"Search the bouquet, and under the Comelina your ladyship will find something."
Laura's rosy fingers were buried in the flowers, and she drew from its fragrant hiding-place a small slip of paper.
"Your ladyship is requested, if you consent, to return, as an answer, the four first words of the note."
Laura unrolled the paper, and read: "NOT TO-MORROW, BUT TO-DAY.
Danger threatens, and we must anticipate.—E."
Her face flushed, and her eager eyes were fixed upon that little scroll which, to her and her lover, was of such great import. What could it mean? She read it again and again, until the words danced before her reeling senses.
The clerk came closer yet. "Your ladyship," whispered he, "I must take back my answer. Somebody might come in."
"The answer?" gasped she, scarcely knowing what he said. "True, true, there must be an answer." She stood for a moment irresolute, then a shudder thrilled through her frame, and she felt as if some evil spirit had again come nigh. She raised her eyes to the face of the messenger, as though she would have looked into the penetralia of his thoughts.
"I am to write four words?" asked she, plaintively. "You know, then, where he lives?"
The clerk replied without the least embarrassment: "Pardon me, I told your ladyship that I was unacquainted with the cavalier. He awaits my return in the flower-market, and lest I should be too long absent, he hired a fiacre to bring me forth and back."
"He awaits my answer," thought Laura. "Oh, it must be so! He shall not be left in suspense!"