Mrs. De Peyster's terror took suddenly a new turn. For the voice was not the voice of her coachman.
"J-a-c-k!" she breathed wildly.
Jack threw an arm about Mrs. De Peyster's shoulders.
"Ho, ho, that's the time I caught you, Matilda," said he, in teasing reproof. "U'm, I saw those tender little love passages between you and William!"
Mrs. De Peyster stood a pillar of ice.
"Better not let mother find it out," he advised. "If she got on to this! But I'll never tell on you, Matilda." He patted her shoulder assuringly. "So don't worry."
Mrs. De Peyster's lips opened. If her voice sounded unlike Matilda's voice, the difference was unconsciously attributed by Jack to agitation due to his discovery.
"How—how do you come here?" she asked.
"With an almighty lot of trouble!" grumbled he. "Came around the corner an hour ago just in time to see you drive off with William. I've got a key to the inside door, but none to the door in the boarding; and as I knew there was nobody in the house I could rouse up, there was nothing for it but to wait till you and William came back. So we've been sitting out there on a park bench ever since."
There was one particular word of Jack's explanation that drummed against Mrs. De Peyster's ear.