After what she had been through, this, indeed, was comfort.
But as consciousness grew clearer, her forgotten troubles and her dangers returned to her. For a brief period alarm possessed her. Then reason began to assert itself; and the hope which the night before had been hardly more than desperation began to take on the character of confidence. She saw possibilities. And the longer she considered, the more and greater the possibilities were. Her original plan began to re-present itself to her; modified, of course, to meet the altered conditions. If she could only remain here, undiscovered, then months hence, when it was announced that Mrs. De Peyster (she sent up a warm prayer for Olivetta!) was homeward bound, Jack and Mary and that unthinkable Mr. Pyecroft would decamp, if they had not gone before, and leave the way clear for the easy interchange by Olivetta and herself of their several personalities.
As she lay there in the gentle Sabbath calm, in the extra-curled hair of her ultra-superior mattress, this revised version of her plan, in the first glow of its conception, seemed alluringly plausible. She had to be more careful, to be sure, but aside from this the new plan seemed quite as good as the original. In fact, in her reaction from the alarms of yesterday, it somehow seemed even better.
Twelve hours before there had seemed no possible solution to her predicament. And here it was—come unexpectedly to her aid, as was the way withthings in life; and a very simple solution, too. Lazily, hazily, a poet's line teased and evaded her memory. What was it?—something about "a pleasant hermitage." That was just what this was: a pleasant hermitage.
But presently, as she lay comforting herself, and the morning wore on, she became increasingly conscious of an indefinable uncomfortable sensation. And presently the sensation became more definite; became localized; and she was aware that she was growing hungry. And in the same moment came the dismaying realization that, in their haste of the night before, she had not thought to plan with Matilda for the somewhat essential item of food!
She sat up. What was she ever to do? Three months of solitary confinement, with no arrangements for food! Would Matilda have the sense to think of this, and if so would she have the adroitness to smuggle edibles in to her unnoticed? Or was she to be starved out?
The revised plan had lost its first rose-tint.
She got up, and noiselessly foraged throughout her quarters. The total of her gleaning was a box of forgotten chocolate bon-bons and a box of half-length tallow candles. She had read that Esquimaux ate tallow, or its equivalent, and prospered famously upon it; but she deferred the candles in favor of the bon-bons, and breakfasted on half the box.
Then she went back to bed and read. In the afternoon she ate the second half of the bon-bons.
Also in the afternoon she discovered that the bliss of lying abed, which she had thought would be exhaustless, had inexplicably become transmitted into boredom. And yet she dared not move about, save with a caution that amounted almost to pain; for she had heard Jack and Mary and Mr. Pyecroft pass and re-pass her door, and she knew that any slight noise on her part might result in disastrous betrayal.
Evening drew on. Bed, and sitting noiseless in one spot, grew more wearisome. And her stomach began to complain bitterly, for as has been remarked it was a pampered creature and had been long accustomed to being served sumptuously and with deferential promptitude. But she realized that Matilda would not dare come, if she remembered to come at all, until the household was fast asleep.
Eight o'clock came. She lit one of the candles and placed it, cautiously shaded, in a corner of her sitting-room....
Ten o'clock came.
She looked meditatively at the box of candles. Perhaps the Esquimaux ate them with a kind of sauce. They might not be so bad that way....
Midnight came. Shortly thereafter a faint, ever so faint, knocking sent her tiptoeing—for months she would dare move only on breathless tiptoe!—to the door of her sitting-room, where she stood and listened.
Again the faint knocking sounded.
"Mrs. De Peyster, it's Matilda," whispered an agitated voice.
Mrs. De Peyster quickly unlocked and opened the door. Matilda slipped in and the door was softly closed upon her back.
"Here's some food—just what I could grab in a second—I didn't dare take time to choose." Matilda held out a bundle wrapped in a newspaper. "Take it, ma'am. I don't dare stay here a second."
But Mrs. De Peyster caught her arm.
"How did they take my going?"
