She nodded, and began pulling Mrs.Lee towards the door.
"Oh," panted Mrs.Lee, "anything except being caught up-stairs in their bedrooms! They might think--anything." "Hurry!" hissed Mrs.Van Dorn.

They could hear the footsteps very distinctly, and the cigar-smoke made them want to cough.

Holding their silk skirts like twisted ropes around them so they should not rustle, still clinging closely one to the other, the two women began slowly moving, inch by inch, through the upper hall, towards the back stairs.

These they descended in safety, and emerged on the lower hall.
They were looking for a rear door, with the view of a stealthy egress and a skirting of the bushes on the lawn unobserved until they should gain the shelter of the carriage, when there was a movement at their backs, and a voice observed, "Good-afternoon, ladies," and they turned, and there was Captain Arthur Carroll.

He was a man possibly well over forty, possibly older than that, but his face was as smooth as a boy's, and he was a man of great stature, with nevertheless a boyish cant to his shoulders.