We had dined late, and, pleasantly fatigued with our day in the open air, had retired early. I had latterly grown a heavy sleeper, and I suppose I must have slumbered some hours, when I was awakened suddenly as though by an imperative touch from some unseen hand. I started up in my bed,--the night-lamp was burning dimly, and by its glimmer I saw that Sibyl was no longer at my side. My heart gave one bound against my ribs and then almost stood still--a sense of something unexpected and calamitous chilled my blood. I pushed aside the embroidered silken hangings of the bed and peered into the room,--it was empty. Then I rose hastily, put on my clothes and went to the door,--it was carefully shut, but not locked as it had been when we retired for the night. I opened it without the least noise, and looked out into the long passage,--no one there! Immediately opposite the bedroom door there was a winding oak staircase leading down to a broad corridor, which in former times had been used as a music-room or picture-gallery,--an ancient organ, still sweet of tone, occupied one end of it with dull golden pipes towering up to the carved and embossed ceiling,--the other end was lit by a large oriel window like that of a church, filled with rare old stained glass, representing in various niches the lives of the saints, the centre subject being the martyrdom of St Stephen. Advancing with soft caution to the balustrade overlooking this gallery, I gazed down into it, and for a moment could see nothing on the polished floor but the criss-cross patterns made by the moonlight falling through the great window,--but presently, as I watched breathlessly, wondering where Sibyl could have gone to at this time of night, I saw a dark tall Shadow waver across the moonlit network of lines, and I heard the smothered sound of voices. With my pulses beating furiously, and a sensation of suffocation in my throat,--full of strange thoughts and suspicions which I dared not define, I crept slowly and stealthily down the stair, till as my foot touched the last step I saw--what nearly struck me to the ground with a shock of agony--and I had to draw back and bite my lips hard to repress the cry that nearly escaped them. There,--there before me in the full moonlight, with the colours of the red and blue robes of the painted saints on the window glowing blood-like and azure about her, knelt my wife,--arrayed in a diaphanous garment of filmy white which betrayed rather than concealed the outline of her form,--her wealth of hair falling about her in wild disorder,--her hands clasped in supplication,--her pale face upturned; and above her towered the dark imposing figure of Lucio! I stared at the twain with dry burning eyes,--what did this portend? Was she--my wife--false? Was he--my friend--a traitor?