Several lifeless minutes dragged by.
A little before, during a silence between Judge Harvey and Mrs.De Peyster, the study door had slowly opened and there had appeared the reconnoitering face of the entrapped Mr.Bradford.Though their attention had apparently been too centered on each other for them to be observant of what happened beyond their very contracted horizon, that had seemed to him no promising moment to try for an escape.

With high curiosity, eyes amused and alight with delectable danger, he had studied Judge Harvey a moment, and then the duchess-like Mrs.De Peyster in her most magnificent towering attitude of wrathful hauteur.
Then quickly and soundlessly the heavy door had closed.
Now again the heavy, sound-proof door of the study began to open--noiselessly, inch by inch.

Again the light, humorous, but shrewd, very shrewd, face of Mr.Bradford appeared in the crack.

This time the face did not withdraw.

He watched the bowed figure of the solitary Mrs.De Peyster for several moments; considered; measured the distance to the door of escape; evaluated the silencing quality of the deep library rug; then slipped through the door, closed it, and with tread as soft as a bird's wing against the air started across the room.
At Mrs.De Peyster's back curiosity checked him and he turned his whimsical face down upon the motionless figure.