Mr. Aylett stepped forward in haste and concern at the deadly pallor that overspread her face—­the look of horror, fear, loathing, before which smile and brightness fled, blasted into wretchedness.  The revellers stopped in their giddy measure at the discordant jangle, preluding a dead silence.

Mabel, chancing in the evolutions of the set to be nearest the window, and noting the direction of the fainting woman’s eyes, was quick enough to see a shadow flit across the yellcw square of light upon the snowy floor of the portico—­a man’s shape, as it appeared to her, crouching and slinking out of view into the darkness.

“She saw something, or somebody, through the window, and was frightened,” she said, in a low voice, checking Tom Barksdale and another gentleman, who would have pressed with the inconsiderate crowd toward the senseless figure Mr. Aylett had laid upon the sofa.  “Will you see what it was?”

The request cleared the room directly of all the men of the assembly, with the exception of Winston and Dr. Ritchie, a young physician, who was superintending the administration of restoratives to Mrs. Aylett.

She was reviving rapidly when the search party gave in their report.  There were fresh tracks upon the piazza, and these they had traced to the back of the house, losing them there in the drifting snow, the wind blowing like a hurricane, and ploughing what had fallen and what was descending into constantly changing heaps.  But the watch-dogs had been unchained, and four of the negro men detailed as sentinels, the gentlemen engaging to make the round of the premises again before bed-time.

The effect of this communication was the reverse of tranquillizing upon the patient.  The wild, terrified look in her eye resembled the unreasoning fear of lunacy as she seized her husband’s arm.

“Indeed, indeed they must not.  It is not right or safe to make such a serious matter of my foolish nervousness.  I am not sure there was any one there!  It was probably an optical delusion.  I was plunged in a reverie, thinking of happy, peaceful, lovely things”—­with the sickly feint of a meaning smile into his face—­“and, happening to look at the window, I fancied that I saw”—­with all her self-command her voice failed here, and she put her hand before her eyes for a moment before she could go on—­“I thought I saw—­something!  It may have been a human face—­it may have been the shadow of the curtains, or the reflection of the lights upon the glass; but it startled me, appearing so abruptly.  Please say no more about it.  If it was a living creature, it must have been one of the servants, tempted by curiosity to peep at the dancers.”

“It will prove to be a costly indulgence to him, if I can discover who the rascal was,” said Mr. Aylett, decisively.  “I would not have had you so startled for the worth of all the lazy hounds on the premises.”

His wife laid her hand upon his.