Part 15 (1/2)

He drew back amazed.

”What's the matter?” he demanded.

Mrs. De Peyster searched frantically for the keyhole to the inner door.

”Matilda, I'm not the man to take that!” he declared irefully. ”What do you mean?”

”Go! Go!” she gasped.

He drew back wrathfully, but with an awful dignity.

”Very well, Miss Simpson. But I'm not a man that forgives. You'll be sorry for this!”

As he started stiffly away Mrs. De Peyster found the keyhole. She turned her key, opened the door, and closed it quickly behind her.

Gasping, s.h.i.+vering, she groped in the dusky hall until she found a chair. Into this she sank, half fainting, and sat shaking with astoundment, with horror, with wrath.

Wrath swiftly became the ruling emotion. It began to fulminate. She would discharge William! She would send him flying the very next morning, bag and baggage!

Then an appalling thought shot through her. She could not discharge William!

She could not discharge William, because she was not there to discharge him! She was upon the Atlantic highroad, speeding for Europe, and would not be home for many a month! And during all those months, whenever she dared appear, she would be subject to William's loverly attention!

She sat rigid with the horror of this new development. But she had not yet had time to realize its full possibilities--for hardly a minute had pa.s.sed since she had entered--when she heard a key slide into the lock of the front door and saw a vague figure enter the unlighted hall. She arose in added terror. Had that William come back to--

”Oh, there you are, Matilda,” softly called a voice, and the vague figure came toward her.

Mrs. De Peyster's terror took suddenly a new turn. For the voice was not the voice of her coachman.

”J-a-c-k!” she breathed wildly.

Jack threw an arm about Mrs. De Peyster's shoulders.

”Ho, ho, that's the time I caught you, Matilda,” said he, in teasing reproof. ”U'm, I saw those tender little love pa.s.sages between you and William!”

Mrs. De Peyster stood a pillar of ice.

”Better not let mother find it out,” he advised. ”If she got on to this! But I'll never tell on you, Matilda.” He patted her shoulder a.s.suringly. ”So don't worry.”

Mrs. De Peyster's lips opened. If her voice sounded unlike Matilda's voice, the difference was unconsciously attributed by Jack to agitation due to his discovery.

”How--how do you come here?” she asked.

”With an almighty lot of trouble!” grumbled he. ”Came around the corner an hour ago just in time to see you drive off with William.

I've got a key to the inside door, but none to the door in the boarding; and as I knew there was n.o.body in the house I could rouse up, there was nothing for it but to wait till you and William came back. So we've been sitting out there on a park bench ever since.”

There was one particular word of Jack's explanation that drummed against Mrs. De Peyster's ear.

”We?” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”We?” Then she noticed that another shadowy figure had drawn nearer in the dark. ”Who--who's that?”

”Mary,” was Jack's prompt and joyous answer.