On Tuesdays and Thursdays her father brought from town a bundle of papers which he usually sat up with until midnight or even one o’clock. Then he and Pinney often walked up and down the terrace before the main entrance and smoked for twenty minutes. Peter went away on a Monday. On Tuesday night there were no guests. At dinner were only the family--her mother, her father and herself, her mother’s secretary, Miss Cleets, Mrs. Lambert, the housekeeper, and Pinney. As they sat at table Beatrice revolved her project, decided she would risk a slight change in it that would spare her a night outdoors and the danger of being seen as she entered in the early morning. After dinner she and her mother and the housekeeper and Pinney played bridge until half past ten. By eleven o’clock everyone was gone from downstairs but her father, Pinney, and two servants. In her room in the dark she waited until half past eleven, then changed to outing dress, descended and slipped into the gray salon. Its windows had been locked for the night. She unlocked one, opened it, went out upon the broad, stone veranda, closed the window behind her. The sky was fortunately overcast, or she would have been in full view, as the moon was on that side of the house. She crept along in the shadow of wall and shrubbery until she was in the woods. There she struck into a path and fled down the hill toward the boathouse. When she was about half way she remembered the outside watchmen--remembered that the boathouse was one of their stations. It would be folly to risk running into them; she must make the trip to the studio on foot by rounding the end of the lake--full five miles instead of less than three. At the shortest she would be gone, not about two hours, but more than three. So, it was useless to think of getting in before her father went to bed and the alarms were switched on. Instead of hurry there was time to waste--all the time before five in the morning. She strolled along, taking the longest way and keeping entirely clear of the watchmen’s routes among the several groups of widely separated outbuildings--the stables and garage, the water, lighting and laundry plants, the kennels, the hothouses, the farm and dairy buildings. A fine, soft rain fell, but it did not trouble her as the foliage was now--early May--so thick that it was almost a roof. When she came out of the woods near the studio the rain had ceased and the moon, never so thickly veiled that it did not give her light, sailed in a clear path among the separating clouds. She looked at the watch on her wrist; it was nearly one o’clock. “I came too quickly,” she said. “I must do better going back.” She found the studio door open, as she expected; there were no tramps in that region, and Red Hill was guarded only because New York thieves might plan an expedition expressly to plunder it. She dropped the hasp from the staple, pushed the big door open.