No one could have been more sweet and gracious than her ladyship was; and underneath, her gentle heart was beating with an extra excitement, when she thought of her rendezvous at half-past ten o'clock.
Would he--she no longer thought of him as Mr.Markrute--would he be able to find the way?
"I must go and give some orders now," she said, about a quarter past ten, to the group which surrounded her, when they had all got up and were standing beside the fire.

"And we all assemble in the hall at eleven." And so she slipped away.
Francis Markrute, she noticed, had retired some moments before.
"Heinrich," he had said to his Austrian valet, the previous evening, as he was helping him on with his coat for dinner, "I may want to know the locality of the Lady Ethelrida's sitting-room early to-morrow.

Make it your business to become friendly with her ladyship's maid, so that I can have a parcel of books, which will arrive in the morning, placed safely there at any moment I want to, unobserved.

Unpack the books, leaving their tissue papers still upon them, and bring them in when you call me.

I will give you further orders then for their disposal.