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?
Was it the disembodied spirit of Arondelle?
_Could_ the spirit of a living man appear in one place, while the body of the man was present in another?
She had heard and read of such wonders, yet she could not accept them as facts.
No, this was no spirit.
What then?
Had she been the subject of an optical illusion?
She had heard of those wonders also! But no! This was too real, too solid, too substantial for an optical illusion! Was the form she had seen possibly that of some other person, some guest of the house, who had lost his way.
No, and a thousand noes! She knew every guest staying at the castle, and knew that not one of them bore the slightest resemblance to the Marquis of Arondelle.
No, the form that she had seen in the murky hall seemed that of her betrothed husband, or it was his spirit.
She could not tell which, nor could she test the question now.

The house was full of wedding guests, who were now most probably sound asleep in their beds.