ll come together before long. He's
always talking about you, and comparing you to the best flowers we have
under glass. But I'll tell him you've been asking."

"No, please don't do anything of the kind," said Jane; and she tripped
away, trying to appear quite at her ease. But the poor girl's heart was
very sore, and though she tried hard, she had no further opportunity
during the day of seeking McCray.

It was with a horrible fear, then, upon her that night, that as soon as
she could get away from Lady Gernon's room she hurried to her own,
softly opened the window, and looked out upon the darkness. For it was
an intensely dark night: the moon would not rise for some hours, and, to
make it more obscure, there was a heavy bank of clouds to blot out the
stars.

Jane listened eagerly, but the soft sighing of the wind through the
trees was all she could hear. There was not the faintest rustle beneath
her window, and she leaned out as far as she dared, feeling that her
only course now was to listen for his coming, and then to whisper him to
hurry round to the lobby, where there would be no fear of his being
watched, while she spoke to him for a few minutes. That is, if he were
watched at all, for a great deal of her alarm might, after all, be due
to her own imagination.

Two hours of blank expectation passed, and not a sound had she heard.
The stillness was at times even oppressive, and a shuddering feeling of
fear again and again made her inclined to close the window, and try to
drive away with sleep the troubles that paled her face. Twice over she
had ventured to whisper softly his name--the name of the scoundrel whom
she was watching there to protect--but there was no answer; and yet she
knew that he would come--something seemed even to warn her that he was
at hand; so that, when at last she did hear a faint rustling amidst the
twigs, and the hard breathing as of some animal, she was in no way
startled, but, whispering softly:

"Round by the lobby," she said--"round by the lobby, quick!"

"All right," was the whispered answer; and then, as Jane listened, there
came again the rustling, when, with her heart wildly beating, she glided
from the room, to stand outside, listening upon the landing.

Book 1, Chapter XXIII.

A FALSE STEP.

It was one o'clock; the hall time-piece gave a sharp "ting," to proclaim
the hour, as Jane looked down over the balustrade, vainly trying to
pierce the darkness below. For all