Very early after dark, he had watched his opportunity while Mrs.
Quarles was scolding in the kitchen, had slipped shoeless and unperceived, from his pantry into the housekeeper's room, and locked himself securely in the shower bath.

Hapless wight! it was very little after six yet, and there he must stand till twelve or so: his foresight had not calculated this, and the devil had already begun to cheat him.
But he would go through with it now; no flinching, though his rabbit back is breaking with fatigue, and his knocked knees totter with exhaustion, and his haggard eyes swim dizzily, and his bad heart is failing him for fear.
Yes, fear, and with good reason too for fear; "nothing easier, nothing safer," said his black adviser; how easily for bodily pains, how safely for chances of detection, was he getting at the promised crock of gold! "Mr.Jennings! Mr.Simon! where in the world was Mr.Jennings ?" nobody knew; he must have gone out somewhere.

Strange, too--and left his hat and great-coat.
Here's a general for an ambuscade; Oh, Simon, Simon! you have had the whole day to think of it--how is it that both you and your dark friend overlooked in your calculations the certainty of search, and the chance of a discovery?
The veriest school-boy, when he hid himself, would hide his hat.

I am half afraid that you are in that demented state, which befits the wretch ordained to perish.
But where is Mr.Jennings?
that was the continued cry for four agonizing hours of dread and difficulty.

Sarah, the still-room maid, was sitting at her work, unluckily in Mrs.Quarles's room; she had come in shortly after Simon's secret entry; there she sat, and he dared not stir.