Only seven days thus far.  Three more months of this!

Three ... more ... months!...

But at length she slept; slept deeply, for she had the gift of sleep in its perfection; slept a complete and flawless oblivion.  So that when she awoke Saturday, refreshed, and glanced blinking about from her thin pillow she did not at first remember where she was.  This low room, four by seven feet, with a narrow bed penitentially hard, a stationary wash-basin, a row of iron clothes-hooks, a foot-high oblong window above her head—­what was it?  How had she come here?  And had any one ever before lived in such a cell?

Then memory came flooding back.  This was her second maid’s room.  She was Angelica Simpson Jones, sister of Matilda, a poor, diffident creature with defective hearing and pitifully disfigured face.  And in the house were Mr. Pyecroft, and Jack and Mary, and Judge Harvey was a frequent visitor.  And besides these, there were all the other sources of danger!

She was now poignantly awake.

While she was still in this process of realization, there was a soft knock at her door and a whispered, “It’s Matilda, ma’am,” at her keyhole.  She unlocked the door, admitted Matilda, and crept back into her second maid’s bed.  They gazed at each other a moment without speaking.  Matilda’s face was gray with awe and helpless woe.

They whispered about their predicament.  What should they do?  Should they flee again?—­and how?—­and where?—­and what good would flight do them, especially since Mr. Pyecroft might once more follow?  Twice they had leaped from the frying-pan, and each time had landed in a fire hotter than the one preceding.  A third flight might drop them into a fire worse even than this in which they now sizzled.

And as for the specific plan which had brought them back—­for Mrs. De Peyster to steal unnoticed into her suite and hide there—­that seemed impossible of achievement with all these people circulating about the house, especially that all-observing Mr. Pyecroft.  If Mr. Pyecroft should catch her in one suspicious move, then his quick mind would deduce the rest, and everything would be up—­everything!

There was, of course, yet another way—­to give up and disclose her identity herself.  But she was now far, far too deeply involved:  to confess and thus by her own act bring limitless and appalling humiliation on herself, this was unthinkable!  She must go on, on, blindly on—­with the desperate hope that in some manner now unseen she might in the end disentangle herself and come out of the affair undiscovered and with dignity untarnished.  The two were still whispering over their predicament, when at the door sounded another knock, loud and confident.  They caught at each other.  The knocking was repeated.

“Who’s that?” Matilda asked, at Mrs. De Peyster’s prompting.

“It’s Archibald,” answered a bland voice.

“Ma’am, shall I let him in?” breathed Matilda.