said--my Sibella--No: _Montgomery's_ Sibella! I forced back the panel--flew to her--trembled--spoke--was wild, vehement, and perhaps utterly unintelligible. And here let me pause, Miss Ashburn, to remark how strongly I discovered in her mind I had pictured and panted to possess. When I first approached her in the wood, tottering under a hermit's disguise, I could perceive, as it were, her collecting spirits embody themselves to repel my fraud. 'It matters little to me,' said she, 'who or what you are, since I well know you cannot be what you would seem.' Conscious rectitude forbade her to fear me,--it forbade her to mix me with her ideas in one shape--all her all prevalent love forbade it in another.--I saw her once--when the time, the place, the circumstance would have appalled me into agony! When, unseen, I echoed her bursting sigh, from behind the monument, I saw her a moment mute with surprise, then, call into her mien a dignity so firm so undaunted, that it might have spoken lessons to a hero. After Miss Valmont left me in the armoury, I waited another hour; and assuring myself, from the still silence that prevailed, my passage was undiscovered, I returned to my cell, which I believe none had entered since I quitted. The succeeding night I revisited farmer Richardson's. John Thomas, ever delighted to talk, came on me open-mouthed, with a tale newly brought from the castle: namely, that Miss Valmont had seen and spoken with the hermit's ghost in the wood.