"Mr. Jack thought home was really the best place for my sister, if she was sick, ma'am. And Mary was awfully kind and asked me all sorts of questions—which—which I found it awfully hard to answer, ma'am,—and she is going to send you the book you didn't finish. And Mr. Pyecroft got me off into a corner and said, so we'd tried to give him the slip again."
"What is he going to do?"
"He said he was safe here, under Judge Harvey's protection. Outside some detective might insist on arresting him, and perhaps things might take such a turn that even Judge Harvey might not be able to help him. So he said he was going to stay on here till things blew over. Oh, please, ma'am, let me go, for if they were to hear me—"
A minute later the chattering Matilda was out of the room, the door was locked, and Mrs. De Peyster was sitting in a chair with the bundle of provisionson her exquisitely lacquered tea-table. In the newspaper was a small loaf of bread, a tin of salmon, and a kitchen knife. That was all. Not even butter! And, of course, no coffee—she who liked coffee, strong, three times a day. But when was she ever again to know the taste of coffee!
Never before had she sat face to face with such an uninteresting menu. But she devoured it—opening the tin of salmon after great effort with the knife—devoured it every bit. Then she noticed the newspaper in which the provisions had been wrapped. It was part of that day's, Sunday's, "Record," and it was the illustrated supplement. This she unfolded, and before her eyes stood a big-lettered title, "Annual Exodus of Society Leaders," and in the queenly place in the center of the page was her own portrait by M. Dubois.
Her eyes wandered up to the original, which was dimly illumined by the rays of her one candle. What poise, what breeding, what calm, imperturbable dignity! Then her gaze came back to her be-crumbed tea-table, with the kitchen knife and the raggedly gaping can. She slipped rather limply down in her chair and covered her eyes.
A day passed—and another—and another. Outside Mrs. De Peyster's suite these days flew by with honeymoon rapidity; within, they lingered, and clung on, and seemed determined never to go, as is time's malevolent practice with those imprisoned. Mrs. De Peyster could hear Mary practicing,and practicing hard—and, yes, brilliantly. As for Jack, Matilda told her on her later visits—and her later bundles contained a larger and more palatable supply of food than had the first package—Matilda said that Jack, too, was working hard. Furthermore, Matilda admitted, the pair were having the jolliest of honeymoons.
And a further thing Matilda told on her third furtive, after-midnight visit. This concerned Mr. Pyecroft. Mr. Pyecroft, it seemed, was becoming an even greater favorite with Jack and Mary—particularly with Mary. He had confided to them that he was weary of his escapades, and wanted to settle down; in fact, there was a girl—the nicest girl in the world, begging Mary's pardon—who had promised to marry him as soon as he had become launched in honorable work. The trouble was, he knew that no business man would employ him in a responsible capacity, and so his last departures from strict rectitude had been for the purpose of securing the capital to set himself up in some small but independent way.
His story, Matilda admitted, had captured Mary's heart.
Judge Harvey, however, still smarting under his indignity, would on his evening calls scarcely speak to Mr. Pyecroft. Nonetheless, Mr. Pyecroft had continued regretful and polite. Once or twice, Judge Harvey, forgetting his resentment, had been drawn into discussions of points of law with Mr.Pyecroft. To Matilda, who, of course, knew nothing about law, it had seemed that Mr. Pyecroft talked almost as well as the Judge himself. But the Judge, the instant he remembered himself, resumed his ire toward Mr. Pyecroft.
Thus three days, in which it seemed to Mrs. De Peyster that Time stood still and taunted her,—each day exactly like the day before, a day of half starvation, of tiptoed, breathless routine,—days in which she spoke not a word save a whisper or two at midnight at the food-bearing visit of the sad-visaged Matilda,—three dull, diabolic days dragged by their interminable length of hours. Such days!—such awful, awful days!
On Matilda's fourth visit with her usual bundle of pilferings from the pantry, Mrs. De Peyster observed in the manner of that disconsolate pirate a great deal of suppressed agitation—of a sort hardly ascribable to the danger of their situation: an agitation quite different from mere nervous fear. There were traces of recent crying in Matilda's face, and now and then she had difficulty in holding down a sob. Mrs. De Peyster pressed her as to the trouble; Matilda chokingly replied that there was nothing. Mrs. De Peyster persisted, and soon Matilda was weeping openly.
