For an instant I was dazzled.

I had not expected to see so noble a figure; and in that instant a cloud came before my eyes, my resolution failed,--I was almost saved--she was almost saved--when instinct got the better of my judgment, and the arrow flew just as that young creature bounded forward in her delight at seeing her steamer admirer watching her from my side of the court.
"The shock of thus beholding a perfect stranger fall under my hand benumbed me, but only for an instant.

In the two weeks of intolerable waiting through which I had just passed, I had so forcibly impressed upon my consciousness the exact course I was to pursue from the instant the arrow left the bow that I went about the same automatically.
Pulling out the edge of the tapestry, I slipped behind it, dropping my bow in the doorway left open for my passage.

This caused me no thought and awakened no fears.

But what took all the nerve I possessed, and gave me in one awful moment a foretaste of the terror and despair awaiting me in days to come, was the opening of the second door--the one leading into the Curator's office.
"What might I not be forced to encounter when the knob to this was turned! Some strolling guest--Correy the attendant--or even the guard who was never where he was needed and always where he was not! For anyone to be there of sufficient intelligence to note my face and the place from which I came meant the end of all things to me.