“That may satisfy all but Mr. Pyecroft, ma’am.  But Mr. Pyecroft won’t believe it.”

“Mr. Pyecroft will have to believe whatever he likes.  It’s the only way, and we’re going to do it.  And do it at once!  Matilda, go down and see if they’re all asleep yet, particularly Mr. Pyecroft.”

Matilda took off her shoes and in her stocking-feet went scouting forth; and stocking-footed presently returned, with the news that all seemed asleep, particularly Mr. Pyecroft.

Five minutes later, in Matilda’s dress, and likewise in stocking-feet, Mrs. De Peyster stepped out of her second maid’s room.  Breathless, she listened.  Not a sound.  Then, Matilda at her heels, she began to creep down the stairway—­slowly—­slowly—­putting each foot down with the softness of a closing lip—­pausing with straining ears on every tread.  With up-pressing feet she glided by the door within which Mr. Pyecroft lay in untroubled sleep, then started by the room that homed Jack and Mary, creeping with the footsteps of a disembodied spirit, fearful every second lest some door might spring open and wild alarms ring out.

But she got safely by.  Then, more rapidly, yet still as noiseless as a shadow’s shadow, she crept on down—­down—­until she came to her own door.  Here the attending Matilda silently vanished.  With velvet touch Mrs. De Peyster slipped her key into the lock, stepped inside, noiselessly closed and locked the door behind her.

Then she sank into a chair, and breathed.  Just breathed ... back once more in the spacious suite wherein nine days ago—­or was it nine thousand years?—­inspiration had flowered within her and her great idea had been born.

CHAPTER XIX

A PLEASANT HERMITAGE

When she awoke, it was with a sweet, languorous sense of perfect comfort.  Heavy-lidded, she glanced about her.  Ah!  Once more she was in her own wide, gracious bed—­of a different caste, of an entirely different race, from the second maid’s paving-stone pallet, from that folding, punitive contrivance from whose output of anguish Mrs. Gilbert managed to extract a profit.  Also she was in sweet, ingratiating linen—­the first fresh personal linen that had touched her in nine days.

It was all as though she were enfolded deep in the embrace of a not too fervent benediction.

About her were the large, dignified spaces of her bedroom, and beyond were the yet greater spaces of her sitting-room; and from where she lay she could see the gleaming white of her large tiled bathroom.  And there were drawers and drawers of fresh lingerie; and there were her closets filled with comfortable gowns that would be a thousand times more grateful after a week of Matilda’s unchanged and oppressive black.  And there on her dressing-table were the multitudinous implements of silver that had to do with her toilet.

After what she had been through, this, indeed, was comfort.