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Annie spent the next hour or two on the terrace – where she pretended to read – and looked at the different visitors as they came in and out of the hotel. She went up in good time to her bedroom, and Parker, who was always exceedingly particular with regard to the dress of both the young ladies, arrayed her on this occasion in a dress of the softest, palest, most becoming blue crêpe-de-Chine. This demi-toilet, with its elbow-sleeves and lace falling away from the young, round throat, was absolutely the most becoming garment Annie could possibly wear. It seemed to add to the blue of her blue eyes and to bring out the golden shades of her lovely hair.

She felt as she entered the great salle-à-manger that she was looked at very nearly as much as Lady Lushington and Mabel. They had a pleasant little dinner in one of the great bay windows, which commanded a glorious view of the Alps; and during dinner Lady Lushington was her most charming self, and continued to be exceedingly friendly to Annie.

It was not until the meal had nearly come to an end that a remark was made which caused both girls to feel slightly uncomfortable. Lady Lushington turned to Mabel.

“My dear Mabel,” she said, “I am really rather annoyed.”

“What about, auntie?”

“Oh, please don’t be annoyed this glorious evening,” interrupted Annie; “we are so happy and you are so sweet. I thought perhaps we might have coffee on the terrace; I know the very table where we can sit and we can watch the moon sailing up from behind that great mountain – I cannot possibly remember its name; I am not good at all at names.”

“We will have coffee on the terrace if I wish it, Annie Brooke. In the meantime I want to say what I have to say.”

No one knew better when she was snubbed than Annie. She immediately retired into her shell and looked very modest and pretty – something like a daisy when it droops its head.

“I have been asking Parker about the jewels,” continued Lady Lushington, turning to her niece, “and she assures me you did not give her the necklace to put away with the other things.” Mabel coloured.

Annie said at once, “Mabel dear, did you not put it into the tray of your trunk? You know I asked you to be sure to give it to Parker.”

“I was in such a hurry at the last minute, I had not time; but it is quite safe in my trunk,” said Mabel.

“Well, I hope it is,” said Lady Lushington; “but it is a foolish and dangerous thing to do; and, Annie, I thought you would see that Parker had the necklace. However, no matter now; you will give it, Mabel, to Parker to-night. It is not safe to have valuable jewels lying about in these hotels. You know that there is a notice in every room that the proprietors will not consider themselves liable if they are lost. No one can tamper with the jewel-case, however, when it is under Parker’s care.”

The girls murmured something, and the subject was dropped. They then all went out on the terrace. They had not been there more than a minute or two when a lady was seen to emerge from a shadowy corner and advance towards Lady Lushington. There was an affectionate interchange of greetings, and Annie whispered to Mabel to come away.

“How tiresome!” said Mabel. “When once Aunt Henrietta gets hold of an old friend she is good for nothing. Now she won’t take us anywhere and we shall be as dull as ditch-water.”

“Oh, nonsense, Mabel! We will make friends on our own account. What a good thing the friend is not Mrs Ogilvie!”

“How can you tell that she isn’t?” said Mabel. “Why, of course she isn’t; Mrs Ogilvie’s name is not on the visitors’ list.”

The girls paced up and down.

“I got a great fright at dinner,” said Mabel after a pause; “but you helped me out of it as usual.”

“Yes; but it was an awkward moment,” said Annie. “I didn’t for a moment suppose that your aunt would keep on thinking of that necklace. I hope she won’t insist on seeing it. I am afraid, after all, even though Mrs Ogilvie is not here, we must manage to lose it.”

“Oh! I shall go wild if I have to go through that sort of thing,” was Mabel’s answer.

“Besides,” continued Annie, “the friend your aunt met may be another of those women who adore looking at bargains and old-fashioned gems. I am certain we shall have to lose it; there is no other possible way out.”

“And I know I shall die in the process,” said Mabel. “I feel myself quite wasting away.”

“You are too silly,” said Annie. “You look as bonny as ever you can look, and there isn’t a scrap of any appearance of decline about you.”

It was at that moment that Lady Lushington’s voice was heard calling in the darkness, “Mabel, come here!”

“Now what does she want?” said Mabel.

“Come with me, for goodness’ sake, Annie! I can’t walk a single step of this tortuous way without your help.”

“Really, Mabel,” said Annie, “you are using quite a poetic expression. Your character of a poetess will be established, my dear, if you continue to speak in that vein.”

“Mabel!” said her aunt.

