My belief was strong, that in this apartment Miss Vernon occasionally received Vaughan, or some other person, by whose opinion she was accustomed to regulate her conduct, and that at the times when she could do so with least chance of interruption.

The lights which gleamed in the library at unusual hours--the passing shadows which I had myself remarked--the footsteps which might be traced in the morning-dew from the turret-door to the postern-gate in the garden--sounds and sights which some of the servants, and Andrew Fairservice in particular, had observed, and accounted for in their own way,--all tended to show that the place was visited by some one different from the ordinary inmates of the hall.

Connected as this visitant probably must be with the fates of Diana Vernon, I did not hesitate to form a plan of discovering who or what he was,--how far his influence was likely to produce good or evil consequences to her on whom he acted;--above all, though I endeavoured to persuade myself that this was a mere subordinate consideration, I desired to know by what means this person had acquired or maintained his influence over Diana, and whether he ruled over her by fear or by affection.

The proof that this jealous curiosity was uppermost in my mind, arose from my imagination always ascribing Miss Vernon's conduct to the influence of some one individual agent, although, for aught I knew about the matter, her advisers might be as numerous am Legion.

I remarked this over and over to myself; but I found that my mind still settled back in my original conviction, that one single individual, of the masculine sex, and in all probability young and handsome, was at the bottom of Miss Vernon's conduct; and it was with a burning desire of discovering, or rather of detecting, such a rival, that I stationed myself in the garden to watch the moment when the lights should appear in the library windows.
So eager, however, was my impatience, that I commenced my watch for a phenomenon, which could not appear until darkness, a full hour before the daylight disappeared, on a July evening.