“I never thought any one was in,” she said nervously.  “It’s Miss Mould, the lodger.  She went out before I did, and I never heard her come back.  Whatever will she think!”

“But of course,” he stammered, “you will explain everything to her.  She knows who I am, doesn’t she?”

“I don’t think so, and, even if she did—­”

She stopped, and stood with eyes on the ground, doing her best to display maiden confusion.  Then she began to cry.

“But surely, surely there is no need to trouble yourself,” exclaimed Julian, almost distracted, beginning to be dimly conscious of all manner of threatening possibilities.  “I will speak to the woman myself, and clear you of every—.  Oh, but this is all nonsense.  Let us go down at once, Harriet.  What a pity you asked me to come up here!”

It was the nearest to a reproach that he had ever yet addressed to her.  His face showed clearly how distressed he was, and that on his own account more than hers, for he could not conceive any blame save on himself for being so regardless of appearances.

“Go as quietly as ever you can,” Harriet whispered.  “The stairs creak so.  Step very softly.”

This was terrible to the poor fellow.  To steal down in this guilty way was as bad as a confession of evil intentions, and he so entirely innocent of a shadow of evil even in his thought.  Yet he could not but do as she bade him.  Even on the stairs she urged him in a very loud whisper to be yet more cautious.  He was out of himself with mortification; and felt angry with her for bringing him into such ignominy.  In the back parlour once more, he took up his hat at once.

“You mustn’t go yet,” whispered Harriet.  “I’m sure that woman’s listening on the stairs.  You must talk a little.  Let’s talk so she can hear us.  Suppose she should tell Mrs. Ogle.”

“I can’t see that it matters,” said Julian, with annoyance.  “I will myself see Mrs. Ogle.”

“No, no!  The idea!  I should have to leave at once.  Whatever shall I do if she turns me away, and won’t give me a reference or anything!”

Even in a calmer mood, Julian’s excessive delicacy would have presented an affair of this kind in a grave light to him; at present he was wholly incapable of distinguishing between true and false, or of gauging these fears at their true value.  The mere fact of the girl making so great a matter out of what should have been so easy to explain and have done with, caused an exaggeration of the difficulty in his own mind.  He felt that he ought of course to justify himself before Mrs. Ogle, and would have been capable of doing so had only Harriet taken the same sensible view; but her apparent distress seemed—­even to him—­so much more like conscious guilt than troubled innocence, that such a task would cost him the acutest suffering.  For nearly an hour he argued with her, trying to convince her how impossible it was that the woman who had surprised them should harbour any injurious suspicions.