"Clothes!" Annandale echoed in surprise. "Why, no, are any missing?"
"My mother's. They were in the room next to mine."
"The Lord forgive me, I never thought of it."
"It does not really matter. Only we will have to go to town tomorrow. Mamma has not a stitch."
"The devil!" muttered Annandale in fierce self-reprobation. "Hang my stupidity. I am a fool."
"You are nothing of the kind. If it were not for you I would not have a stitch either."
"That is all very well. But I have bungled matters dreadfully. I don't know what your mother can think of me. I do know, though, that I wish she would let me replace the things which she has lost through my fault."
In the sky a star was falling, swiftly, silently, like a drop of water on a window-pane. Fanny watched it. She had been lolling back in a chair. But at Annandale's suggestion she sat up. "That is absurd," she announced.
"Well, then, it would be only nice and fair of you to put me in a position where, without offense, I could do so."
But Fanny was rising. "It is late," she announced. "I must go."