In one wild rush of thought the whole picture rose up like a vision
before me.

"Why, Jack," I cried, "there was a screen, a little screen in the
alcove! You remember the alcove at the west end of the room. It was
so small a screen, you'd hardly have thought it could hide me; but
it did--it did--and all, too, by accident. I'd gone in there after
dinner, not much thinking where I went, and was seated on the floor
by the little alcove window, reading a book by the twilight. It was
a book papa told me I wasn't to read, and I took it trembling from
the shelves, and was afraid he'd scold me--for you know how stern he
was. And I never was allowed to go alone into the library. But I got
interested in my book, and went on reading. So when he came in, I
went on sitting there very still, with the book hidden under my
skirt, for fear he should scold me. I thought perhaps before long
papa'd go out for a second, to get some plates for his photography
or something, and then I could slip away and never be noticed. The
big window towards the garden was open, you remember, and I meant to
jump out of it--as you did afterwards. It wasn't very high; and
though the book was only The Vicar of Wakefield, he'd forbidden me
to read it, and I was dreadfully afraid of him."

"Then you were there all the time?" Jack cried interrogatively. "And
you heard our conversation--our whole conversation?"

"I was there all the time, Jack," I cried, in a fever of exaltation:
"and I heard every word of it! It comes back to me now with a
vividness like yesterday. I see the room before my eyes. I remember
every syllable: I could repeat every sentence of it."