When she said that I do believe the blood nearly froze in my veins. I am sure it turned cold, because I know I shivered from head to foot. His wife? She said his wife. And all the time I had been taking her for his landlady and an old maid, and had been calling M. Doumer ugly, and accusing him to her face of breaking Miss Frazer's heart. I do not know why, but I had never imagined for a single moment that he could be anything but a bachelor. We girls at Mrs Sawyer's had always taken it for granted that he was. At least, the general impression on my mind was that we had. The horror of the situation deprived me of the use of the tiny scrap of sense which I possessed. My own impulse was to run for it. But it was far from being Madame Doumer's intention that I should do anything of the kind. And though I think that she was in every respect smaller than I was, I am convinced that I never encountered a person of whom I all at once felt so much afraid. I stammered out something. "I--I'm afraid I must go." I made a faltering movement towards the door. She simply placed herself in my way and crushed me. "You must what?" "I--I shall be late for dinner." "Then you will be late for dinner. You will not quit this apartment until M. Doumer returns. Not that that will necessitate your being detained long, because here he is." I had been desirous of seeing M. Doumer, even anxious. In order to do so I had gone a good deal out of my way, and behaved in a characteristically considerate manner. But so far as I could judge, amid the rush of very curious sensations with which I was struggling, on a sudden, the entire situation had changed. It was far from being my wish to have an interview with him at that particular moment. Quite the contrary. I really do not know what I would not have given--certainly all the remainder of that term's pocket-money!--to have escaped such an encounter. Picture, therefore, my sensations when I heard the garden gate slam, the front door open, a heavy footstep enter the hall, and, on Madame Doumer opening the sitting-room door, perceived her husband standing without. "Here is someone who wants to see you." The lady's tone was sour as sour could be, and what she said was perfectly untrue. I could have wanted nothing less. I should have been only too glad to have been able to disappear up the chimney on a broomstick, or on nothing at all, if I could only have got out of that room. In came M. Doumer, all smiles and smirks, looking to me more shiny-headed and scrubbing-brush faced than ever. "Ah!--it is Miss Boyes!--Sarah"--he addressed his wife as Sarah, and she looked it--"this is one of my charming pupils at Lingfield House School." "So she's not an impostor. That's something." The insinuation made my cheeks flame. "You appear to have a number of charming pupils, M. Doumer. Is Miss Frazer one of them?"