Her speculations on this point were both indefinite and short-lived. She thought her hearing must have deceived her; a hasty look round the room discovered nothing superficially out of place, and the little gilt clock on her dressing-table told her that she was already seven minutes behind time. She delayed only for one hasty survey of the flushed face with star-bright eyes that the mirror revealed, and then with an inarticulate reflection that, after all, one could hardly blame Mr. Trego very severely, Sally caught up her long dark cloak and made off down the corridor, past the head of the main staircase, to the door of Mrs. Gosnold's boudoir. A voice sharp with vexation answered her knock; she entered to find its owner fuming, and not only that, but surprisingly _en déshabillé_. The dress of Queen Elizabeth was gone, and Mrs. Gosnold stood on the threshold of her bedchamber clothed simply in undergarments and impatience. "Why are you so late?" she demanded. "I was beginning to be afraid . . . But thank Heaven you're here! You very nearly spoiled everything, but there's still time. Come in." She led the way into her bedchamber, and without acknowledging Sally's murmur of startled apology, waved an impetuous hand at her. "Quick!" she demanded. "Get out of that costume at once!" Her maid was already at Sally's side, fumbling with pins and hooks, before the girl recovered from her astonishment sufficiently to seek enlightenment. "But what's the matter? What have I done? What--?" "Nothing much--merely almost upset the applecart for me!" Mrs. Gosnold laughed in grim humour, her own fingers busily aiding the maid's. "Come, step out of that skirt, please. If you'd been two minutes later . . . I'm simply going to pretend I'm you for ten minutes or so," she explained, lowering the shimmering gray Quaker skirt over her own shoulders. "I'm going to meet Walter Savage in your stead." "But--" "But me no buts. I heard enough there at the window, before you came on the scene, to make me very suspicious of that young rascal, even more so than I had every right to be from what you had told me. Now I mean to learn the rest, find out precisely what devilment he's up to." "He only wants to tell me--" "There's nothing he can possibly have to say to you that he couldn't have said a hundred times tonight in as many corners of the house and grounds without a soul hearing a word or thinking it odd that two young people should be exchanging confidences--and both of you masked into the bargain." Sally, now entirely divested of her masquerade, resignedly shrugged herself into the black silk cloak for lack of a better negligee. "I don't understand what you can suspect," she said dubiously. "I don't suspect anything; but I'm going to find out everything." "But aren't you afraid--" "Of what, pray'?" Mrs. Gosnold demanded with appropriate asperity. "I mean, don't you think he'll know?"