When she had a little organised the helpless body of servants and told them as far as she could think what to do--which was for half of them at least to go back to bed and keep quiet; when she had sent a man she could trust to make inquiries about the _Stella_ at the pier, and another to fetch a doctor for the woman who considered herself to be dying, though she was, in fact, not hurt at all, and who made a diversion for which Katherine was thankful, she went indoors with Mrs. Simmons, the housekeeper, who was a person of some sense and not helpless in an emergency as the others were. And Mrs. Simmons had really something to tell. She informed Katherine as they went in together through the cold house, where the candles they carried made faintly visible the confusion of rooms abandoned for the night, with the ashes of last night’s fires in the grate, and last night’s occupations in every chair carelessly pushed aside, and table heaped with newspapers and trifles, that she had been misdoubting as something was up with Stevens at least. Stevens was the point at which the story revealed itself to Mrs. Simmons. She had been holding her head very high, the little minx. She had been going on errands and carrying letters as nobody knew where they were to; and yesterday was that grand she couldn’t contain herself, laughing and smiling to herself and dressed up in her very best. She had gone out quite early after breakfast on the day of the ball to get some bit of ribbon she wanted, but never came back till past twelve, when she came in the brougham with Miss Stella, and laughing so with her mistress in her room (you were out, Miss Katherine) as it wasn’t right for a maid to be carrying on like that. And out again as soon as you young ladies was gone to the ball, and never come back, not so far as Mrs. Simmons knew. “Oh, I’ve misdoubted as there was something going on,” the housekeeper said. Katherine, who was shivering in the dreadful chill of the house in the dead of night, in the confusion of this sudden trouble, was too much depressed and sick at heart to ask why she had not been told of these suspicions. And then her father’s voice calling to her was audible coming down the stairs. He stood at the head of the staircase, a strange figure in his dressing-gown and night-cap, with a candle held up in one hand and his old gun embraced in the other arm. “Who’s there?” he cried, staring down in the darkness. “Who’s there? Have you got ’em?--have you got ’em? Damn the fellows, and you too, for keeping me waitin’!” He was foaming at the mouth, or at least sending forth jets of moisture in his excitement. Then he gave vent to a sort of broken shout--“Kath-i-rine!” astonishment and sudden terror driving him out of familiarity into her formal name.