“It is getting a little chilly here,” said Lady Lushington. “I think, if you don’t mind, Susan, we will go indoors.—Girls, you can follow us in a few minutes.”
Annie gave a deep sigh of relief. Not a word about the necklace. Perhaps there might be a few hours’ reprieve. Perhaps it would not be mentioned again until the morning.
The two elderly ladies moved slowly together into the house, and the girls were left alone.
“Didn’t I tell you,” said Mabel, “that she would be sure to be here? Isn’t it just like our bad luck?”
“We must go through with it,” said Annie.
“Perhaps it is best in the end. Of course there will be a commotion and a great fuss, but nothing ever can be discovered.”
“I know what they will do,” said Mabel, in an agony of terror. “They will search all the jewellers’ shops at Interlaken, and of course it will be found. Oh Annie, I am fit to die!”
“You must compose yourself,” said Annie; “things are not quite as bad as that. We should indeed be in a desperate hole if I had sold the necklace to a jeweller at Interlaken; but I did nothing of the sort.”
“Then you didn’t sell it at all? You have it all the time?”
“Now, Mabel, what nonsense you talk! Didn’t I show you three ten-pound notes, and didn’t I send them to Mrs Priestley?”