“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 you there.”
“Of course I’ll come. There’s no question about that. We had better get off at once, then, and not waste any more time, but first you must have something to eat! You’ve been driving about all morning, and there’s trouble ahead. I’ll ring for something hot and tempting. What would you like best?”
“I couldn’t swallow a bite if you paid me for it. It would stick in my throat.”