As I stood on one of the landings, and backed away from the coming figure, I felt the door of the little room where we hung our garden hats and mantles give way behind me, when I backed slowly in, pushed the door softly to, and then crept tremblingly into a corner, drawing a large shawl before me, but not without knocking down a hat from one of the pegs, to fall with, oh! such a noise, seeing that it was only straw. There I stood, almost without breathing, hoping that I had not been seen, and that the figure, whatever it was, would go by. Every second seemed turned into a minute, and at last I began to revive; for I felt that, whatever the figure was, it had passed on; and I drew a long breath of relief, thinking now that I must gain my own room at any cost, and the sooner the better, for of course any meeting was quite impossible. I was just going to sigh deeply for poor Achille, when I felt, as it were, frozen again; for the door began to glide slowly open, rustling softly over the carpet--for everything sounded so horribly distinct--and there at last stood the tall white figure, while, as I felt ready to die, I heard my name pronounced, in a low whisper, twice,-- "Laura! Laura!" For a moment or two I could not reply, when the call was repeated; and, irresistibly attracted, I went slowly forward from my hiding-place, to feel myself caught by the arm by Clara, who had been watching me. "You cruel, wicked girl!" I exclaimed in a whisper. "How could you frighten me so?" "Serve you right, too, you wicked, deceitful thing," she said. "Why could you not trust me? But I don't care. I know. I can see through you. I know where you are going." "That you do not," I said, boldly; for I felt cross now the fright was over, and I could have boxed the tiresome creature's ears. "You'd better not talk so loudly," she said with a sneer; "that is, if you do not want Lady Blunt to hear your voice." "There," I said, spitefully, "I thought you did not know." "Under the tall elms by the garden wall," whispered Clara, laughing, and translating one of the sentences in the very note I had in my breast; and then I remembered that I had left it for about a quarter of an hour in my morning-dress pocket, before I ran up after changing and fetched it down; though I never should have thought she would have been so treacherous as to read it. But there, she had me in her power, and however much I might have felt disposed to resent her conduct, I could do nothing then, so-- "Hush!" I said, imploringly. "Pray, do not tell, dear!" "Ah," said the nasty, treacherous thing, "then you ought to have told me, and trusted me with your secret. But did you think that I was blind, Laura Bozerne, and couldn't see what was going on? And you never to respond to my confidence, when I always trusted you from the very first. I did think that we were friends."