“I will help you through your tortuous way,” laughed Annie; and the girls advanced arm-in-arm.

“Mabel,” said Lady Lushington, “I have the pleasure of introducing you to my dear friend Mrs Ogilvie.”

Poor Mabel gave a start; but for Annie’s supporting arm, big as she was, she might have fallen.

The terrace was lighted with Japanese lanterns, which swayed slightly in the faint breeze. These cast lights here and there, and immense shadows in other directions. Annie and Mabel had now got into the light. Lady Lushington moved a step or two, bringing Mrs Ogilvie forward as she did so, and the four figures were all distinctly visible.

“Which of these girls is your niece, my dear Henrietta?” said Mrs Ogilvie.

“This is my niece, Susan,” was Lady Lushington’s response; and Mabel felt her hand clasped by a kindly but firm palm. She looked into the eyes of a tall woman with a pleasant expression of face, who was becomingly dressed in black lace.

This lady had hair turning grey, and a face which did not show the slightest trace of being made up. She might have been fifty years of age.

“I must also introduce you,” said Lady Lushington, “to our little friend Miss Brooke. Miss Brooke: Mrs Ogilvie.”

Annie’s hand was also held for a minute, and Annie instantly remembered that she had sat next this lady when she was enjoying her tea on the terrace, and that Mrs Ogilvie had seen her pay for her own meal. But she could not allow this trifling circumstance to worry her on the present occasion; there were too many other rocks ahead.

“We will go into the hall in a minute or two,” said Lady Lushington; “and then, Mabel, you will go upstairs, please, and bring down the pearl necklace which I bought at Interlaken. Mrs Ogilvie is so much interested in antique gems and old settings that I was telling her about it.”

“You sometimes do pick up good things,” said the lady, “in out-of-the-way places. From what you tell me, Henrietta, you seem to have hit upon a bargain.”

“I must be just,” said Lady Lushington. “I should never even have heard of the necklace but for this dear, clever little girl, Miss Brooke. It was she who discovered it.”

Mrs Ogilvie glanced for a minute at Annie. Annie’s eyes were raised and fixed on the good lady’s face.

“How lovely it is here!” said Mrs Ogilvie after a pause. “I think the peace of nature the most soothing thing in all the world. Don’t you, Miss Brooke?”

Annie said “Yes,” uttering the word with a little gasp. She was wondering in her heart of hearts what to do next. Whatever happened, she must rush upstairs with Mabel. How could she have overlooked Mrs Ogilvie’s name in the visitors’ list? But Mrs Ogilvie’s next words explained the circumstance.

“We too are fresh arrivals,” she said. “We must have come by the very next train after you, Henrietta.”

“Oh dear!” thought Annie. “If you only would have stayed away! How one does get pursued by all sorts of contrary influences when one is just hoping that one is out of the wood! The peace of nature indeed! Much peace it gives to me.”

“It is getting a little chilly here,” said Lady Lushington. “I think, if you don’t mind, Susan, we will go indoors. – Girls, you can follow us in a few minutes.”

Annie gave a deep sigh of relief. Not a word about the necklace. Perhaps there might be a few hours’ reprieve. Perhaps it would not be mentioned again until the morning.

The two elderly ladies moved slowly together into the house, and the girls were left alone.

“Didn’t I tell you,” said Mabel, “that she would be sure to be here? Isn’t it just like our bad luck?”

“We must go through with it,” said Annie.

“Perhaps it is best in the end. Of course there will be a commotion and a great fuss, but nothing ever can be discovered.”

“I know what they will do,” said Mabel, in an agony of terror. “They will search all the jewellers’ shops at Interlaken, and of course it will be found. Oh Annie, I am fit to die!”

“You must compose yourself,” said Annie; “things are not quite as bad as that. We should indeed be in a desperate hole if I had sold the necklace to a jeweller at Interlaken; but I did nothing of the sort.”

“Then you didn’t sell it at all? You have it all the time?”

“Now, Mabel, what nonsense you talk! Didn’t I show you three ten-pound notes, and didn’t I send them to Mrs Priestley?”

“Oh, I am bewildered!” said poor Mabel.

“Why did I ever pose as a genius? I am sure I have no head at all for the complications of wickedness.”

“You are very complimentary to me, I must say,” said Annie. “But listen; I will calm your poor, palpitating little heart. I did a splendid thing; I sold the necklace to Mr Manchuri.”

“Who on earth is Mr Manchuri?” said Mabel.

