"My dear Miss Galloway, the thing is impossible," Jessie cried. "Believe me, I would help you if I could—anything that requires courage or determination. I am so desperately placed that I would do anything for money. But to take your place——"
"Why not? You are a lady, you are accustomed to society. Lord Merehaven you will probably not see all the evening, Lady Merehaven is quite short-sighted. And she never expects me to help to entertain her guests. There will be a mob of people here presently, and there is safety in numbers. A little tact, a little watchful discretion, and the thing is done."
Vera Galloway spoke rapidly and with a passionate entreaty in her voice. Her beautiful face was very earnest. Jessie felt that she was giving way already.
"I might manage it," she admitted dubiously. "But how did you come to hear of me?"
"My cousin, Ronald Hope, told me. Ronald knew your people in the old days. Do you recollect him?"
Jessie blushed slightly. She recollected Captain Hope perfectly well. And deep down in her heart she had a feeling that, if things had turned out differently, she and Ronald Hope had been a little more than mere acquaintances by this time. But when the crash came, Jessie had put the Captain resolutely aside with her other friends.
"Well, Ronald told me," Vera Galloway went on. "I fancy Ronald admired you. He often mentioned your name to me, and spoke of the strange likeness between us. He would have found you if he could. Then out of curiosity I asked a man called Beryll, who is a noted gossip, what had become of Colonel Hacker Harcourt's daughters, and he said one of them was in a milliner's shop in Bond Street, he believed Madame Malmaison's. Mind you, I was only mildly curious to see you. But to-day the brooding trouble came, and I was at my wits ends for a way out. Then the scheme suddenly came to me, and I called at Malmaison's this morning with a message for a friend. You did not see me, but I saw you. My mind was made up at once, hence my note to you.... And now I am sure that you are going to help me."
"I am going to help you to do anything you require," Jessie said, "because I feel sure that I am on the side of a good cause."
"I swear it," Vera said with a passionate emphasis. "For the honour of a noble house, for the reputation of the man I love. And you shall never regret it, never. You shall leave that hateful business for ever.... But come this way—there are many things that I have to show you."
Jessie followed obediently into the corridor a little behind Vera, and in the attitude of one who feels and admits her great social inferiority. They came at length to a large double window opening on to some leads, and then descending by a flight of steps to the garden. The thing was safer than at first appeared, for there were roll shutters to the windows.