"Oh, my heart's broke, ma'am!" she sobbed. "My heart's broke!"
"Your heart broken! How?"
"Before I can tell you, ma'am," cried the miserableMatilda, "I've got to make a confession. I've done—something awful! I've disobeyed you, ma'am! I've disobeyed and deceived you!"
"What, Matilda," said Mrs. De Peyster severely, "after the way I've trusted you for twenty years!"
"Yes, ma'am. But, I couldn't help it, ma'am! There's feelings one can't—"
"But what have you done?"
"I've—I've fallen in love, ma'am. For over a year I've been the same as engaged to William."
"William!" cried Mrs. De Peyster, sinking back from her erect, reproving posture, and recalling an unforgettable episode.
"Yes, ma'am,—to William. I'm sorry I disobeyed you, ma'am,—very sorry,—but I can't think about that now. For now," sobbed Matilda, "for now it's all off—and my heart is broke!"
"All off? Why?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"That's what I can't understand, ma'am," wailed Matilda. "It's all a mystery to me. I've hardly seen William, and haven't spoken to him, since we came back, and he's acted awfully queer to me. I—I couldn't stand it any longer, and this evening I went out to the stable to see him. He was as stiff, and as polite, and as mad as—oh, William was never like that to me before, ma'am! I asked him what was the matter. 'All right, if you want to break off, I'm willing!' he said in, oh, such a hard voice. 'But, William,' I said, beginning to cry,'but, William, what have I ever done to you?' 'You know what you've done!' he said."
"Oh!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"I begged him to explain, but he just turned his back on me and walked away! And now, ma'am," wept Matilda, "I know he'll never explain, he's such a proud, obstinate, stiff-necked man! And I love him so, Mrs. De Peyster,—I love him so! Oh, my heart is broke!"
Mrs. De Peyster gazed at her sobbing serving-woman in chilled dismay. She was for a moment impelled to explain to Matilda; but she quickly realized it would never, never do for her housekeeper to know that her coachman had made love to her, and had—had even kissed her. Every drop of De Peyster blood revolted against such a degradation.
"I hope it will come out all right, Matilda," she said in a shaking voice.
"Oh, it never can!" Matilda had already started for the door. She paused, hesitant, with the knob in her hand. "But you, ma'am," she faltered, "can you ever forgive me for the way I deceived you?"
Mrs. De Peyster tried to look severe, yet relenting.
"I'll try to overlook it, Matilda."
"Thank you, ma'am," snuffled Matilda; and very humbly she went out.
At two o'clock of the fifth night Matilda stole into Mrs. De Peyster with a face that would have been an apt cover for the Book of Lamentations. She opened her pages. That day she had had a telegram that her sister Angelica—the really and truly Angelica, who really and truly lived near Syracuse—that Angelica was seriously ill. She was sorry, but she felt that she must go.
"Of course, you must go, Matilda!" exclaimed Mrs. De Peyster. Then the significance to her of Matilda's absence flashed upon her. "But what will I do without any company at all?" she cried. "And without any food?"
"I've seen to the food, ma'am." And Matilda explained that during the evening, in preparation for her going, she had been smuggling into the house from Sixth Avenue delicatessen stores boxes of crackers, cold meats, all varieties of canned goods—"enough to last you for a month, ma'am, and by that time I'll be back."
Her explanation made, Matilda proceeded, with extremest caution, to carry the provisions up and stack them in one corner of Mrs. De Peyster's large, white-tiled bathroom. When the freightage wasover, the bathroom, with its supply of crackers and zweibach, its bottles of olives and pickles, its cold tongue, cold roast beef, cold chicken, its cans of salmon, sardines, deviled ham, California peaches, and condensed milk—the bathroom was itself a delicatessen shop that many an ambitious young German would have regarded as a proud start in life.
"But what about food for the others while you're gone?" inquired Mrs. De Peyster—with a sudden hope that the others would be starved into leaving.
