you or your servant. Doubtful,
however, as I was, I conceived it prudent to extinguish the light.
Scarcely was this done, when some one entered the chamber. The footsteps
were easily distinguished to be yours.

"My situation was now full of danger and perplexity. For some time, I
cherished the hope that you would leave the room so long as to afford
me an opportunity of escaping. As the hours passed, this hope gradually
deserted me. It was plain that you had retired for the night.

"I knew not how soon you might find occasion to enter the closet. I was
alive to all the horrors of detection, and ruminated without ceasing, on
the behaviour which it would be proper, in case of detection, to adopt.
I was unable to discover any consistent method of accounting for my
being thus immured.

"It occurred to me that I might withdraw you from your chamber for a few
minutes, by counterfeiting a voice from without. Some message from your
brother might be delivered, requiring your presence at his house. I was
deterred from this scheme by reflecting on the resolution I had formed,
and on the possible evils that might result from it. Besides, it was
not improbable that you would speedily retire to bed, and then, by the
exercise of sufficient caution, I might hope to escape unobserved.

"Meanwhile I listened with the deepest anxiety to every motion from
without. I discovered nothing which betokened preparation for
sleep. Instead of this I heard deep-drawn sighs, and occasionally an
half-expressed and mournful ejaculation. Hence I inferred that you were
unhappy. The true state of your mind with regard to Pleyel your own pen
had disclosed; but I supposed you to be framed of such materials, that,
though a momentary sadness might affect you, you were impregnable to any
permanent and heartfelt grief. Inquietude for my own safety was, for a
moment, suspended by sympathy with your distress.

"To the former consideration I was quickly recalled by a motion of yours
which indicated I knew not what. I fostered the persuasion that you
would now retire to bed; but presently you approached the closet, and
detection seemed to be inevitable. You put your hand upon the lock. I
had formed no plan to extricate myself from the dilemma in which the
opening of the door would involve me. I felt an irreconcilable aversion
to detection. Thus situated, I involuntarily seized the door with a
resolution to resist your efforts to open it.

"Suddenly you recede