beyond. Another step and he was on the stairs. There, for the moment at
least, he was safe from detection; for the staircase faced the front
door, and Mrs. Ellsworth must approach from the back. She would come to
the door of the dining room, and, expecting only the girl, would not
think of spying at the foot of the stairs.

Besides, there was no light in the corridor except that which streamed
through the reddish globes of the chandelier above the dining table. If
only the man did not stumble on his way up, the situation might be saved.

He was alert, deft, quick-witted, and light of foot as a panther. Who but
he would have remembered at such a moment to snatch up a compromising hat
and take it with him?

Annesley stood still, rigid in every muscle, fighting to control her
heart-throbs, that she might be ready to answer a flood of questions. She
dared not even let her thoughts rush ahead. It was all she could do to
face the present. The rest must take care of itself.

_He_ had said that she would "make a good actress." Now was the moment
to prove that he had judged her truly! She began to unfasten one of her
long gray gloves. A button was loose. She must give it a few stitches
to-morrow. Strange that there should be room for such a thought in her
mind. But she caught at it gladly.

It calmed her as she heard a shuffling tread of slippered feet along the
corridor; and she forced herself not to look up until she was conscious
that a shapeless figure in a dressing gown filled the doorway, like a
badly painted portrait too large for its frame.