He walked about the castle like a happy wolf in a pen.

He did not tell me there was a project on foot, with Dorothy as the objective, but I knew it, and waited with some impatience for the outcome.
Long before the appointed time, which was sunset, John galloped forth for Bowling Green Gate with joy and anticipation in his heart and pain in his conscience.

As he rode, he resolved again and again that the interview toward which he was hastening should be the last he would have with Dorothy.

But when he pictured the girl to himself, and thought upon her marvellous beauty and infinite winsomeness, his conscience was drowned in his longing, and he resolved that he would postpone resolving until the morrow.
John hitched his horse near the gate and stood looking between the massive iron bars toward Haddon Hall, whose turrets could be seen through the leafless boughs of the trees.

The sun was sinking perilously low, thought John, and with each moment his heart also sank, while his good resolutions showed the flimsy fibre of their fabric and were rent asunder by the fear that she might not come.