“Well, I ain’t a-goin’ to!” she muttered hurriedly as she disappeared through the door. Arriving home something like an hour later, Mrs. Temple approached the mansion from the rear. She had worked herself into a frenzy of fear that Mr. Haworth was in danger, and she wanted to investigate without being seen. Finding herself at last in one of the rear passages of the house, she stood listening. Low voices could be heard from somewhere in the front. With the utmost caution she made her way across the kitchen and through the butler’s pantry to the swing door opening into the room on the left. But the conversation within suddenly ceased and she began a hasty retreat. Hearing the door she’d just left swing open again (it had a very decided creak) she made for the servants’ stairway—which opened off the kitchen. There was a door at the bottom of these stairs which Mrs. Temple hastily closed after her as she fled, and when she paused at the top she heard the thud of heavy objects being shoved against it and realized that she was trapped; for the only other way down was the main stairway to the entrance hall, which was in plain sight if anyone took the trouble to look. And she very well knew that some one would take that trouble. She’d heard his voice in the room on the left in the brief second she was at the swing door. So she’d have to stay there until the gang of criminals and thugs, as she classified the men in the front room with Haworth, was gone. She brought a chair to the top of the main stairway and sat there, ready at the first alarming sound to rush down and fight like a wildcat, or run for the police, or do anything to rescue and protect the one to whom she was so desperately devoted. But no cry of distress reached her—only the low murmur of subdued voices. It was early afternoon (she’d been waiting somewhere near two hours) when she saw the men come out into the entrance hall below her. There were three of them—the Pentecost creature with two confederates. Of course they were confederates. What else could they be? Haworth came out with them. She heard the taxi the men had waiting for them drive away, and she saw Mr. Haworth return to the room on the left. At this she crept noiselessly down the main stairway and back through the rear hall. But she’d hardly more than reached the kitchen when Haworth came in through the butler’s pantry and stopped at the door. “Oh, you came back?” he said. “I hope ye ain’t a-goin’ ter take it hard, Mr. Haworth,” the old woman begged, “but I couldn’t no more wait there an’ you left here alone with them thugs or card sharps or whatever they be, than I could fly! I knew they’d be comin’ the minute ye sent me away like that an’ told me to wait—an’ how could I, Mr. Haworth—how could I stay settin’ there in that factory place, not knowin’ what might be happenin’ to ye?” “No matter, Mrs. Temple.”