Part III

The departure of the District Attorney and Miss Coates left Vera
free to consider how serious, if she carried out her threat, the
consequences might be. But of this chance she did not avail
herself. Instead, with nervous zeal she began to prepare for her
masquerade. It was as though her promise to Winthrop to abandon
her old friends had filled her with remorse, and that she now,
by an extravagance of loyalty, was endeavoring to make amends.

At nine o'clock, with the Vances, she arrived at the house of
Mr. Hallowell. Already, to the same place, a wagon had carried
the cabinet, a parlor organ, and a dozen of those camp chairs
that are associated with house weddings and funerals; and while,
in the library, Vance and Mannie arranged these to their liking,
on the third floor Vera, with Mrs. Vance, waited for that moment
to arrive when Vance considered her entrance would be the most
effective.

This entrance was to be made through the doorway that opened
from the hall on the second story into the library. To the right
of this door, in an angle of two walls, was the cabinet, and on
the left, the first of the camp chairs. These had been placed in
a semicircle that stretched across the room, and ended at the
parlor organ. The door from Mr. Hallowell's bedroom opened
directly upon the semicircle at the point most distant from the
cabinet. In the centre of the semicircle Vance had placed the
invalid's arm chair.