When Juliet, incensed and indignant at the Russian's behaviour, discovered the door in the clock and was on the point of opening it and making her presence known, a noise of steps in the passage made her pause. As she listened, there was the sound of a key turning in the lock, the library door was thrown suddenly open, and Mark stepped into the room.
Juliet saw Julia's expression as she sprang round to face the newcomer. She saw it change, swift as lightning, from a look of horrified dismay to one of sudden transforming tenderness, as the girl recognized the intruder, that the hand already in the act of pushing open the door of the clock fell inert and limp to her side, and if she had been able to move she would have lost no time in retreating. She knew instinctively that she was seeing a secret laid bare which she had no right to spy upon. And yet, though her impulse was to fly from the place in embarrassment and confusion, something stronger than her natural discretion and delicacy held her where she stood. For Julia had not come here for the purpose of meeting Mark. She had come with a purpose less personal: something, Juliet felt convinced, that was in some way vaguely discreditable, and at the same time menacing. It could be for no harmless reason that she had taken this secret, dangerous way into the castle.
And so Juliet kept her ground, blushing at her role of spy, and averting her eyes as Julia dropped the book she was holding and ran forward to meet Mark, with that tell-tale look upon her face.
But Mark did not show the same pleasure. He stood, holding the handle of the door, which he had closed gently behind him, and looking with a certain sternness at the girl.
"Julia," he said, "you here! What are you doing?"
"Oh, Mark," she cried, not answering his question, "aren't you glad to see me? It is so long, oh, it is so long since I saw you!"
She threw her arms round his neck with a happy laugh, and drew his face down to hers.
"Darling! darling!" she murmured. "How can we live without each other for one single day!"
She spoke in a low, soft voice. To Juliet, to whom every purling syllable was painfully audible, it sounded cooingly, like the voice of doves.
To the surprise of the girl to whom Mark had proposed marriage two days before, when she ventured to peep through her spy window, Mark's arms were round Julia and he was kissing her ardently.