In vain.
Yet here were the steps--regular, soft, unmistakable.

The colour rushed back into her cheeks! Her eager healthy youth forgot its woes, flung off its weariness, and panted for an adventure, a discovery.

Springing up, she threw her fur wrap round her again, and gently opened the door, listening.
For a minute, nothing--then a few vague sounds as of something living and moving down below--surely in the library?
Then the steps again.
Impossible that it should be any one breaking in.

No burglar would walk so leisurely.

She closed her door behind her, and, gathering her white satin skirts about her, she descended the staircase.
The corridor below was in radiant moonlight, chequered by the few pieces of old furniture it contained, and the black and white of the old portrait prints hanging on the walls.