Creeping down softly she opened the door of the room behind the library,
and glided in. It was a small room, used exclusively by Lord Hartledon,
where he kept a heterogeneous collection of things--papers, books,
cigars, pipes, guns, scientific models, anything--and which no one but
himself ever attempted to enter. The intervening door between that and
the library was not quite closed; and Lady Hartledon, cautiously pushed
it a little further open. Wilful, unpardonable disobedience! when he had
so strongly forbidden her! It was the same tall stranger. He was speaking
in low tones, and Lord Hartledon leaned against the wall with a blank
expression of face.
She saw; and heard. But how she controlled her feelings, how she remained
and made no sign, she never knew. But that the instinct of self-esteem
was one of her strongest passions, the dread of detection in proportion
to it, she never had remained. There she was, and she could not get away
again. The subtle dexterity which had served her in coming might desert
her in returning. Had their senses been on the alert they might have
heard her poor heart beating.
The interview did not last long--about twenty minutes; and whilst Lord
Hartledon was attending his visitor to the door she escaped upstairs
again, motioned away the nurse, and resumed her shoes. But what did she
look like? Not like Maude Hartledon.
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