He knew the road and could have found it blindfolded in spite of all the gloom that was around him, and he sped along it as fast as he could go without running. For now it was all-important, vital, that he should see Anne; that he should get her to help him, as he had helped her in the scheme of vengeance which had formed the first and least important part of his own plot. To help him in what, this morning, he had decided to abandon. But now--now--he swore to himself--he would never abandon it; to-night it should be brought to completion. "The second man," he muttered as he went along, and once or twice he laughed aloud even as he so muttered "the second man." But beyond those words he said little else. Arrived at the Brunswick Stairs, he scribbled a note to Anne, which he sent off to the _Mignonne_ by a waterman, and then retreated from the raw fog and damp into a tavern where he was well known, when, ordering a private room, to which he gave orders she should be shown at once, he sat awaiting her coming. "She will do it," he told himself again and again. "She will do it, I know. And thus we win at last." Presently Anne arrived, anxious to hear what had happened, and if anything had arisen to, in any way, circumvent their doing that which they had decided on. Though, if she had been nervous as to whether some impediment might have cropped up to prevent the fulfilment of their schemes, that nervousness vanished as Granger told her almost in a whisper--for even in this private room he was cautious as to how he used his voice--of the conversation he had overheard at the "Red Rover." And, when he came to the description of how "the second man"--who was himself--was to be betrayed into an ambuscade, and, whispering even lower still, said something else to her, her bright eyes glistened, and she laughed wickedly. "Oh! Granger," she said, "I protest you are a schemer, a plotter. Next, you must try the theatre----" "Mock not," he said; "be serious. To-night ends all our woes. And, as to theatres, where are your clothes? That apparel in which you figured when you played----" "Alas!" she said, "all are at Fanshawe Manor, locked up by my mother in her old sea-chest. She would have burnt them in her rage, had I not begged them off." He thought a moment, evidently pondering deeply, then she saw his face brighten, and he said he could contrive very well, only she must come to his house with him. "You are a fine, upstanding girl," he said, "and as tall as I am, I being none too lofty myself. Come with me at once, will you, Anne?" "Ay," she answered, "or go to--well--no matter where--to do this thing. For God's sake, let us not fail. I think ever of my little murdered sister, not of myself."