her back to it, stood flushed, panting, and breathless, facing Miss Lord.
"How dare you!" she cried, stung out of her ordinary meekness. "This is outrageous. Leave my room at once; no one asked you to come here."
Miss Lord was hateful to look upon at that moment. If a soft featherbed had risen up and struck her in the face, she could scarcely have been more surprised.
"Ha, ha!" she said menacingly, "so there is a mystery here!"
"Will you go, please?"
"Oh yes, I'll go."
She stopped at the outer door.
"You had better take care, Miss Prudence Semaphore," with a withering emphasis on the "Prudence." "Perhaps I know more than you think. You may be sorry for this yet."
With these vague but direful words she disappeared, leaving Prudence collapsed, her knees trembling under her, her mind filled with the gloomiest forebodings, and an undefined terror in her breast as to what Miss Lord might know.
How she got through the rest of that dreadful day Prudence never remembered.
