My seal-skin hat and jacket lay ready to my hand in a drawer; but I could find no gloves; I could not wait for gloves.

Already there were ominous sounds overhead, as if the servant had dispatched her brief business there, and was about to come down.

I had not time to put on thicker boots; and it was perhaps essential to the success of my flight to steal down the stairs in the soft, velvet slippers I was wearing.

I stepped as lightly as I could--lightly but very swiftly, for the servant was at the top of the upper flight, while I had two to descend.

I crept past the drawing-room door.