"I've attended to them, ma'am. I've bought a lot of things that will keep. And then I told the tradespeople that my niece was going to be here in my place, and they are to deliver milk and other fresh things for her every day in care of William."
Matilda broke down at the last moment.
"If it wasn't for you, ma'am, I wouldn't care if it was me that was sick, instead of my sister, and if I never got well. For with William—"
She could say no more, and departed adrip with tears.
Matilda's nightly visits were a loss; but Mrs. De Peyster had come to take her situation more and more philosophically. The life was unspeakably tedious, to be sure, and rather dangerous, too; but she had accepted the predicament—it had to be endured and could not be helped; and such a state of mind made her circumstances much easier to support. All in all, there was no reason, though,of course, it was most uncomfortable—there was no good reason, she kept assuring herself, why she might not safely withstand the siege and come out of the affair with none but her two confidants being the wiser.
In this philosophic mood three more days passed—passed slowly and tediously, to be sure, but yet they did get by. There were relaxations, of course,—things to occupy her mind. She read a little each day; she listened to Mary's concert in the drawing-room below her—for Mary dared to continue playing despite Matilda's absence, since it was known that Matilda's niece was in the house, though Mary never showed her face; she listened for snatches of the conversation of Jack and Mary and Mr. Pyecroft when they passed her door; at times she stood upon a chair at one of her windows and cautiously peered through the little panes in her shutters, like the lens of a camera, down into the sunny green of Washington Square.
Also, of evenings, she found herself straining to hear the voice of Judge Harvey. When she surprised herself at this, she would flush slightly, and again raise her book close to her shaded candle.
Then, of course, her meals were a diversion. She became quite expert with the can-opener and the corkscrew. The empty cans, since there was no way to get them out of her suite, she stacked on the side of the bathroom opposite her provisions; and daily the stack grew higher.
The nearest approach to an incident during this solitary period came to pass on the third night after Matilda's departure. On that evening Mrs. De Peyster became aware of a new voice in the house—a voice with a French accent. It seemed familiar, yet for a time she was puzzled as to the identity of the voice's owner. Then suddenly she knew: the man below was M. Dubois, whom Olivetta, at her desire, had with unwilling but obedient frostiness sent about his business. She had known that Jack had taken up with M. Dubois at the time the artist was doing her portrait; but she had not known that Jack was so intimate as the artist's being admitted to Jack's secret seemed to indicate.
Within herself, some formless, incomprehensible thing seemed about to happen. During these days of solitude—and this, too, even before Matilda had gone—a queer new something had begun to stir within her, almost as though threatening an eruption. It seemed a force, or spirit, rising darkly from hitherto unknown spaces of her being. It frightened her, with its amorphous, menacing strangeness. She tried to keep it down. She tried to keep her mental eyes away from it. And so, during all these days, she had no idea what the fearsome thing might be....
And then something did happen. On the fifth day after Matilda's departure, and the eighteenth after the sailing of the Plutonia, Mrs. De Peyster observed a sudden change in the atmosphere of thehouse. Within an hour, from being filled with honeymoon hilarity, the house became filled with gloom. There was no more laughter—no more running up and down the stairs and through the hallways—the piano's song was silent. Mrs. De Peyster sought to gain some clue to this mysterious change by listening for the talk of Mary and Jack and Mr. Pyecroft as they passed her door. But whereas the trio had heretofore spoken freely and often in liveliest tones, they now were either wordless or their voices were solemnly hushed.
What did it mean? Days passed—the solemn gloom continued unabated—and this question grew an ever more puzzling mystery to Mrs. De Peyster. What could it possibly,possibly, mean?
But there was no way in which she could find out. Her only source of information was Matilda, and Matilda was gone for a month; and even if Matilda, by any chance, should know what was the matter, she would not dare write; and even if she wrote, the letter, of course, would never be delivered, but would doubtless be forwarded to the pretended Mrs. De Peyster in Europe. Mrs. De Peyster could only wonder—and read—and gaze furtively out of the little peep-holes of her prison—and eat—and stack the empty cans yet higher in her bathroom—and wait, impatiently wait, while the mystery grew daily and hourly in magnitude.
