"I--I--I," began Mildred blankly. She turned her head and looked at the strong-room door, before which James stood on guard, waiting the return of the coachman with the policemen; then at the group of women-servants huddled on the stairs; last of all in her friend's face, white and anxious, and overflowing with sympathy. "You understand me, don't you, Mil?" Bertha repeated gently, and at that Mildred's tense attitude relaxed. She put her hand to her head as one awakening from a dream, and clutching Bertha by the arms, burst into a flood of tears. "Take me away!" she sobbed; "take me away!" and Bertha led her forward into the breakfast-room, followed by a murmur of sympathy from the onlookers. James had found time to give a brief account of what had taken place to his fellow-servants, and they were filled with wonder and admiration. "To come down all by herself, in the dead of night--that child! She is brave and no mistake! I always liked her--she has such pretty ways of her own,--but I never thought she would come out like this. She seemed so careless-like! Poor child, to see her beating that gong! She didn't know what she was doing. It's enough to upset anyone. To fasten that heavy door herself!" Then the conversation took another turn, and busied itself in denouncing Cecile and her villainies. "The deceitful, wicked creature! That's the end of her smooth tongue and her deceitful ways! Making excuses to poke about all the rooms in turn, and pretending to help when it was nothing else than curiosity and wicked scheming! I saw her with a letter of the master's in her hand one evening, and she said she had been sent to find it. So likely, when he had half a dozen servants of his own in the house! Now she will have a spell in prison for a change--not the first one either, or I'm mistaken. To think, if it hadn't been for Miss Mildred, she would have been off with the pick of the valuables in the house!" So on and so on, while within the breakfast-room the heroine of the occasion was being soothed and petted to her heart's content, Miss Turner and the two girls hanging round her, and vieing with each other as to who could do most for her comfort. In spite of her agitation, however, it was Mildred who was the first to think of the old lady upstairs, and her quick "Who is with Lady Sarah?" made the governess start in compunction. "Oh, my dear, I am so glad you reminded me! I am ashamed to say I forgot all about her. One is so accustomed to depend upon Cecile." She hurried away, sending the motherly old cook to take her place beside the girls, while the cook in her turn despatched the kitchen-maid to provide refreshment for the household. So it came to pass that at three o'clock in the morning several tea-parties were being held in The Deanery, the guests thereat presenting a motley appearance in their anomalous garments.