“Mabel, you really are silly. He is the dear old Jewish gentleman who took Priscilla Weir home.”

“And why did you give it to him?”

“Because, my dear, I invariably use my eyes and my ears and, if possible, my tongue; and I made a discovery with regard to Mr Manchuri. He owns a big jeweller’s shop in Bond Street; therefore why should not he have the necklace? So you see it is safe out of Switzerland by this time.”

“And,” continued Mabel, “he gave thirty pounds for it?”

“Oh, he didn’t think much of it,” said Annie. “Still, he gave me that, and I was glad to close with the offer.”

“Well,” said Mabel, “it is a certain relief to know that it won’t be found in any of the shops in Interlaken.”

“It is a very great relief,” said Annie. “And now our object is, if possible, to make little of it to Lady Lushington. I think I can manage that; but come upstairs, won’t you? I am certain your aunt won’t say anything more about the stupid old thing this evening.”

“I hope not, I am sure,” said Mabel. “But don’t go in for a minute or two, Annie, for the omnibus has just arrived, and we may as well watch the fresh visitors.”

The girls came forward towards the deep porch. The large green-and-gold omnibus, with the words ‘Beau Séjour’ painted conspicuously on its sides, drew up with a clatter and fuss in front of the hotel. Waiters and servants of different sorts darted out to assist the visitors to alight. The omnibus was nearly full, and there was a quantity of luggage on the roof. Ladders were put up to get it down, and the girls watched the proceedings with intense amusement – the pearl necklace forgotten, all cares for the moment laid aside. They made a pretty pair as they stood thus side by side. Annie, in her ethereal blue dress, might have been taken for that sweetest of all flowers, the blue forget-me-not; Mabel, in her purest white, for the stately lily.

So thought for a brief instant a certain young man as he alighted from the omnibus; but the next moment his face changed. A hard expression came into his eyes. He came straight up to Annie Brooke.

“I have come for you, Annie,” he said.

Chapter Twenty Three
A Stern Decision

In the briefest of all instants everything changed for Annie Brooke; the gay people, the gay hotel, the pleasant, easy living seemed to fade from her sight. She trembled all over. Mabel looked at her in astonishment.

“Come indoors; I must speak to you. We must go away to-night if possible,” said John Saxon.

“May I introduce my friend Mabel Lushington?” said Annie, making a valiant effort to recover herself.

Saxon bowed to Mabel as though he did not see her. Annie whispered to her friend:

“He is my cousin. I am afraid, my dear, that Uncle Maurice is very ill. I will come to you in your room, Mabel, soon. Please don’t say a word to Lady Lushington.”

Mabel nodded. There was an anxious note in Annie’s voice which was unmistakable. Mabel was not specially sympathetic, and would never be so to one she knew as thoroughly as she did Annie. But even she recognised the reality of Annie’s present trouble.

“What in the world am I to do without her?” she thought as, refusing the lift, she went up the wide and spacious staircase, up and up to that fourth floor of the immense hotel where the Lushingtons’ rooms were situated.

Meanwhile Saxon drew Annie aside into a small room which led out of the great hall.

“Why did not you come when I telegraphed? I sent you money for the purpose. You must come with me now, at once. A train leaves here for England at midnight. Will you go and pack your things? Take that off” – he glanced at the pretty blue dress. “Get ready. Do you wish to see him alive?”

“John, don’t look at me like that. Where is the use? How could I tell that Uncle Maurice was so ill? I can’t stand it, John, if you look at me like that. Although you are my cousin, John, you have no right to.”

“No right to?” he said with scorn. “I know a woman when I see her, and a butterfly when I look at her. Do you think it was a pleasure to me to leave the dying old man, to run the risk of his dying in my absence, in order to bring you to him? But he shall have his last great wish gratified, and I believe God will spare him just that he may see you again. But I tell you what it is, Annie Brooke, if we return and find that saint has left the world before the one wish of his heart is gratified, I shall feel uncommonly like cursing you. Now you know what I think of you. Go upstairs at once and get ready; we leave here immediately.”

“Oh John!” moaned poor Annie.

But John Saxon was obdurate. One of the waiters came in and asked the gentleman if he wanted a room. John briefly explained his errand. He would have a meal of some sort, he said, and must leave by the midnight train. The young lady, Miss Brooke, his cousin, would accompany him.

