"To-night. Listen, dearest, for she will be back. Go to her in ten minutes from now, and tell her that you are weary and would be in bed. She will see you to your room perhaps, and there may be delay. But when you can, come down silently, with your thickest cloak and your strongest hat, and any little thing you can carry easily. Come without a candle, and creep to the passage window. I will be there. If she will let you go up-stairs alone, you may be there in half-an-hour. It is our only chance." Then the window was closed, and after that the shutter, and then the pin was pushed back, and Linda was again alone in her aunt's chamber. To be there in half-an-hour! To commence such a job as this at once! To go to her aunt with a premeditated lie that would require perfect acting, and to have to do this in ten minutes, in five minutes, while the minutes were flying from her like sparks of fire! It was impossible. If it had been enjoined upon her for the morrow, so that there should have been time for thought, she might have done it. But this call upon her for instant action almost paralysed her. And yet what other hope was there? She had told herself that she would do anything, however wicked, however dreadful, that would save her from the proposed marriage. She had sworn to herself that she would do something; for that Steinmarc's wife she would never be. And here had come to her a possibility of escape,--of escape too which had in it so much of sweetness! She must lie to her aunt. Was not every hour of life a separate lie? And as for acting a lie, what was the difference between that and telling it, except in the capability of the liar. Her aunt had forced her to lie. No truth was any longer possible to her. Would it not be better to lie for Ludovic Valcarm than to lie for Peter Steinmarc? She looked at the upright clock which stood in the corner of the room, and, seeing that the ten minutes was already passed, she crossed at once over into the kitchen. Her aunt was standing there, and Tetchen with her bonnet on, was standing by. Tetchen, as soon as she saw Linda, explained that she must be off again at once. She had only returned to fetch some article for a little niece of hers which Madame Staubach had given her. "Aunt Charlotte," said Linda, "I am very weary. You will not be angry, will you, if I go to bed?" "It is not yet nine o'clock, my dear." "But I am tired, and I fear that I shall lack strength for to-morrow." Oh, Linda, Linda! But, indeed, had you foreseen the future, you might have truly said that you would want strength on the morrow.