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.