lia swallowed dismally, blinking the tears from her eyelids.

"I don't know as it wouldn't be the best way out, as far as she's
concerned, but I'd just as lief you didn't _all_ turn criminals on my
hands! I'll pull myself up once we are there, but I'm all of a flutter
thinking it over in advance."

"We'll be there soon now," Guest told her reassuringly.

They drove in silence down the length of Bond Street, and out into the
whirl of Piccadilly. Soon, almost too soon for Cornelia's jangled
nerves, they had drawn up before the great door of the hotel.

Here nothing of a sensational nature had occurred. The porter touched
his cap to Cornelia with his usual stolid air, the clerk bowed with
unruffled complacence--no hint of trouble had come to their ears. The
lift was full of a laughing, chattering crowd. It seemed to Cornelia
almost incredible that these women were repairing to their rooms to deck
themselves for fresh pleasures, while she was about to bring a prisoner
to the bar. She turned towards Guest, as he stood by her side, and felt
a fresh sense of comfort in his nearness, his bigness, his air of quiet
strength.

On the second floor the lift discharged half its occupants--a merry
flock for the most part, hurrying along the corridor, laughing and
jesting as they went, while two followed gravely behind, looking to
right and left with anxious eyes.

The door of Mrs Moffatt's bedroom was closed. Was it already
deserted--its drawers and wardrobes despoiled of their treasures; a
bundle of worthless trifles left behind?--Cornelia's heart beat in
sickening throbs; she knew a coward wish that she might be too late. To
pay up and go quietly home seemed an easy way out of the difficulty into
which she had walked so blindly!

She drew a quick, frightened breath, and felt Guest's hand press
protectingly on her arm. The sitting-room door opened, and side by side
they entered the room.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

Mrs Moffatt was standing before the table, tearing up old papers. She
looked up with a start, to see Guest and Cornelia standing before her in
that eloquent, linked attitude, and over her features there passed that
helpless, trapped expression of guilt discovered and brought to bay,
which, once seen, can never be forgotten. The blood ebbed from her
face, leaving it ashen white, except for two fixed spots of colour on
either cheek; her fingers relaxed their hold, and the fragments of paper
fluttered down