Among the details that added to the mystery's bulk was the sound of another new but familiarvoice—the voice of the competent Miss Gardner, her discharged secretary. And Miss Gardner's voice was not heard for an hour and then heard no more—but was heard day after day, and her tone was the tone of a person who is acquainted with the management of an establishment and who is giving necessary orders. And another detail was that William no longer kept to the stable, but seemed now constantly busy within the house. And another detail was that she became aware that Jack and Mary no longer tried to keep their presence in the house a secret, but went openly forth into the streets together. And Judge Harvey every day came openly to see them.
But the most bewildering, and yet most clarifying, detail of all was one she observed on the twelfth day since Matilda's going, the twenty-fifth of her own official absence.
On that afternoon she was standing on a chair entertaining herself by gazing through one of her shutters, when she saw Jack crossing Washington Square. He was walking very soberly, and about the left sleeve of a quiet gray summer suit was a band of crape.
Mrs. De Peyster stepped down from her chair. The mystery was lifting. Somebody was dead! But who? Who?
Early the next morning, while the inmates of the house were occupied in the serving or the eating of breakfast, Mrs. De Peyster was startled by a softknocking at her door. But instantly she was reassured by the tremulous accents without.
"It's me, ma'am,—Matilda. Let me in—quick!"
The next instant the door opened and Matilda half staggered, half fell, into the room. But such a Matilda! Shivering all over, eyes wildly staring.
"What is it?" cried Mrs. De Peyster, seizing her housekeeper's arm.
"Oh, ma—ma—ma'am," chattered Matilda. "It's—it's awful!"
"But what is it?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster, beginning to tremble with an unknown terror.
"Oh, it's—it's awful! I couldn't get you word before—for I didn't dare write, and my sister wasn't well enough for me to leave her till last night."
Mrs. De Peyster shook the shaking Matilda.
"Will you please tell me what's happened!"
"Yes, ma—ma'am. Here's a copy of the first paper that had anything about it. The paper's over a week old. I brought it along to—to break the thing to you gently."
Mrs. De Peyster seized the newspaper. In the center of its first page was a reproduction of M. Dubois's painting of herself, and across the paper's top ran the giant headline:—
SO—SO IT'S I—THAT'S—THAT'S DEAD!"SO—SO IT'S I—THAT'S—THAT'S DEAD!"
MRS. DE PEYSTER FOUNDDEAD IN THE SEINEFace Disfigured by Water, butFriends in Paris Identify SocialLeader by Clothes uponthe Body
MRS. DE PEYSTER FOUNDDEAD IN THE SEINE
MRS. DE PEYSTER FOUND
DEAD IN THE SEINE
Face Disfigured by Water, butFriends in Paris Identify SocialLeader by Clothes uponthe Body
Face Disfigured by Water, but
Friends in Paris Identify Social
Leader by Clothes upon
the Body
Mrs. De Peyster sank without a word into a chair, and her face duplicated the ashen hue of Matilda's.
Matilda likewise collapsed into a chair. "Oh, isn't it awful, ma'am," she moaned.
"So—so it's I—that's—that's dead!" mumbled Mrs. De Peyster.
"Yes, ma'am. But that isn't all. I—I thought I'd break it to you gently. That was over a week ago. Since then—"
"You mean," breathed the marble lips of Mrs. De Peyster, "that there's something more?"
"Yes, ma'am. Oh, the papers have been full of it. It's been a tremendous sensation!"
"Oh!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
"And Mr. Jack, since you died without a will, is your heir. And, since he is now the head of the De Peyster family, the first thing he did on hearing the news was to arrange by cable to have your body sent here."
Mrs. De Peyster, as though galvanized, half rose from her chair.
"You mean—my body—is coming here?"
"I said I was trying to break it to you gently," moaned Matilda. "It's—it's already here. The ship that brought it is now docking. Your funeral—"
"My funeral!"
"It takes place in the drawing-room, this morning. Oh, isn't it awful! But, perhaps, ma'am, if you could see what beautiful flowers your friends have sent—"
But Mrs. De Peyster had very softly sunk back into her chair.
