With a wild heart-beat she slid the panel to as quietly as she could, and ran with reviving energy up and up and higher up, until after a little she cleared the last steps and found herself face to face with another door. This she had no difficulty in opening, pushed aside a thick curtain, and there was the state-hall with its two huge fireplaces, its fur rugs and broad divans, its panoplies of arms, and tall candelabras shedding their mellow radiance over multitudinous and exquisite luxuries. At the farther end rose grandly the double flight leading to the private apartments, and up this too she raced as if hotly pursued, although all was silence and peace and delicious warmth, from the heaped-up logs burning rosily on the twin hearths to the broad bowls of violets and narcissi, roses and gardenias, filling the air with their delicate fragrance. The same impulse of unquenchable terror drove her to close and double-lock all the entrances of her own rooms before letting herself fall in a heap upon the white-bear rug of her boudoir, and there she lay motionless, save for a persistent tremor which ran up and down her slim body in spasmodic waves. After a time--it might have been an hour, more or less--there was a soft tap at the door opening upon the main gallery; but she did not stir, and the knock was repeated louder, and then still more loudly. “Who is there?” Laurence asked, raising herself on one elbow. “Célèste, Madame la Princesse!” fluted the mincing voice of her French maid, one eye to the keyhole and both ears keenly on the alert. “It is past the hour for Madame la Princesse to dress for the dinner.” “Don’t bother me!” Laurence called, tremulously. “_Allez vous en, Célèste._ I’ll ring when I want you.”