All possibility of concealment was, she knew, now at an end; and, with it, finished her long forbearance. How sweet to cast herself, at length, under so benign a protection! to build upon the unalterable sweetness of Lady Aurora for a consolatory reception, and openly to claim her support! Filled with these delighting ideas, she gently entered the room. It was empty; but, the door to an inner apartment being open, she heard the soft voice of Lady Aurora giving directions to some servant. While she hesitated whether, at once, to venture on, or to send in some message, a chambermaid, coming out with another band-box, shut the inner door. The dress of Juliet was no longer such as to make her appearance in a capital apartment suspicious; and the chambermaid civily enquired whom she was pleased to want. 'Lady Aurora Granville,' she hesitatingly answered; adding that she would tap at her ladyship's door herself, and begging that the maid would not wait. The maid, busy and active, hurried off. Quickly, then, though softly, Juliet stept forward; but at the door, trembling and full of fears, she stopt short; and the sight of pen, ink, and paper upon a table, determined her to commit her attempt to writing. Seizing a sheet of paper, without sitting down, and in a hand scarcely legible, she began, 'Is Lady Aurora Granville still the same Lady Aurora, the kind, the benignant, the indulgent Lady Aurora,--' when the sound of another voice, a voice more discordant, if possible, than that of Lady Aurora had been melodious, reached her ear from under the window: it was that of Mrs Howel. As shaking now with terrour as before she had been trembling with hope, she rolled up her paper; and was hurrying it into her work-bag, which had been returned to her by Harleigh; when the chambermaid, re-entering the room, stared at her with some surprize, demanding whether she had seen her ladyship. 'No; ... I believe ... she is occupied,' Juliet, stammering, answered; and flew along the gallery back to her chamber. That Lady Aurora should be under the care of Mrs Howel, who was the nearest female relation of Lord Denmeath, could give no surprize to Juliet; but the impulse which had urged her forward, had only painted to her a precious interview with Lady Aurora alone; for how venture to reveal herself in presence of so hard, so inimical a witness? The very idea, joined to the terrible apprehension of irritating Lord Denmeath, to aid some new attack from her legal persecutor; so damped her rising joy, so repressed her buoyant hopes, that, to avoid the insupportable repetition of injurious interrogatories, painful explanations, and insulting incredulity, she decided, if she could join Gabriella at Torbay, to accompany her to her purposed retreat; and there to await either intelligence of the Bishop, or an open summons from her own family.