She thought she heard a slight knock at the door.

She was not mistaken; this knock was now repeated, and indeed with a peculiar, significant stroke.
"It is my father!" said Lady Jane, and, as she resumed again her grave and quiet air, she proceeded to open the door.
"Ah, you expected me, then ?" said Lord Archibald Douglas, kissing his daughter's forehead.
"Yes, I expected you, my father," replied Lady Jane with a smile.

"I knew that you would come to communicate to me your experiences and observations during the day, and to give me directions for the future." The earl seated himself on the ottoman, and drew his daughter down by him.
"No one can overhear us, can they ?" "Nobody, my father! My women are sleeping in the fourth chamber from here, and I have myself fastened the intervening doors.

The anteroom through which you came is, as you know, entirely empty, and nobody can conceal himself there.

It remains, then, only to fasten the door leading thence into the corridor, in order to be secure from interruption." She hastened into the anteroom to fasten the door.
"Now, my father, we are secure from listeners," said she, as she returned and resumed her place on the ottoman.
"And the walls, my child?
know you whether or no the walls are safe?
You look at me with an expression of doubt and surprise! My God, what a harmless and innocent little maiden you still are! Have I not constantly reiterated the great and wise lesson, 'Doubt everything and mistrust everything, even what you see.' He who will make his fortune at court, must first of all mistrust everybody, and consider everybody his enemy, whom he is to flatter, because he can do him harm, and whom he is to hug and kiss, until in some happy embrace he can either plunge a dagger into his breast wholly unobserved, or pour poison into his mouth.