As soon as that huddled mass of womanhood that was Mrs. De Peyster had become sufficiently reanimated to be able to think, its first thought came in the form of an unuttered wail.
She was dead! She was to be buried! She could never come home again!
Or if she did come home, what a scandal! A scandal out-scandalizing anything of which she had ever dreamed! A scandal worse ten times than the very grave itself!
With loose face and glazed eyes she stared at Matilda while the latter stammered out disjointed details of the past week's happenings. As for Mr. Jack's lark in dwelling surreptitiously with his wife in his mother's house, not a breath of that had reached the public. With Mr. Pyecroft's aid, and Judge Harvey's, he had managed this well. He had told the reporters that he had been quietly married over three weeks before, that he and his wife had been living in seclusion, and that on learning of his mother's demise they had come to the house to direct the obsequies.... Those Paris police were trying to solve the mystery of what had become of Mrs. De Peyster's trunks.... If Mrs. De Peystercould only see the beautiful floral tributes that were arriving, particularly the large wreath sent by Mrs. Allistair—
But Mrs. De Peyster heard none of this. She was dead! She was to be buried! She could never come home again!
At length her lips moved—slowly, stiffly, as might the lips of a dead person.
"What are we going to do?"
"I've been saying that same question to myself for days, ma'am," quavered Matilda. "And I—I don't see any answer."
No, there was nothing she could do. Mrs. De Peyster continued her glazed stare at her faithful serving-woman. In the first few minutes her mind had been able to take in the significance only to herself of this culminating disaster. But now its significance to another person shivered through that her being.
Poor—poor Olivetta!
For Olivetta, of course, it was. Mrs. De Peyster knew what was due the De Peyster corpuscles that moved in stately procession along the avenues of her blood, and was not neglectful to see that that due was properly observed; but the heart from which those corpuscles derived their impulse was, as Judge Harvey had once said, in its way the kindest sort of heart. And now, for a few minutes, all that her heart could feel was felt for Olivetta.
But for a few minutes only. Then Olivetta, andall concerns beyond the immediate moment, were suddenly forgotten. For in the hall without soft footsteps were heard, and the instant after, upon her door, there sounded an ominous scratching—a sound like a key in an agitated hand searching for its appointed hole.
Mrs. De Peyster rose up and clutched Matilda's arm, and stood in rigid terror.
"Tha—that key?" chattered Matilda. "Can—can it fit?"
"There were only two keys," breathed Mrs. De Peyster. "Mine here, and the one I gave to Olivetta."
"Then it can't fit, since Miss Olivetta's—"
But the key gave Matilda the lie direct by slipping into the lock. The two women clung to one another, knowing that the end had come, wondering who was to be their exposer. The bolt clicked back, the door swung open, and—
And into the dusky room there tottered a rather tall, heavily veiled, feminine figure. It did not gaze at the shrinking couple in astoundment. It did not launch into exclamation at its discovery. Instead, it sank weakly down into the nearest chair.
"Oh!" it moaned. "Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"Who—who are you?" huskily demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
"Oh! Oh!" moaned the figure. "Isn't it terrible! Isn't it terrible! But I didn't mean to do it—I didn't mean to do it, Caroline!"
"It's not—not Olivetta?" gasped Mrs. De Peyster.
"It was an accident!" the figure wailed on. "I couldn't help myself. And if you knew what I've gone through to get here, I know you'd forgive me."
Mrs. De Peyster had lifted the veil up over the hat.
"Olivetta! Then—after all—you're not dead!"
"No—if I only were!" sobbed Olivetta.
"Then who is that—that person who's coming here this morning?"
"I don't know!" Then Olivetta's quavering voice grew hard with indignation. "It's somebody who's trying to get a good funeral under false pretenses!"
"But the papers said the body had on my clothes."
"Yes—I suppose it must have had."
"But how—" Mrs. De Peyster recalled their precarious position. "Matilda, lock the door. But, Olivetta, how could it ever, ever have happened?"
"I followed your directions—and got to Paris all right—and everything was going splendid—and I was beginning to enjoy myself—when—when—Oh, Caroline, I—I—"
"You what?" demanded Mrs. De Peyster.
