"Treading noiselessly, I bolted up the remaining stairs and went into the dark room at the top. At the door, which stood open, I stopped and listened. To my intense vexation, for the situation was becoming decidedly unpleasant, the pair were still coming up. In silence now, but I could hear their approaching footsteps and the rustle of the lady's dress. Unfortunately, there was no corner on the top landing where I could stand hidden, so I was forced to draw back into the room.
"Happily it had been so familiar to me from childhood that I could find my way about it in the dark. I well remembered the little inner room formed by the bartizan of the tower, and into this I tip-toed, feeling horribly guilty. If only I had not been in that suspicious brown suit! In evening clothes there would, of course, have been no necessity for this surreptitious retreat. I devoutly hoped that the two were merely bent on exploring the place and that the darkness of the old lumber-room would quickly satisfy their curiosity and send them down again. I heard them come into the room, the man speaking in a tone so low that the words were indistinguishable from where I stood; and then the sound of the door being shut struck my ear unpleasantly.
"Then the man spoke in a more audible voice, a voice which in a flash I recognized as Henshaw's. And his first words caught my attention with an unpleasant grip."
"'Failing to get the regular invitation I had a right to expect, I have had to take this mode of seeing you,' I just caught the words in Henshaw's metallic, rather penetrating voice.
"The lady's reply was given in a tone so low that at the distance I stood the words were indistinguishable.
"'Unmanly?' he exclaimed, evidently taking up her word. 'I don't admit that for a moment. You know how we stand to one another and what my feelings are towards you. It is no use for you to try to ignore them or me. I won't stand being treated like this. There is no reason why my advances should be repulsed as though they were an insult.'
"I caught the last words of the lady's reply: '--good reason, and you know it.'
"It was more than clear to me now that I was to be the witness of a very hateful piece of business. The man's tone, even more than his words, made my blood boil, and I began to congratulate myself on being thus accidentally in a position to protect, if need be, the girl whom this fellow was evidently bullying. With the utmost care I crept nearer to the small curtained arch which admitted to the larger room. The pitch darkness of the little turret chamber in which I stood made me feel quite safe from observation. And I had no qualms now about eavesdropping; the situation surely justified it.