Another knock came to the door.
'Me miserable!' exclaimed I. 'If this be the person I suspect, we are both undone—separated for ever!'
'Who? what? where shall I hide?' cried his lordship.
'Yon dark closet,' said I, pointing. 'Fly.'
His lordship sprang into the closet, and closed the door.
'I can hear no tidings of your father,' said Stuart, entering the room. 'I have searched every hotel in Town, and I really fear that some accident——'
'Mercy upon me! who's here?' cried his lordship from the closet. 'As I hope to be saved, the place is full of people. Let me go; whoever the devil you are, let me go!'
'Take that—and that—and that:—you poor, pitiful, fortune-hunting play-actor!' vociferated the landlady, buffetting him about.
That unhappy young nobleman bolted from the closet, with his face running blood, and the landlady fast at his heels.
'Yes, you dog!' exclaimed she; 'I have discovered your treacherousness at last. As for your love-letters and trinkets, to me, villain—I never valued 'em a pin's point; but that you should go for to try to ruin this sweet innocent young creature, that is what distresses me, so it is.' And she burst out crying.