“Please, Mr. Jack, please,” imploringly began Matilda, and could utter nothing further.

“Great God!” Jack burst out in exasperation.  “Not that I’d object ordinarily to your relatives being here, Matilda.  But running this place just now as a hotel, who knows but it may let out the fact that we’re here!”

Mr. Pyecroft’s eyebrows went up—­ever so little.

“Ah, I understand.  You wish your presence in the house to be a secret.”

“Of course!  Hasn’t Matilda told you?”

“I only just arrived.  She hasn’t had time.  But of course she would have done so.  You are—­ah”—­his tone was delicate—­“evading the police?”

“The police!  We don’t care a hang about the police, though, of course, we don’t want them to know.  It’s the infernal reporters we care about.”

“The reporters?” softly pursued Mr. Pyecroft.

“Yes, but one reporter in particular—­a beast by the name of Mayfair, I’ve had a tip that he suspects something; already he’s tried to get into the house as a gas-meter inspector.”

At the mention of that indomitable, remorseless, undeceivable newsgatherer, Mayfair, and the possibility of his gaining entrance into the house, Mrs. De Peyster experienced a new shudder.

“What would be the harm if Mr. Mayfair did get in?” Imperceptibly prodded Mr. Pyecroft.  “He would merely write a piece about you for his paper.”

“And his confounded piece, or the main facts in it, would be cabled to Europe!”

“Ah, I think I see,” said Mr. Pyecroft.  “Mrs. De Peyster would read about your marriage in the Paris ‘Herald’ or some other European paper.  You do not wish your mother to know of your marriage—­yet.”

“I supposed Matilda had already told you that,” said Jack.

“Ah, so that is why you are here in hiding,” said Mr. Pyecroft, very softly, chiefly to himself; and his eyes had another momentary flash, only brighter than any heretofore, and his mouth twitched upward, and he pleasantly rubbed his hands.

At that moment, from the stairway, came the sound of descending steps.  Jack and Mary appeared undisturbed.  Mr. Pyecroft became taut, though no one could have observed a change, Mrs. De Peyster quivered with yet deeper apprehension.  Would the trials and tribulations and Pharaonic plagues never cease descending on her!

Matilda gazed wildly at Jack.  “Who’s that?” she quavered.

“Only Uncle Bob,” Jack answered carelessly.

Only Uncle Bob!  Mrs. De Peyster, in her dim corner, tried to shrivel up into yet darker obscurity.  Breathlessly she felt herself upon the precipitous edge of ultimate horror.  For Judge Harvey—­Judge Harvey of all persons—­to be the one to discover her amid her humiliating circumstances!

Dimly she heard Jack talk on, explaining in casual tone:  “You know, Matilda, Uncle Bob has always had the general oversight of the house when it’s been closed during summers; and he’s always made it his business to drop in occasionally to see that everything’s all right.  I got him word we were here, and he dropped in this evening to call on us—­and along came this awful rain and we coaxed him to stay the night.  Uncle Bob and you are lucky, Matilda, you can both come and go without arousing any suspicion.”