The old man laid his hand upon her bowed head and solemnly invoked a blessing upon her. "May the Lord look down on you, my daughter. May He give you health and grace to bear your burdens and do your duties as wife and mother, and save and bless you and yours, now and ever more, for Christ's dear sake. AMEN." She arose in silence from her knees, put her arms around his neck, kissed him, and glided from the room. And now a terrible and mysterious thing happened to the bride-elect. The lights had been turned very low in the hall. The household had all retired to rest. The stillness and the sense of darkness awed her as she glided noiselessly along in the deep shadows. Suddenly she saw the form of a man approaching from the direction of her own room. He might be some belated servant on some legitimate business for one of the guests, yet he startled her. She looked intently toward him, but in the obscure light she could only see that he was a tall man in dark clothing, and with a very white face. She shrank back in the shadow of the wall as he swiftly and silently approached her. Then with amazement she recognized the face and form of her betrothed husband. But the face was deadly pale, and the form was shaking as with an ague fit. "ARONDELLE! _You here!_" she exclaimed, starting towards him. But she met only the empty air, the form had vanished. In unbounded amazement she stared all around to see where it could have gone, and in what part of the darksome hall she herself then stood. She found herself opposite to the entrance of a long, narrow passage opening from the hall and leading to the door of a staircase communicating with the dungeons of Malcolm's Tower. She looked down that passage. It was black as the mouth of Hades! A nameless terror seized her, and she fled precipitately down the hall, nor stopped until she had reached her own room, rushed in, and shut and bolted the door. Then she sank down into the nearest chair, feeling cold as ice, and trembling from head to foot. Her maid had over-acted her instructions, and had not only turned the lights low, but had turned them out entirely. There was no need of artificial light, however; for the windows were open and the room was flooded with the brilliant moonshine of these northern latitudes. Salome did not know or care how the room was lighted. She sat there thrilled with awe of what she had just experienced. Had she really seen the marquis?--or his spirit? Or had she been the victim of an optical illusion? If she had seen the marquis, what could have brought him secretly into the house and up into the hall of the bed-rooms, at that hour of the night? And why did he not answer her, when she called him? It surely could not have been the marquis whom she saw! He never would have crept into the house and up to their private-rooms, at that hour of the night, or fled from her, when she called him? What was it then that she had seen in the likeness of her lover?