save her bitter thoughts.  “What had become of Adrian?  Why had he not been in to see her; surely by this time he had learned something being out the whole afternoon hunting, perhaps side by side with Cedric.”  Thus she fretted, and scolded her maid until it was time to go to the drawing-room.  It was a picturesque scene; the ancient castle with its crenellated tower, from which now pointed a tall flag-pole, the British Royal Ensign bound closely about it, its colours being distinctly visible through its casing of ice; for an immense quadruple-faced light was placed high up in the fork of a tree opposite the great window of the vaulted saloon, casting its beam to the very pinnacle of the ensign-staff; lighting the castle from end to end upon its northern side, where the great avenues converged.  A shaft reluctantly and gloomily effused the near density of the forest; another ray gladdening the expectant eyes of the guest from Londonway; while yet another broad gleam sped the departing traveler over the threshold of the forest into the gloom-environed pathway beyond.  Upon every shelving projection of the unhewn stone structure was ice.  The entire walls scintillated with a fairy brilliancy, and the trees as they swayed back and forth propelled by the unceasing wind caused such a coruscation of sparkles it fairly blinded the spectator.  Beneath the spreading branches were a host of men, horses and dogs.  The gay costumes of the huntsmen showing resplendent in the ice-bespangled light.  The horns were lowered, and there was a confusion of tongues between groomsmen and lackeys; and there were shouts of welcome from the wide-open doorway of the servants’ hall; for ’twas here the game was brought and laid upon the stone floor or hung upon pegs on the wall for the inspection of the guests.  Lord Cedric leapt from his horse, throwing the reins to a waiting groom; strode into the hall with rattling spurs and flung through the rooms and up the stairway to his Lady Katherine’s bower, and rapped smartly upon the panelling of the door.  The vision that met his amorous eyes sent him hot and cold; and ’twas with difficulty he restrained himself from encircling her full, glowing body.

“The hours I have been from thee have seemed weeks, and I was of no use in the field; my gun would entangle in the low-hanging boughs; and on the wold my steed’s feet were caught in the dry gorse, until I could not get near enough to shoot anything.  On the other hand, Cupid has arrowed me to the death, and I come,—­a shade for thee to put life into; and the sight of thee is a life-giving thing.”  Katherine’s face flamed with his warm words, and the consciousness of the beauty of her new adornment; for she stood before him in an amber shimmering stuff that clung to her lithe limbs, hiding not her slender ankle and her arched satin shoe, as her dress caught about a stool that held it.  The short round waist betrayed the fulness of her form, and Cedric turned his eyes away from sheer giddiness, drunk with love.