have come by the verynext train after you, Henrietta."
"Oh dear!" thought Annie. "If you only would have stayed away! How onedoes get pursued by all sorts of contrary influences when one is justhoping that one is out of the wood! The peace of nature indeed! Muchpeace 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 usin 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 bementioned again until the morning.
The two elderly ladies moved slowly together into the house, and thegirls 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 anda great fuss, but nothing ever can be discovered."
"I know what they will do," said Mabel, in an agony of terror. "Theywill search all the jewellers' shops at Interlaken, and of course itwill be found. Oh Annie, I am fit to die!"
"You must compose yourself," said Annie; "things are not quite as bad asthat. We should indeed be in a desperate hole if I had sold thenecklace 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-poundnotes, 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 forthe complications of wickedness."
"You are very complimentary to me, I must say," said Annie. "Butlisten; I will calm your poor, palpitating little heart. I did asplendid 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 whotook Priscilla Weir home."
"And why did you give it to him?"
"Because, my dear, I invariably use my eyes and my ears and, ifpossible, 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 nothe have the necklace? So you see it is safe out of Switzerland by thistime."
"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 befound in any of the shops in Interlaken."
"It is a very great relief," said Annie. "And now our object is, ifpossible, to make little of it to Lady Lushington. I think I can managethat; but come upstairs, won't you? I am certain your aunt won't sayanything more about the stupid old thing this evening."
"I hope not, I am sure," said Mabel. "But don't go in for a minute ortwo, Annie, for the omnibus has just arrived, and we may as well watchthe fresh visitors."
The girls came forward towards the deep porch. The large green-and-goldomnibus, with the words `Beau Sejour' painted conspicuously on itssides, drew up with a clatter and fuss in front of the hotel. Waitersand servants of different sorts darted out to assist the visitors toalight. The omnibus was nearly full, and there was a quantity ofluggage on the roof. Ladders were put up to get it down, and the girlswatched the proceedings with intense amusement--the pearl necklaceforgotten, all cares for the moment laid aside. They made a pretty pairas they stood thus side by side. Annie, in her ethereal blue dress,might have been taken for that sweetest of all flowers, the blueforget-me-not; Mabel, in her purest white, for the stately lily.
So thought for a brief instant a certain young man as he alighted fromthe omnibus; but the next moment his face changed. A hard expressioncame 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; thegay people, the gay hotel, the pleasant, easy living seemed to fade fromher sight. She trembled all over. Mabel looked at her in astonishment.
"Come indoors; I must speak to you. We must go away to-night ifpossible," said John Saxon.
"May I introduce my friend Mabel Lushington?" said Annie, making avaliant effort to recover herself.
Saxon bowed to Mabel as though he did not see her. Annie whispered toher 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 wordto Lady Lushington."
Mabel nodded. There was an anxious note in Annie's voice which wasunmistakable. Mabel was not specially sympathetic, and would never beso to one she knew as thoroughly as she did Annie. But even sherecognised the reality of Annie's present trouble.
"What in the world am I to do without her?" she thought as, refusing thelift, she went up the wide and spacious staircase, up and up to thatfourth floor of the immense hotel where the Lushingtons' rooms weresituated.
Meanwhile Saxon drew Annie aside into a small room which led out of thegreat hall.
"Why did not you come when I telegraphed? I sent you money for thepurpose. You must come with me now, at once. A train leaves here forEngland at midnight. Will you go and pack your things? Take thatoff"--he glanced at the pretty blue dress. "Get ready. Do you wish tosee him alive?"
"John, don't look at me like that. Where is the use? How could I tellthat Uncle Maurice was so ill? I can't stand it, John, if you look atme 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 tome to leave the dying old man, to run the risk of his dying in myabsence, in order to bring you to him? But he shall have his last greatwish gratified, and I believe God will spare him just that he may seeyou again. But I tell you what it is, Annie Brooke, if we return andfind that saint has left the world before the one wish of his heart isgratified, I shall feel uncommonly like cursing you. Now you know whatI think of you. Go upstairs at once and get ready; we leave hereimmediately."
"Oh John!" moaned poor Annie.
But John Saxon was obdurate. One of the waiters came in and asked thegentleman if he wanted a room. John briefly explained his errand. Hewould have a meal of some sort, he said, and must leave by the midnighttrain. 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 toavail herself of it. She was glad to sink back into a corner of thespacious lift and close her eyes for a minute and try to recover herscattered thoughts. Was the whole world crumbling to pieces around her?Were all her schemes to come to naught? The necklace--would herdealings with Mr Manchuri in the matter of the necklace ever bediscovered? Would other matters in connection with that disgracefulaffair come to light? Would Mabel--poor silly Mabel, left all alonewith Lady Lushington and Mrs Ogilvie--confess the truth? Annie wasterrified that Mabel would do so. At this moment she dreaded Mabel evenmore than she had dreaded Priscilla; for Mabel was essentially weak,whereas Priscilla was essentially strong. If Priscilla thought it rightto go through a certain course, she would go through it, come whatmight; but Mabel could be moved and turned and tossed about by any windof 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 itmight get safely to shore, but without Annie it was sure to knock topieces on the rocks of circumstance. Mabel would tell. What was Annieto do? Why had John Saxon come? How she hated, how she loathed hermanly cousin at that moment! What a fool she had been to give him heraddress! She had done it in a moment of impulse, little, littleguessing that he would a
ct upon the information so quickly.
He had come in person. She could not shuffle out of the strong grasp ofthat iron determination. She must leave all her fun just where shehoped 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 hereyes wild with fright.
"Well, now," she said the moment she saw her friend, "what is to bedone?"
"Oh, _do_ think of some one besides yourself!" said Annie. "Have you nopity for me, with my dear uncle so ill--dying?"
"But you don't really care,"