fect on her mind.

Night, as welcome to-day as it had been yesterday unwelcome, fell at
last, and hid the dingy familiar room, the worn furniture, the dusky
outlook. She counted the minutes, and before it was nine by the clock
was the prey of impatience, thinking the time past and gone and the
tutor a poor deceiver. Ten was midnight to her; she hoped against hope,
walking her narrow bounds in the darkness. Eleven found her lying on her
face on the floor, heaving dry sobs of despair, her hair dishevelled.
And then, on a sudden she sprang up; the key was grating in the lock!
While she stared, half demented, scarcely believing her happiness, Mr.
Thomasson appeared on the threshold, his head--he wore no wig--muffled
in a woman's shawl, a shaded lanthorn in his hand.

'Come!' he said. 'There is not a moment to be lost.'

'Oh!' she cried hysterically, yet kept her shaking voice low; 'I thought
you were not coming. I thought it was all over.'

'I am late,' he answered nervously; his face was pale, his shifty eyes
avoided hers.' It is eleven o'clock, but I could not get the key before.
Follow me closely and silently, child; and in a few minutes you will
be safe.'

'Heaven bless you!' she cried, weeping. And would have taken his hand.

But at that he turned from her so abruptly that she marvelled, for she
had not judged him a man averse from thanks. But setting his manner down
to the danger and the need of haste, she took the hint and controlling
her feelings, prepared to follow him in silence. Holding the lanthorn so
that its light fell on the floor he listened an instant, then led the
way on tip-toe down the dim corridor. The house was hushed round them;
if a board creaked under their feet, it seemed to her scared ears a
pistol shot. At the entrance to the gallery which was partly illumined
by lights still burning in the hall below, the tutor paused anew an
instant to listen, then turned quickly from it, and by a narrow passage
on the right gained a back staircase. Descending the steep stairs he
guided her by devious turnings through dingy offices and servants'
quarters until they stood in safety before an outer door. To withdraw
the bar that secured it, while she held the lanthorn, was for the tutor
the work of an instant. They passed through, and he closed the door
softly behind them.

After the confinement of her prison, the night air that blew on her
temples was rapture to Julia; for it breathed of freedom. She turn