“No, they were talking together as if they had accidentally met in the street. I remained at the window looking at them from behind the curtain. If I had turned round, and if Laura had seen my face at that moment⁠—Thank God, she was absorbed over her drawing! They soon parted. The man from the asylum went one way, and the Count the other. I began to hope they were in the street by chance, till I saw the Count come back, stop opposite to us again, take out his card-case and pencil, write something, and then cross the road to the shop below us. I ran past Laura before she could see me, and said I had forgotten something upstairs. As soon as I was out of the room I went down to the first landing and waited⁠—I was determined to stop him if he tried to come upstairs. He made no such attempt. The girl from the shop came through the door into the passage, with his card in her hand⁠—a large gilt card with his name, and a coronet above it, and these lines underneath in pencil: ‘Dear lady’ (yes! the villain could address me in that way still)⁠—‘dear lady, one word, I implore you, on a matter serious to us both.’ If one can think at all, in serious difficulties, one thinks quick.