She said this in a somewhat high voice, which might have reached the ears of that gentleman had he been in the vicinity.

But he was not, and she was forced to meet the somewhat dazed apologies of the clerk alone, and to accompany the chambermaid to a room only a few paces distant from the one she had quitted.

Here she hastily removed her outer duster and hat, washed her hands, and consulted her excited face in the mirror, with the door ajar and an ear sensitively attuned to any step in the corridor.

But all this was effected so rapidly that she was at last obliged to sit down in a chair near the half-opened door, and wait.

She waited five minutes--ten--but still no footstep.