embled. She clasped her
hands together and leant across the little table, staring earnestly into
his eyes.

"Captain Guest, I'm in trouble! I've a pretty good opinion of myself as
a rule, but--I ken't see it through alone! ... It's going to be one of
the meanest businesses you ever touched. ... Will you help me?"

"I will!" said Guest, quietly. "Thank you for asking me. Is it--excuse
my asking--anything in connection with Mr and Mrs Moffatt? Ah!" as
the girl exclaimed in sharp surprise, "I fancied that last night's
meeting might bring things to a crisis. Now, I'll tell you just what
happened in that box, and then you must tell me your story."

For the next ten minutes they sat with heads bent close together,
exchanging confidences of grave import. Cornelia kept nothing back, and
as he listened, Guest's face grew momentarily sterner. The hastily
ordered meal lay neglected on the table while they faced the desperate
situation with which they had to deal.

Guest took a man's cut-and-dried view of the case, and was strongly in
favour of apprising Mr Marchant of what had happened and returning to
the hotel, supported not only by him, but by a police officer into the
bargain, but Cornelia would not be induced to agree.

"She's done wrong, and she forged my name for her own purposes--there's
no getting away from that, but there may be some explanation which will
make it look a little less black. Anyway, I'm going to hear it before I
judge, and if she'll make things good I'll give her another chance. You
don't know what's come before this!"

"I should have little difficulty in guessing, however," Guest said
drily.

He thought of the hotel in Marienbad; of the changed name; the dyed
hair; and mentally conjured up the dreary life of plotting and scheming,
of constant danger, and miserable success, which constitutes the life of
the professional adventurer, but Cornelia saw only the haggard face
which had looked at her in the sitting-room of the hotel, the face of
the woman whose childhood had known no home, whom love had passed by.
She heard again the hopeless intonation of the voice which had reminded
her--"You'd have to tread the same road yourself, before you could judge
me, Cornelia!" Her chin squared with the look of stubborn determination
which her aunt already knew so well, and she said firmly--

"Well, anyway, I've got to see her first! If you don't approve, I'll go
alone, but I'd like best to have y