"I lost my purse!" sobbed Olivetta.
"Lost your purse?"
"I left it in a cab when I went to the Louvre. And in it was all my money—my letter of credit—everything!"
"Olivetta!"
"And I didn't dare cable you for more. For if I had sent a cable to you here, it might have betrayed you."
"And what did you do?"
"There was nothing for me to do but to—to—sell some of your gowns."
"Oh!" Mrs. De Peyster was beginning dimly to see the drift of things.
Olivetta's mind wandered to another phase of her tribulations.
"And the price I got for them was a swindle, Caroline. It was—it was a tragedy! For your black chiffon, and your silver satin, and your spangled net—"
"But this person they took for me?" interrupted Mrs. De Peyster.
"Oh, whoever she is, she must have bought one of them. She could have bought it for nothing—and that Frenchman who cheated me—would have doubled his money. And after she bought it—she—she"—Olivetta's voice rang out with hysterical resentment—"she got us all into this trouble by walking into the Seine. It's the most popular pastime in Paris, to walk into the Seine. But why," ended Olivetta with a spiteful burst,—"why couldn't she have amused herself in her own clothes? That's what I want to know!"
"And then? What did you do?" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"When it came out three days later that it was you, I was so—so frightened that I didn't know what to do. I didn't dare deny the report, for that would have been to expose you. And I didn't dare cable to you that it was all a mistake and that I was all right, for that would have been just as bad. Perhaps I might have acted differently, but I—well, I ran away. I crossed to London with your trunks. There I learned that—that they were sending your remains home. I realized I had to get you word somehow, and I realized the only way was for me to come and tell you. So I sold some more of your gowns, and just caught the Mauretania, and here I am."
So ending, Olivetta, as though her bones had melted, subsided into a gelatinous heap of dejection, dabbing her crimson eyes with a handkerchief already saturated with liquid woe.
"It's a relief to know it wasn't you," said Mrs. De Peyster.
"I'm sure—it's kind of you—to say so," snuffled Olivetta gratefully.
"But, aside from your being safe, our situation is unchanged," said Mrs. De Peyster in tremulous, awe-stricken tone. "For that—that person is coming here just the same!"
"I know. The horrid interloper!"
"She may be here any minute," said Mrs. De Peyster. "What are we going to do?"
"We must think of something quick," spoke upMatilda nervously. "For it's almost time for your funeral, ma'am, and after that—"
"I've been thinking all the voyage over," broke in Olivetta. "And I could think of only one plan."
"And that?" Mrs. De Peyster eagerly inquired.
There was an excited, desperate light in Olivetta's flooding eyes.
"Couldn't you manage, in some way, while nobody is looking, to slip into that Frenchwoman's place; and then, before the ceremony was over, you could sit up and say you'd been in a cataleptic fit. Such things have happened. I've read about them."
"Absurd, Olivetta! Quite absurd!" quavered Mrs. De Peyster.
"I dare say it is," agreed Olivetta, subsiding again into her limp misery. "Oh, why did I ever go to Paris! I hate the place!"
"Don't give way; think!" commanded Mrs. De Peyster, who was in a condition not far removed from Olivetta's. "Think, Matilda!"
"Yes, ma'am," said Matilda obediently.
"You think, Caroline," whimpered Olivetta. "You always had such a superior intellect, and were always so equal to every emergency."
Mrs. De Peyster thus reminded of what was expected of her life-long leadership, tried to collect her scattered forces, and sat with pale, drawn, twitching face, staring at her predicament—and her two faithful subjects sat staring at her, waiting the inspired idea for escape that would fall from hernever-failing lips. Moment after moment of deepest silence followed.
At length Mrs. De Peyster spoke.
"There are only two ways. First, for me to go down and disclose myself—"
"But the scandal! The humiliation!" cried Olivetta.
"Yes, that first way will never do," said Mrs. De Peyster. "The second way is not a solution; it is only a means to a possible solution. But before I state the way, I must ask you, Olivetta, if any one saw you come in?"
