But in all her terror she did not forget the mysterious sheet of foolscap, which lay, looking up at her, on the floor; and she snatched it up, and thrust it and the casket out of sight.

Still the sounds went on, but softly and cautiously; and at intervals, as if the worker were afraid of being heard.

Leoline went back, step by step, to the other extremity of the room, with her eyes still fixed on the window, and on her face a white terror, that left her perfectly colorless.
Who could it be?
Not Count L'Estrange, for he would surely not need to enter his own house like a burglar--not Sir Norman Kingsley, for he could certainly not find out her abduction and her prison so soon, and she had no other friends in the whole wide world to trouble themselves about her.

There was one, but the idea of ever seeing her again was so unspeakably dreadful, that she would rather have seen the most horrible spectre her imagination could conjure up, than that tall, graceful, rich-robed form.
Still the noises perseveringly continued; there was the sound of withdrawing bolts, and then a pale ray of moonlight shot between the parted curtains, shoving the shutters had been opened.

Whiter and whiter Leoline grew, and she felt herself growing cold and rigid with mortal fear.