Grace Cameron was making a pretence of breakfast when Mary and Connie arrived. Her pallid face was more flushed than usual, her cough very distressing. But she had no thought for herself directly the story came to be told.

"You poor dears!" she cried. "What a cruel misfortune! To have lost everything in this way is doubly terrible. Oh, if it were only possible for you to stay here! The house is almost full up, and my landlady is independent accordingly. I am expecting every day that she will ask me to go--the breakfast in bed and my late rising give a great deal of trouble. There seems to be nothing that I can do."

"Oh, yes, there is," Connie said cheerfully. "You can help us wonderfully. For the moment we are absolutely penniless. Our idea is to take a bed sitting-room together, for a few shillings a week, and restore confidence, in lieu of personal belongings, by paying the rent in advance. I want you to lend me a sovereign for about a week."

"But my dear, I haven't got it," Grace said in deep distress. "I only kept a few shillings out of the money you gave me yesterday, the rest I posted to my mother not an hour ago. If I had only known! And I suppose you can't possibly draw any more money from the Wheezer till the end of the week!"

"I might have done so," Connie said. "I had the week's drawings finished. They must be in tomorrow or I shall certainly do no more work in that quarter. They were all lying ready on my table when I came round here last night."

"Oh, this is dreadful," Grace cried, with the tears in her eyes. "If you had not returned here then, this dreadful thing would never have happened. To think that your kindness and goodness to me should have produced a result like this! Oh, Connie, what are you going to do, what can you do?"

"Oh, please don't," Connie said unsteadily. "It was no fault of yours. I daresay we shall manage to muddle through some way or another. It is a great pity that so many of our circle are so hard up just at present."

"And Miss Dashwood is as badly off?" Grace asked.

"Please don't call me Miss Dashwood," Mary said. "It makes me feel as if I were not one of you. Yes, I am in the same boat. Still, I dare say----"

Mary's voice trailed off into a whisper. An idea had come to her. She was quite ready to humble her pride now; she no longer shrank from the idea with a pain that was almost physical. If the worst came to the worst, she could telegraph to Lady Dashwood and ask for a few pounds by wire. And yet that seemed a weak thing to do, seeing that she had left the dower house so short a time before, determined to make her way in the world. But that would have to be done before nightfall, unless----

Unless! There was yet another way out of it. The recollection of the dramatic scene between the so-called Sir Vincent Dashwood and Mrs. Speed came with vivid force to Mary. The man had come for some important letter. What the letter was and what it had to do with the Dashwood succession mattered nothing at that moment. At any rate the letter was needed, and Vincent Dashwood had promised to come back for it. And Mary did not fail to remember now what Mrs. Speed had had to say about the trouble she was in over her rent. That trouble had culminated with disastrous swiftness, and to save her furniture the woman had vanished in the night.

With a mind full of her own troubles, she had probably given no heed to Vincent Dashwood. But it was necessary to his success that he should find her.

No doubt he was hanging about now somewhere in the locality of Keppel Terrace waiting for a sign. And here was the desperate chance that Mary needed.

She, too, would spend the next few hours in the neighbourhood of Keppel Terrace. Her mind was made up and she resolved to act without delay. She rose to her feet with a smile and made her way towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Connie asked.

"I have a little idea of my own," Mary said. "I can't tell you everything, because it is in a way mixed up with my private affairs. But I think that I shall be able to get everything back before we sleep tonight. I am not going to be a helpless burden on you two poor dear things. I want you to feel that you have been entertaining the proverbial angel unawares. I may not be back till late, but you need not be anxious. After my experience of last night, I am not afraid of anything."

"Let her go," Grace said, as Connie would have detained the speaker. "She is anxious to do someth............