al
obstacle to his opening the closet, she would betray all. Acting on
the inspiration of the instant, she ran to the centre of the room, and
cried:

"Oh, come away! Come here!" and essayed a well-meant, but feeble and
abortive, scream.

"What's the matter?" asked Peyton, astonished.

"Oh, I'm going to faint!" she said, feigning a sinkiness of the knees
and a floppiness of the head.

"Oh, pray don't faint!" cried Peyton, running to support her. "I
haven't time. Let me call some one. Let me help you to the sofa."

By this time he held her in his arms, and was thinking her another
sort of burden than Tom Jones found Sophia, or Clarissa was to
Roderick Random.

The lady shrank with becoming and genuine modesty from the contact,
gently repelled him with her hands, saying, "No, I'm better now,--but
come," and took him by the arm to lead him further from the fatal
closet.

But Peyton immediately released his arm.

"Ah, thank you for not fainting!" he said, with complete sincerity,
and stalked directly back to the closet. Before she could think of a
new device, he had opened the door, beheld the hat, and seized it in
triumph. "By George, I was right! I bid you farewell, Miss Williams!"
He very civilly saluted her with the hat, and turned towards the west
door of the parlor.

Must, then, all her previous ingenuity be wasted? After having so far
exerted herself, must she suffer the ignominious consequences of
failure?

She ran to intercept him. Desperation gave her speed, and she reached
the west door before he did. She closed it with a bang, and stood with
her back against it. "No, no!" she cried. "You mustn't!"

"Mustn't what?" asked Peyton, surprised as much by her distracted
eyes, panting nostrils, and heaving bosom, as by her act itself.

"Mustn't go out this way. Mustn't open this door," she answered,
wildly.

He scrutinized her features, as if to test a sudden suspicion of
madness. In a moment he threw off this conjecture as unlikely.

"But," said he, putting forth his hand to grasp the knob of the door.

"You mustn't, I say!" she cried. "I can't help it! Don't blame me for
it! Don't ask me to explain, but you must not go out this way!"

She stood by her task now from a new motive, one that impelled more
strongly than her fear of being reproached and derided by Elizabeth.
Her own self-esteem was enlisted, and she was now determined not to
incur her own reproach and derision. She perceived, too, with