It was done! She was parted from him forever. A shudder ran through her as she thought of his threat of suicide if she refused to accede to his wishes, but the thought did not for an instant deter her. Only the coward, whose courage is never equal to the commission of the deed, can threaten suicide; if he could have preferred death to disgrace he never would have been a detected thief. She cautiously unbolted her door and crept through the drawing-room to the hall, upon which the door of Sorr's sleeping-room opened. Here she paused and listened,--he was wont to breathe heavily in his sleep,--but she could hear nothing: a proof that he was still awake. What if he should hear her and come from his room to prevent her departure? What then? The wonted gentleness of her look gave place to stern determination; involuntarily she clinched her hand; the struggle had begun, and should under all circumstances be carried on. Fortunately, however, she encountered no obstacle to her progress down the stairs to the house-door, which she softly opened and as softly closed behind her. The streets were deserted; she passed a watchman asleep on a doorstep, and walked as quickly as possible towards the President's mansion without being seen by a human being. The windows of the house were still gleaming with light, and there was a long line of carriages in the street before it. Lucie paused and hesitated for a moment. The ball was not yet over. She had hoped this would be the case; else it would have been difficult for her to obtain an entrance to the house. But how was she to pass the line of carriages? So late a wanderer would be sure to be noticed by the coachmen and lackeys, and she might be the object of coarse jests. Perhaps the little gate leading from the garden into a side street was open: it was seldom locked; and even should it be so, she could easily climb the low garden-fence. She was not to be stopped by such an obstacle; from the garden, the wing in which was Adele's room was easily entered by a back-door, which was, of course, still open, and once in the house she could soon make her way to Adele's room. She hurried into the side street. The garden-gate was not locked, nor was the back-door even closed. Fortune favoured her; not a servant did she encounter as she hurried up a narrow staircase and along the passage leading to her friend's room, which she reached without being observed. Arrived here, she sank down upon the little lounge where she had so often sat conversing gayly with Adele, upon whose aid she now relied in her plan of flight.