“I tell you, don’t let that impostor in!” repeated the frantic Olivetta.

The three continued their interchange of helpless gaze.

“Pardon me if I seem to intrude,” spoke up the even voice of Mr. Pyecroft.

Swiftly, but without appearing to hurry, he stepped to Mrs. De Peyster’s writing-desk, and began running through the pages of the telephone book.  With terrified apprehension, Mrs. De Peyster watched him:  what—­what was that terrible man going to do?

The telephone was now in his hand, the receiver at his ear.

“Central, give me Broad 4900....  Is this the French Line?  Then connect me with the manager....  This the manager of the French Line?...  I am speaking for Mr. Jack De Peyster, son of Mrs. De Peyster,—­you know.  Please give orders to the proper authorities to have Mrs. De Peyster held at the dock.  Or if she has left, stop her at all cost.  There must be no mistake!  Further orders will follow.  Understand?...  Thank you very much.  Good-bye.”

He turned about.

“It will be all right,” he said quietly.

With a wild stare at him, Mrs. De Peyster sank back in her chair and closed her eyes.

“She’s fainted!” cried Mary.  “Her smelling-salts!”

“A glass of water!” exclaimed Jack.

“No, no,” breathed Mrs. De Peyster.

But the pair had darted away, Mary into the bedroom, Jack into the bathroom.  From the bathroom came a sudden, jangling din like the sheet-iron thunder of the stage.

Mary reappeared, fresh amazement on her face.

“Somebody’s been using the bedroom!  The bed’s not made, and your clothes are all about!”

The next moment Jack rushed in behind her.

“What a stack of empty tin cans I kicked into in the bathroom!  What the deuce has been going on here?”

Mrs. De Peyster looked weakly, hopelessly, at Olivetta.

“There’s no use trying to keep it up any longer.  We—­we might as well confess.  You tell them, Olivetta.”

But Olivetta protested into her dripping handkerchief that she never, never could.  So it fell to Mrs. De Peyster herself to be the historian of her plans and misadventures—­and she was so far reduced that even the presence of Mr. Pyecroft made no difference to her; and as for Mr. Pyecroft, when the truth of the affair flashed upon him, that wide, flexible mouth twisted upward into its whimsicalest smile—­but the next instant his face was gravity itself.  With every word she grew less and less like the Mrs. De Peyster of M. Dubois’s masterpiece.  At the close of the long narrative, made longer by frequent outbursts of misery, she could have posed for a masterpiece of humiliation.

“It’s all been bad enough,” she moaned at the end; “what’s happened is all bad enough, but think what’s yet to come!  It’s all coming out!  Everybody will be laughing at me—­oh!—­oh!—­oh!—­”

Mrs. De Peyster was drifting away into inarticulate lamentations, when there came a tramping sound upon the stairway.  She drew herself up.