Mabyn’s conscience was struck.  She it was who had done this thing.  She had persuaded her father that her mother needed another week or fortnight at Penzance; she had frightened him by telling what bother he would suffer if Wenna were not back at the inn during the festivities at Trelyon Hall; and then she had offered to go and take her sister’s post.  George Rosewarne was heartily glad to exchange the one daughter for the other.  Mabyn was too independent; she thwarted him; sometimes she insisted on his bestirring himself.  Wenna, on the other hand, went about the place like some invisible spirit of order, making everything comfortable for him without noise or worry.  He was easily led to issue the necessary orders; and so it was that Mabyn thought she was doing her sister a friendly turn by sending her back to Eglosilyan in order to join in congratulating Harry Trelyon on his entrance into man’s estate.  Now Mabyn found that she had only plunged her sister into deeper trouble.  What could be done to save her?

“Wenna,” said Mabyn rather timidly, “do you think he has left Penzance?”

Wenna turned to her with a sudden look of entreaty in her face:  “I cannot bear to speak of him, Mabyn.  I have no right to:  I hope you will not ask me.  Just now I—­I am going to write a letter—­to Jamaica.  I shall tell the whole truth.  It is for him to say what must happen now.  I have done him a great injury:  I did not intend it, I had no thought of it, but my own folly and thoughtlessness brought it about, and I have to bear the penalty.  I don’t think he need be anxious about punishing me.”

She turned away with a tired look on her face, and began to get out her writing materials.  Mabyn watched her for a moment or two in silence; then she left and went to her own room, saying to herself, “Punishment!  Whoever talks of punishment will have to address himself to me.”

When she got to her own room she wrote these words on a piece of paper in her firm, bold, free hand:  “A friend would like to see you for a minute in front of the post-office in the middle of the town.”  She put that in an envelope, and addressed the envelope to Harry Trelyon, Esq.  Still keeping her bonnet on, she went down stairs and had a little general conversation with her mother, in the course of which she quite casually asked the name of the hotel at which Mr. Trelyon had been staying.  Then, just as if she were going out to the Parade to have a look at the sea, she carelessly left the house.

The dusk of the evening was growing to dark.  A white mist lay over the sea.  The solitary lamps were being lit along the Parade, each golden star shining sharply in the pale purple twilight, but a more confused glow of orange showed where the little town was busy in its narrow thoroughfares.  She got hold of a small boy, gave him the letter, a sixpence and his instructions.  He was to ask if the gentleman were in the hotel.  If not, had he left Penzance, or would he return that night?  In any case, the boy was not to leave the letter unless Mr. Trelyon was there.