As we were continually together, I began to regard her with an esteem which I had not thought possible at first. Her looks improved considerably under the influence of happiness, and I found she could converse intelligently enough upon several topics, and did not bore me nearly as much as I was fully prepared for. And so the time passed less heavily, until one afternoon the baronet took me aside mysteriously. 'Prepare yourself, Augustus' (they had all learned to call me Augustus), he said; 'all is arranged. The event upon which our dearest hopes depend is fixed for to-morrow--in the Grey Chamber of course, and at midnight.' I thought this a curious time and place for the ceremony, but I had divined his eccentric passion for privacy and retirement, and only imagined that he had procured some very special form of licence. 'But you do not know the Grey Chamber,' he added. 'Come with me, and I will show you where it is.' And he led me up the broad staircase, and, stopping at the end of a passage before an immense door covered with black baize and studded with brass nails, which gave it a hideous resemblance to a gigantic coffin lid, he pressed a spring, and it fell slowly back. I saw a long dim gallery, whose very existence nothing in the external appearance of the mansion had led me to suspect; it led to a heavy oaken door with cumbrous plates and fastenings of metal. 'To-morrow night is Christmas Eve, as you are doubtless aware,' he said in a hushed voice. 'At twelve, then, you will present yourself at yonder door--the door of the Grey Chamber--where you must fulfil the engagement you have made.' I was surprised at his choosing such a place for the ceremony; it would have been more cheerful in the long drawing room; but it was evidently a whim of his, and I was too happy to think of opposing it. I hastened at once to Chlorine, with her father's sanction, and told her that the crowning moment of both our lives was fixed at last. The effect of my announcement was astonishing: she fainted, for which I remonstrated with her as soon as she came to herself. 'Such extreme sensitiveness, my love,' I could not help saying, 'may be highly creditable to your sense of maidenly propriety, but allow me to say that I can scarcely regard it as a compliment.' 'Augustus,' she said, 'you must not think I doubt you; and yet--and yet--the ordeal will be a severe one for you.' 'I will steel my nerves,' I said grimly (for I was annoyed with her); 'and, after all, Chlorine, the ceremony is not invariably fatal; I have heard of the victim surviving it--occasionally.' 'How brave you are!' she said earnestly. 'I will imitate you, Augustus; I too will hope.' I really thought her insane, which alarmed me for the validity of the marriage. 'Yes, I am weak, foolish, I know,' she continued; 'but oh, I shudder so when I think of you, away in that gloomy Grey Chamber, going through it all alone!'