Chapter 22 - Page 2

library."

"I went into the library," Jack continued, "where I found your
father, just returned from enjoying his cigar on the lawn. He was
alone in the room--"

"No, no!" I cried eagerly, putting in my share now; for I had a part
in the history. "He WASN'T alone, Jack, though you thought him so at
the time. I remember all, at last. It comes back to me like a flash.
Oh, heavens, how it comes back to me! Jack, Jack, I remember to-day
every word, every syllable of it!"

He gazed at me in surprise.

"Then tell me yourself, Una!" he exclaimed. "How did you come to be
there? For I knew you were there at last; but till you fired the
pistol, I hadn't the faintest idea you had heard or seen anything.
Tell me all about it, quick! There comes in MY mystery."

In one wild rush of thought the whole picture rose up like a vision
before me.

"Why, Jack," I cried, "there was a screen, a little screen in the
alcove! You remember the alcove at the west end of the room. It was
so small a screen, you'd hardly have thought it could hide me; but
it did--it did--and all, too, by accident. I'd gone in there after
dinner, not much thinking where I went, and was seated on the floor
by the little alcove window, reading a book by the twilight. It was
a book papa told me I wasn't to read, and I took it trembling from
the shelves, and was afraid he'd scold me--for you know how stern he
was. And I never was allowed to go alone into the library. But I got
interested in my book, and went on reading. So when he came in, I
went on sitting there very still, with the book hidden under my
skirt, for fear he should scold me. I thought perhaps before long
papa'd go out for a second, to get some plates for his photography
or something, and then I could slip away and never be noticed. The
big window towards the garden was open, you remember, and I meant to
jump out of it--as you did afterwards. It wasn't very high; and
though the book was only The Vicar of Wakefield, he'd forbidden me
to read it, and I was dreadfully afraid of him."

"Then you were there all the time?" Jack cried interrogatively. "And
you heard our conversation--our whole conversation?"

"I was there all the time, Jack," I cried, in a fever of exaltation:
"and I heard every word of it! It comes back to me now with a
vividness like yesterday. I see the room before my eyes. I remember
every syllable: I could repeat every sentence of it."

Jack drew a deep sigh of intense relief.

"Thank God for that!" he exclaimed, with profound gratitude. "Then
I'm saved, and you're saved. We can both understand one