If Mabel scorned the lift in order to get to her room, Annie was glad to avail herself of it. She was glad to sink back into a corner of the spacious lift and close her eyes for a minute and try to recover her scattered thoughts. Was the whole world crumbling to pieces around her? Were all her schemes to come to naught? The necklace – would her dealings with Mr Manchuri in the matter of the necklace ever be discovered? Would other matters in connection with that disgraceful affair come to light? Would Mabel – poor silly Mabel, left all alone with Lady Lushington and Mrs Ogilvie – confess the truth? Annie was terrified that Mabel would do so. At this moment she dreaded Mabel even more than she had dreaded Priscilla; for Mabel was essentially weak, whereas Priscilla was essentially strong. If Priscilla thought it right to go through a certain course, she would go through it, come what might; but Mabel could be moved and turned and tossed about by any wind of chance.

Mabel was certainly in a tight hole. To pursue a different metaphor, her little boat was out on a most stormy sea. With Annie as pilot it might get safely to shore, but without Annie it was sure to knock to pieces on the rocks of circumstance. Mabel would tell. What was Annie to do? Why had John Saxon come? How she hated, how she loathed her manly cousin at that moment! What a fool she had been to give him her address! She had done it in a moment of impulse, little, little guessing that he would act upon the information so quickly.

He had come in person. She could not shuffle out of the strong grasp of that iron determination. She must leave all her fun just where she hoped it was really beginning.

It was a pale and worn-out Annie who presently arrived in Mabel’s room. Mabel was pacing up and down, her face quite chalky in colour and her eyes wild with fright.

“Well, now,” she said the moment she saw her friend, “what is to be done?”

“Oh, do think of some one besides yourself!” said Annie. “Have you no pity for me, with my dear uncle so ill – dying?”

“But you don’t really care,” said Mabel, looking full at Annie.

Annie felt inclined to stamp her foot.

“You little wretch!” she said. “Do you suppose I have no heart?”

“To be truthful with you, Annie,” said Mabel, “I do not think you have much; but that’s not the point. Are you really going with that – that dreadful young man?”

“My cousin, Mr Saxon? Yes; we leave here by the midnight train. I have about two hours longer to spend in the hotel.”

“Then what am I to do?” said Mabel.

Annie sat down determinedly.

“Let me think,” she said. She covered her face for a moment with her hand. Already she was beginning, after a fashion, to recover herself, to get back her aplomb, her great talent for double dealing. “Let me think,” she said again.

“Well, don’t be long,” said Mabel, “for time passes.”

“Yes; but if you will be silent I will have thought out something after a minute or two.” Just then Parker tapped at the door.

“Shall I let her in?” whispered Mabel.

In reply to this, Annie herself went to the door, unlocked it, and flung it wide-open.

“Come in, Parker; come in,” she said.

“Why, what is the matter with you, Miss Brooke?” said that astute woman.

“A great deal,” replied Annie. “I have got to go home at once; my cousin, Mr Saxon, has come to fetch me. My dear, dear uncle is – is dying. He has been as a father to me. I must leave by the midnight train.”

“So I heard downstairs,” said Parker, putting on a certain sympathetic manner and trying to penetrate beneath Annie’s apparent grief. “I will pack your things for you, of course, Miss Brooke; you need have no trouble on that score. I came up here to offer my services. What dress will you wear travelling, miss?”

“Oh, my dark-blue serge will be best; but it doesn’t matter,” said Annie.

“I will put in some of the pretty things you wore while you were here, miss,” said Parker. “I know her ladyship would wish it. I don’t suppose your trunks will quite hold them all, but I can get in a good many.”

“Thank you, Parker; I don’t care about them now. I am in dreadful trouble about dear uncle.”

“Of course you must be, miss; but I am sure we are all sorry to lose you, for you do manage her ladyship in the most wonderful way, and I will say that you are as unselfish and pleasant-spoken a young lady as ever I came across. You will find the dresses and other things useful some time, miss, so I will get as many as ever I can into your trunks.” Annie murmured something. She would love to keep her pretty dresses; they would be effective at school. She could think of school and her appearance there, and the looks of envy of her companions even at this supreme moment.

“Then I will go and pack at once,” said Parker, preparing to leave the room.

She had nearly got as far as the door when she turned.

“By the way, miss,” she said, looking at Mabel, “my mistress is quite annoyed about a necklace she bought for you at Interlaken yesterday. She said that it was valuable, although old-fashioned – a pearl necklace set in silver. She thought I had it with the rest of the jewels; but you never gave it to me, Miss Lushington. My mistress said that I was to see it safely in the jewel-case before I went to bed to-night. Where did you put it? Can I get it now, miss?”

