They walked a way together down the long passage, vaguely visible
in flickering fits. All at once their light vanished, and with
it Malcolm's eyes seemed to have left him. But a merry laugh, the
silvery thread in which was certainly Florimel's, reached his ears,
and brought him to himself.
CHAPTER LVI: SOMETHING FORGOTTEN
I will not trouble my reader with the thoughts that kept rising,
flickering, and fading, one after another, for two or three dismal
hours, as he lay with eyes closed but sleepless. At length he opened
them wide, and looked out into the room. It was a bright moonlit
night; the wind had sunk to rest; all the world slept in the exhaustion
of the storm; he only was awake; he could lie no longer; he would
go out, and discover, if possible, the mischief the tempest had
done.
He crept down the little spiral stair used only by the servants,
and knowing all the mysteries of lock and bar, was presently in the
open air. First he sought a view of the building against the sky,
but could not see that any portion was missing. He then proceeded
to walk round the house, in order to find what had fallen.
There was a certain neglected spot nearly under his own window, where
a wall across an interior angle formed a little court or yard; he
had once peeped in at the door of it, which was always half open,
and seemed incapable of being moved in either direction, but had
seen nothing except a broken pail and a pile of brushwood; the flat
arch over this door was broken, and the door itself half buried
in a heap of blackened stones and mortar.
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