She loosed my arm, remarking, with bitter vexation:

"I feel as if I could shake you!"

She left the room. I was left to my meditations. My head--my heart
too--ached distractingly; my arm was sore where Adelaide had grasped it;
I felt as if she had taken my mind by the shoulders and shaken it
roughly. I fastened both doors of my room, resolving that neither she
nor any one else should penetrate to my presence again that night.

What was I to do? Where to turn? I began now to realize that the _Res
dom_, which had always seemed to me so abundant for all occasions, were
really _Res Angusta_, and that circumstances might occur in which they
would be miserably inadequate.

CHAPTER IV.

"Zu Rathe gehen, und vom Rath zur That."
_Briefe_ BEETHOVEN'S.

There was surely not much in Miss Hallam to encourage confidences; yet
within half an hour of the time of entering her house I had told her all
that oppressed my heart, and had gained a feeling of greater security
than I had yet felt. I was sure that she would befriend me. True, she
did not say so. When I told her about Sir Peter Le Marchant's proposal
to me, about Adelaide's behavior; when, in halting and stammering tones,
and interrupted by tears, I confessed that I had not spoken to my father
or mother upon the subject, and that I was not quite sure of their
approval of what I had done, she even laughed a little, but not in what
could be called an amused manner. When I had finished my tale, she said:

"If I understand you, the case stands thus: You have refused Sir Peter
Le Marchant, but you do not feel at all sure that he will not propose to
you again. Is it not so?"

"Yes," I admitted.

"And you dread and shrink from the idea of a repetition of this
business?"

"I feel as if it would kill me."

"It would not kill you. People are not so easily killed as all that; but
it is highly unfit that you should be subjected to a recurrence of it. I
will think about it. Will you have the goodness to read me a page of
this book?"

Much surprised at this very abrupt change of the subject, but not daring
to make any observation upon it, I took the book--the current number of
a magazine--and read a page to her.

"That will do," said she. "Now, will you read this letter, also aloud?"

She put a letter into my hand, and I read:

"DEAR MADAME,--In answer to your letter of last week, I write to
say that I could find the rooms you require, and