"There were a number of people coming and going, people preparing for the funeral—but I watched my chance, and used my latch-key, and I'm sure no one connected with the house saw me."
"That is good. If any outsiders saw you, they will merely believe that you also were some person concerned in the funeral. As for my plan, it is simple. You must both slip out of here unseen; you, Olivetta, will, of course, say that you have returned to the city to attend my funeral. From the outside you both must help me."
"Yes. But you, Caroline?" said Olivetta.
"As for me, I must stay here, quietly, just as I have done for the last three weeks. I still have some supplies left. After everything has quieted down, I shall watch my chance, and steal out of the house late some night. That's as far as I have planned, but once away I can work out some explanation forthe terrible mistake and then come home. That seems the only way; that seems the only chance."
"You always were a wonder!" cried Olivetta admiringly.
"Then you agree to the plan?"
"Of course!"
"And you, Matilda?"
"Of course, ma'am."
Thus praised and seconded, Mrs. De Peyster resumed some faint shadow of her accustomed dignity.
"Very well, then. You must both leave here this instant."
Olivetta threw her arms about her cousin's neck.
"Good-bye, Caroline," she quavered. "You really have no hard feelings against me?"
"No, none. You must go!" said Mrs. De Peyster.
"I'm sure, with you in charge, it's all going to come out right!" said the clinging Olivetta hopefully.
"You must really go!" And Mrs. De Peyster pressed her and Matilda toward the door.
But midway to the door the trio halted suddenly. Coming up the stairway was the sound of hurried feet—of many pairs of feet. The footsteps came through the hall. The trio did not breathe. The footsteps paused before the sitting-room door. The confederates gripped each others' arms.
"Are you sure you saw that person come in here?" they heard a voice ask—Jack's voice.
"I'm certain." The voice that answered was Mary's.
"I'll bet it was a sneak thief," said a third voice—Mr. Pyecroft's. "To slip into a house at a funeral, or a wedding, when a lot of people are coming and going—that's one of their oldest tricks." He turned the knob, and finding the door locked, shook it violently. "Open up, in there!" he called.
The three clung to one another for support.
"Better open up!" called a fourth voice—Judge Harvey's. "For we know you're in there!"
Breathless, the trembling conspirators clung yet more desperately.
"But how could she get in?" queried the excited voice of Mary. "I understood that Mrs. De Peyster locked the door before she went away."
"Skeleton key," was Mr. Pyecroft's brief explanation. "Mrs. De Peyster, we three will watch the door to see she doesn't get out—there may have been more than one of her. You go and telephone for a locksmith and the police."
"All right," said Mary.
"It's—it's all over!" breathed Mrs. De Peyster.
"Oh, oh! What shall we ever do?" wailed Olivetta, collapsing into a chair.
"The police!—she mustn't go!" gasped Mrs. De Peyster. "Open the door, Matilda, quick!" Then in a weak, quavering voice she called to her besiegers:—
"Wait!"
After which she wilted away into the nearest chair—which chanced to be directly beneath the awesome, unbending, blue-blue-blooded Mrs. De Peyster of the golden frame, whose proud composure it was beyond things mortal to disturb.
Matilda's shaking hand unlocked the door. Jack lunged in, behind him Mr. Pyecroft and Judge Harvey, and behind them Mary. On Jack's face was a look of menacing justice. But at sight of the trembling turnkey the invading party suddenly halted, and Jack's stern jaw relaxed and almost dropped from its sockets.
"Matilda!" he exclaimed. And from behind him, like a triplicate echo, sounded the others' "Matilda!"
"Good—good-morning, Mr. Jack," quavered Matilda, locking the door again.
Then the four sighted Olivetta.
"What, you, Olivetta!" Jack and Judge Harvey cried in unison.
"Yes, it's I, Jack," she said with an hysterical laugh. "I just thought I'd call in to express—it's no more than is proper, my being her cousin, you know,—to express my sympathy to your mother."
"Your sympathy to my mother?"
"Yes. To—to tell her how—how sorry I am that she's dead," elucidated Olivetta.
A little hand gripped Jack's arm.
"Jack!"