without a glance at
Joan or at the window, went out of the room again. Joan watched her go.
After all, what had Jenny seen? A girl whose home was there, drawing the
curtains close. That was all. Joan shook her anxiety off. Jenny had left
the door of the library open and some one came running down the stairs
whistling as she ran. Miranda Brown dashed into the room struggling with
a pair of gloves.

"Oh, how I hate gloves in this weather!" she cried. "Well, here I am,
Joan. You wanted to speak to me before the others had finished powdering
their noses. What is it?"

"I want you to help me."

"Of course I will," Miranda answered cheerily. "How?"

Joan closed the door and returned to Miranda, who, having drawn the
gloves over her arm, was now struggling with the buttons.

"I want you, when we reach Harrel----"

"Yes."

"To lend me your motor-car for an hour."

Miranda turned in amazement towards her friend. But one glance at her
face showed that the prayer was made in desperate earnest. Miranda Brown
caught her friend by the arm.

"Joan!"

"Yes," Joan Whitworth answered, nodding her head miserably. "That's the
help I want and I want it dreadfully. Just for an hour--no more."

"Joan, my dear--what's the matter?" asked Miranda gazing into Joan
Whitworth's troubled face.

"I don't want you to ask me," the girl answered. "I want you to help me
straight off without any questions. Otherwise----" and Joan's voice
shook and broke, "otherwise--oh, I don't know what will happen to me!"

Miranda put her arm round Joan Whitworth's waist. "Joan! You are in real
trouble!"

"For the first time!" said Joan.

"Can't I----?"

"No," Joan interrupted. "There's only the one way, Miranda."

She sat down upon a couch at Miranda's side and feverishly caught her
hand. "Do help me! You can't tell what it means to me!... And I should
hate telling you! Oh, I have been such a fool!"

Joan's face was quivering, and so deep a compunction was audible in her
voice, so earnest a prayer was to be read in her troubled eyes, that
Miranda's doubt and anxiety were doubled.

"I don't know what I shall do, if you don't help me," Joan said
miserably as she let go of Miranda. Her hands fluttered helplessly in
the air. "No, I don't know!"

Miranda was thoroughly disturbed. The contrast between the Joan she had
known until this week, good-humoured, a little aloof, contented with
herself and her ambitions, placid, self-contained, and this lo