Mabel was silent. Her voice quite choked with the agony of the moment. Annie, however, took the initiative.

“Of course you can, Parker,” she said. “It was awfully silly of Mabel not to give you the box that contained the necklace; it was the most idiotic thing I ever heard of. – I am sure, darling, I urged you to do so. But there, no doubt it is safe. You put it into the lid of your big trunk.”

Mabel nodded. She could not bring herself to speak.

“Then we will find it immediately,” said Annie. “Notwithstanding my own great sorrow, it will be a comfort to me to know that the necklace is safe under Parker’s care before I leave; for the fact is, Parker, it was I who discovered it. I thought it was quite a valuable thing, but I am rather afraid now that Lady Lushington paid too much for it. However, that is neither here nor there; we have got to find it.”

“Here are the keys of Miss Lushington’s trunks,” said Parker. She proceeded as she spoke to unlock the largest of the trunks, which happened to be a canvas one, and slightly the worse for travel.

“I am very sorry indeed, miss, you put it in here,” said Parker. “Why, see how loose the cover is. A person could almost put his hand in between the cover and the inside of the trunk. Well, where did you put it, miss?”

“I will find it; I will find it,” said Annie.

She stooped as she spoke and began that examination which she knew beforehand must be fruitless. Mabel stood with her back to the two, looking out of the window. Annie longed to shake her. Was not her very attitude giving the whole thing away?

“I really can’t find it,” said Annie after a moment’s pause. “Do come and look yourself, May. Are you dazed? Have you lost your senses? Oh, I know, poor darling May! it is sorrow at parting with poor little me. – Parker, Miss Mabel just adores me; don’t you, precious one! Well, well, Parker will do all she can for you when I am gone.”

“I can’t take your place, Miss Brooke. I am really sorry you have to go. – But now, Miss Mabel, the best thing to do is just to empty the lid of the trunk. We’ll get to the box that way without disarranging all your pretty things.”

The lid of the trunk was speedily emptied, and of course no necklace was found.

“There!” said Annie. Her heart was beating so fast that the pallor of her face was far from assumed. The fear in her eyes, too, seemed only too natural.

“Some one has stolen it!” she said to Parker. She clasped the woman’s arm. “What are we to do?”

Parker looked distinctly annoyed. Mabel stood stonily silent, apparently almost indifferent.

“Miss Lushington,” said the woman – “do wake up and consider, miss. Perhaps you didn’t put it into the lid of the trunk; perhaps you put the box that held the necklace somewhere else.”

“No, I didn’t; I put it into the lid,” said Mabel. “I won’t say I put it anywhere else; the lid will do; I put it there. I won’t be bothered about it!”

She marched out of the room, got as far as the wide landing, and burst out crying. Her queer conduct and queer words terrified Annie and amazed Parker.

“What is the matter with Miss Mabel, miss?” said the maid, turning to the girl.

Annie put her pretty, white hand on Parker’s arm.

“Leave her alone with me for a little, please, Parker. Just go off and pack my things, like the jewel you are. She is awfully upset at my going – and you know I must, on account of my dear uncle.”

Annie’s voice quavered. Indeed, she herself was very nearly breaking down.

“I must go, you know, Parker,” she said, her pretty eyes filling with tears which only added to their beauty. “But I’ll manage Mabel. It is dreadful about the necklace; but perhaps you will recover it.”

“We never will,” said Parker. “It’s a dreadful bit of business. Her ladyship will be wild. She does so hate it when anything is stolen. But there are lots of robberies taking place on the railways of late. It is a perfect disgrace. Even the registering of your goods seems not to secure things. Of course I always carry the jewels in my own hand; it’s the only safe way. Miss Mabel must have been mad to put a valuable necklace such as her ladyship described into that old trunk.”

“It wasn’t nearly so valuable as Lady Lushington supposed; that is the only comfort,” said Annie.

“But, miss, I don’t understand. I thought it was you who urged her ladyship to get it, and that you had quite a knowledge of gems.”

“I found out afterwards – I will tell you the secret, Parker, and you can break it to her ladyship when I am gone – I found out afterwards that I had made a slight mistake. The necklace was worth, say, about twenty pounds, but no more, for some of the pearls were quite worthless. I happened to show it to a gentleman I knew very slightly at the Belle Vue Hotel, and he deals in that sort of thing. He disappointed me in his estimate of the necklace; but that doesn’t matter. It is terrible that it should be lost. Still, you might tell Lady Lushington what he said. There is no use in telling Mabel. She doesn’t care twopence about it, poor child, at the present moment; she is so broken down at my leaving.”

