Feeling his way in the thick darkness, he went softly up the stair.
Cosmo had but just left the last remnants of his candle-ends burning, and climbed glowing to his room, delighted with the success of his experiment, when those quick-following, hideous sounds rent the night, like flashes from some cloud of hellish torture.

His heart seemed to stand still.

Without knowing why, involuntarily he associated them with what he had been last about, and for a moment felt like a murderer.

The next he caught up his light, and rushed from the room, to seek, like his father, that of their guest.
As he reached the bottom of the first stair, the door of his own room opened, and out came Lady Joan, with a cloak thrown over her night-gown, and looking like marble, with wide eyes.

But Cosmo felt it was not she who had shrieked, and passing her without a second look, led the way down, and she followed.
When the laird opened the door of the guest-chamber, there was his boy in his clothes, with a candle in his hand, and the lady in her night-gown, standing in the middle of the floor, and looking down with dismayed countenances.