"Burglars at a jeweller's window close by--there are women--they're being arrested," one of the pair flung over her shoulder, as both hurried on. "'Women ... being arrested ...'" That meant that if she plunged into the fray she might be mistaken for a woman burglar, and arrested with the guilty. Even if she lurked where she was, a prowling policeman might suppose she sought concealment, and bag her as a militant. Imagine what Mrs. Ellsworth would say--and _do_--if she were taken off to jail! Annesley's heart seemed to drop out of its place, to go "crossways," as her old Irish nurse used to say a million years ago. Without stopping to think again, or even to breathe, she flew back to the hotel entrance, as a migrating bird follows its leader, and slipped through the revolving door behind the fugitives. "It's fate," she thought. "This must be a _sign_ coming just when I'd made up my mind." Suddenly she was no longer afraid, though her heart was pounding under the thin cloak. Fragrance of hot-house flowers and expensive perfume from women's dresses intoxicated the girl as a glass of champagne forced upon one who has never tasted wine flies to the head. She felt herself on the tide of adventure, moving because she must; the soul which would have fled, to return to Mrs. Ellsworth, was a coward not worthy to live in her body. She had room in her crowded mind to think how queer it was--and how queer it would seem all the rest of her life in looking back--that she should have the course of her existence changed because burglars had broken some panes of glass in the Strand. "Just because of them--creatures I'll never meet--I'm going to see this through to the end," she said, flinging up her chin and looking entirely unlike the Annesley Grayle Mrs. Ellsworth knew. "To the _end_!" She thrilled at the word, which had as much of the unknown in it as though it were the world's end she referred to, and she were jumping off. "Will you please tell me where to leave my wrap?" she heard herself inquiring of a footman as magnificent as, and far better dressed than, the Apollo Belvedere. Her voice sounded natural. She was glad. This added to her courage. It was wonderful to feel brave. Life was so deadly, worse--so _stuffy_--at Mrs. Ellsworth's, that if she had ever been normally brave like other girls, she had had the young splendour of her courage crushed out. The statue in gray plush and dark blue cloth came to life, and showed her the cloak-room. Other women were there, taking last, affectionate peeps at themselves in the long mirrors. Annesley took a last peep at herself also, not an affectionate but an anxious one. Compared with these visions, was she (in Mrs. Ellsworth's cast-off clothes, made over in odd moments by the wearer) so dowdy and second-hand that--that--a stranger would be ashamed to----? The question feared to finish itself.