It was too much! I fought as I had fought before, over and over again, thinking of how it would be wicked, wrong, imprudent, unmaidenly. Oh, what dozens of adjectives I did slap my poor face with that afternoon, vowing again and again that I would not heed his note. But it was unbearable; and at last, with flushed cheeks and throbbing pulses, I plunged the note beneath the front of my dress, exclaiming,-- "Come what may, I will be there!" CHAPTER EIGHT. MEMORY THE EIGHTH--ONE OF MY SINS. A day had passed--a long, long, dreary day, and a weary, weary night-- during which I kept on starting up from sleep to think that I heard a voice whispering the word "Come!" Come, come, come--ah! the number of times I seemed to hear that word, and sat up in bed, pressing my hair from my ears to listen, to lie down again with a sigh--for it was only fancy. How could I go? What could I do? I dare not try to meet him, even though I had vowed that I would. I kept calling myself coward, but that was of no use, for I only owned to it and made no reply; though towards morning, after I had been picturing to myself his weary form leaning watchingly against a tree for hours, and then seemed to see him slowly going disappointed away, I made another vow that, come another night, spite of cowardice and anything else, I would go. And then, while I lay thinking of how shocking it would be, and all that sort of thing, I dropped off asleep to be awakened by a curious buzzing noise, which was Patty Smith humming a tune--like some horrible great bluebottle--as she was dressing, for the bell had rung some time before. And now the next night had come. It was so hot that I could scarcely breathe, and the tiresome moon would shine so dreadfully bright that it was like a great, round eye peering between the edge of the blind and the window-frame to watch my proceedings. Clara was soon in bed, and breathing hard; while as for Patty Smith, she snored to that degree that I quite shivered. It must have been her snoring that made me shiver, for as to what I was about to venture, now that I could feel my mind fully made up, I was quite bold, though my heart would beat so loudly that it went "thump, thump," under the heavy clothes. I had hurried upstairs first, and was lying in bed quite dressed, though I lay wondering whether those two would notice that my clothes were not there by the bedside. I thought it would never be twelve o'clock, and I tried to think what Achille would be doing. It was so romantic, now that I had passed the first feeling of dread, and seemed so much nicer than sitting up in bed in the dark to have a supper of cakes, sweets, and apples, as we used to at the old school when I was young. Ah, yes, when I was young!--for I felt old now. In another hour I should be down in the side walk, where the wall skirted the road. But suppose I were heard upon the stairs, or opening the side door, or Clara should wake, or--