Mary rose and slipped on a dressing-gown. Candle in hand, she opened the door. And, surely enough, she was not mistaken. A dark figure was there, a figure that muttered and crooned, as if seeking something. Mary approached the intruder. "Patience!" she exclaimed, "what are you doing here? And how did you get into the house? I thought that you had returned to the dower house with her ladyship." Patience looked up and smiled in a weak, watery kind of way. She was not in the least afraid, and there was just a suggestion of slyness in her aged, faded eyes. "I forgot something, my dearie," she said. "There was something that I made up my mind to do and then I forgot clean about it. It was one of my good nights, and my head was as clear as yours. Her ladyship told me everything. But she didn't tell you everything because she dared not. Ay, we are two sinful old women for certain." "Never mind about that," Mary said soothingly, "I daresay it will all come right in the morning. But you should not have come here like this. You had better lie down on the couch in my dressing-room and go to sleep." "But there was something that I wanted to do," the old woman whined. "I thought of a way of saving you, of saving everybody. And then it clean went out of my head." Patience wrung her hands and the tears stood in her faded eyes. She appeared to be deeply distressed about something. She stopped suddenly, and stood alert and listening. "Did you hear that?" she demanded. "They are in the kitchen. All three of them together! I saw them just now, but they did not see me. They were laughing together, and one of them had gold, which he was dividing with the rest. And they have come here to bring disgrace on this noble house. And there was I standing close by with a way to get rid of them in my head. . . . There was something that I wanted, and I couldn't find it. So I came to look, and I forget what it was. Such a beautiful plan, too, so very simple and yet perfect. My dearie, can't you help me to think what it was? If you can only help me we shall get rid of these men, and the trouble and disgrace will vanish, never to return. It isn't often that I get a good idea in this poor head of mine, and to forget it like that is cruel, cruel!" Patience wept a little, and began to wring her hands again. Mary's old nurse had been in this state now for some years, though there were times, for longer or shorter periods, when she was in possession of all her faculties. She was not in the least dangerous; as a privileged old servant she had been allowed to wander from one house to the other at her pleasure. But Mary had never seen her so wild and excited before, and the thing troubled her. "What do you know of our trouble?" she asked. "Her ladyship told me. It was something to do with some money that Sir George owed to Mr. Mayfield, and which those men had come to get. And her ladyship could not help you, for Mr. Vincent has made her sell all her jewels already."