“Well, miss, I must be off to do the packing. I will make the best of things and never forget how pleasant you have been during your visit, miss. I will see, too, that you have a basket of sandwiches and some wine packed for your journey.”

Parker went off. The moment she did so Annie went into the corridor and fetched Mabel in.

“Oh, you goose of all geese!” she said. “Now the worst is over; I tell you the worst is over. You don’t suppose for a single moment your aunt, Lady Lushington, will think that you stole the necklace or that I stole it. She will suppose, most assuredly, that it was stolen on the journey between Interlaken and Zermatt. Parker is convinced on the subject and I have let Parker understand that it was not nearly as valuable as I supposed. Lady Lushington won’t trust me to manage a bargain for her again; that is the worst that can happen. Now, May, do cheer up. You are all right. I will manage things for you when Priscilla’s Christmas bill comes round. You will see plenty of me, I fancy, between now and then. Dry your eyes, darling. I know you are sorry to part from me.”

“I can’t go on being wicked without you; that’s the principal thing,” said Mabel. “I know I’ll give in.”

“Think what injury you’ll do me; and do you really want to go back to that horrid school?”

“I don’t think I’d mind so very much; it was peaceful, at least at school.”

“You would soon be sick of that sort of peace.”

“I suppose I should,” said Mabel.

She had already wiped her eyes, and she began slightly to cheer up.

“Annie,” she said eagerly, “is your uncle really dying?”

“John Saxon says so; otherwise, of course, he would not have come,” said Annie.

“If,” said Mabel, trembling a good deal – “if afterwards you could come back – ”

Annie’s heart bounded.

“I can’t talk of it,” she said; “don’t speak of it now. When the time comes, if you – were – to write I will write to you, that is, if I have strength to write to any one. You have my address. You know how deeply I shall always love you. You know there is no good turn I would not do for you.”

“I want you to help me until Priscilla’s year at school is out,” was Mabel’s matter-of-fact retort. “Of course, dear, of course; and I will. Your Annie will never forsake you. But now perhaps we had better go downstairs.”

The girls made a quite picturesque appearance as they went slowly down the broad staircase. Mabel had not cried enough to look ugly, and Annie’s few tears and pallor and evident distress gave to her face the depth of expression which in her lighter moments it had lacked.

John Saxon was seated close to Lady Lushington. Lady Lushington had recognised him as a friend and a favourite. He rose when the girls appeared, and Lady Lushington went at once up to Annie.

Her manner was very cold and distant. “You did not give me the slightest idea, Miss Brooke, how ill your uncle was when you received your cousin’s letter.”

“I didn’t know that he was especially ill,” said Annie.

Lady Lushington looked full at her. It seemed at that moment that a veil had fallen away from Annie’s face, and that the gay, proud, and selfish woman of the world saw the girl for the first time as she was.

Lady Lushington, with all her faults – the faults of her class and her manner of life – was exceedingly good-natured, and could be remarkably kind. She was thoroughly angry with Annie for concealing the truth with regard to John Saxon’s letter. She could, and would, forgive much to any young girl who was enjoying herself and who wanted to continue the good time which had fallen to her lot; but to forget one who stood in the place of a father, to let him long for her in vain, was more than Lady Lushington could stand.

“I don’t appreciate that sort of thing,” she said to herself. “It is, somehow, beneath me. I don’t understand it.”

She made up her mind on the spot, that, as far as Mabel was concerned, the friendship between the two girls was to terminate there and then. Never would she have anything farther to do with Annie Brooke. As that was the case, she did not consider it necessary to correct her.

“I am sorry,” she said briefly, “that you did not interpret very plain English in the manner in which it was intended. I don’t think for a single moment that your cousin meant to complain of you to me, but he simply quoted some words of his letter, and seemed altogether astonished that you did not start for England the day before yesterday. However, I trust you will find your dear uncle alive when you get home. I have desired Parker to pack your things, and now you would doubtless like to go up and change your dress.”

“Thank you,” said Annie very meekly. She glanced in Mrs Ogilvie’s direction; but Mrs Ogilvie took no notice of her.

“Mabel, come and sit here near Mrs Ogilvie,” said Lady Lushington as Annie once again disappeared. “You can say good-bye to your friend presently; there is no necessity for you to spend the whole evening upstairs.”