It was in the midst of an astonished silence that Mr. Anstruther, followed by Eleanor, walked up the length of the long drawing-room towards Mrs. Danvers, the young people making way for them as they advanced. When he had arrived opposite her he gave her a stiff bow, which she returned with her eyes fixed on the girl, who had the same name, and yet was not the Eleanor Carson they knew. It was very puzzling, she thought.

"When I have explained the reasons for my presence here this evening, you will agree with me, I trust, that no apology is required for what, so far, must seem to you an unwarrantable intrusion," he began in his most deliberate manner.

"Certainly," murmured Mrs. Danvers, rather vaguely, though she meant, of course, that no apology was needed.

One of the boys—it was Noel—gave a little snigger, but when Mr. Anstruther turned with raised eyebrows in his direction, Noel tried, but without success, to look as if he had made no sound.

"I have come here," Mr. Anstruther resumed then, addressing himself once more to Mrs. Danvers, "in search of my granddaughter Margaret, who, I understand, has been living in your house in the capacity of holiday governess since the 28th of July."

"Margaret Anstruther!" said Mrs. Danvers. "I am very sorry, but I have never heard the name before."

"So I understand, madam," was the grim reply. "My granddaughter has been known to you under the name of Eleanor Carson."

At that the excitement with which the entire family had been listening to him could no longer be restrained, and they broke into a perfect chorus of exclamations and questions. And high above them all Hilary's voice could be heard saying over and over again, "I knew it; I knew it. Perhaps you will believe me now. I always suspected that she was an imposter. Now, perhaps, none of you will contradict me again about her being a thief and a burglar."

Her persistent, exultant tone so dominated all her brothers' and sisters' disjointed exclamations that she eventually silenced them, and her shrill voice finished alone. And when at length she had done, it was to find Mr. Anstruther's piercing eyes gazing attentively at her.

"Young lady," he said, and Eleanor, who had easily identified Hilary as the member of the family whom Margaret liked least, exulted at the thought that she was now going to get a taste of Mr. Anstruther's wrath, "young lady, will you oblige me by repeating quietly and without any display of excitement the extraordinary statement you have just made relative to my granddaughter being a burglar."

But Hilary was not in the least daunted by his icy tones. Hot with indignation at the recollection of the scorn with which her family had received proof of her detective skill, she burst into an eager account of all the suspicions she had entertained about Margaret, and though, fortunately for herself, she did not again say anything about Colonel Baker's silver, she wound up by thrusting the case containing the necklace and the miniature into his hand.

"There," she said triumphantly, "I found that in her dressing bag this afternoon, and when I taxed her with having stolen them, she said——"

"Yes, what did she say?"

"That they were hers."

Mr. Anstruther looked her up and down; then he took the open case from her hand, snapped it to, and slipped it into his pocket.

"And so they are hers," he said. "Does your assertion that my granddaughter is a burglar and a thief rest on any other evidence but this?"

"N—no," faltered Hilary, feeling smaller and of less account than she had ever felt in her life before.

"Then do me the favour of not addressing me again while I remain in this house," said Mr. Anstruther; and turning his back upon the now thoroughly discomfited girl, he resumed his conversation with Mrs. Danvers at the point at which it had been broken off. And Hilary shrank back behind the others, and received scant comfort for the snubbing she had got from any of them.

"I did my best to stop you making such an awful goat of yourself," whispered Edward. "Couldn't you see that that precious bit of proof of yours was just so much evidence for the other side? He had just told us that Miss Carson's name was Margaret Anstruther, and Margaret was written inside the locket, wasn't it, and the initial outside was 'A'?"

Hilary nodded, too mortified even to speak. Now that it was too late she did see the silly, stupid blunder she had made, and she could have bitten out her tongue with annoyance.

"As I was saying, madam," Mr. Anstruther had gone on directly he had finished with Hilary, "my granddaughter has been known to you by the name of Eleanor Carson. This," and he waved his hand in the direction of Eleanor, "is the—the young lady whom you engaged to be your holiday governess. She met my granddaughter at a railway station some way up the line, and decided to change names and addresses. My granddaughter came here, and Miss Carson went up to the house of a friend where I had arranged for my granddaughter to stay; and she deceived this lady as completely as my granddaughter has deceived you."

"Miss Carson not Miss Carson at all!" murmured Mrs. Danvers. "Well, of all the extraordinary things I ever heard! And so it is you," glancing at Eleanor, "that my old friend Miss McDonald sent down to me. Dear me, who would have believed such a thing! I used to wonder sometimes why Miss Carson—Miss Anstruther, I should say—was always so reluctant to speak about Hampstead. Now I suppose it was because she had never been there. Yes, that must have been it. And that accounts, too, for Miss Carson—Miss Anstruther, I mean—speaking in such a queer, stiff way. I think you said she had been brought up entirely at home. It used to seem odd to me that Miss Carson—Miss Anstruther, I mean—should have been a governess in a girls' school for years and years. I forget how long she said she had been at Hampstead, but I know it was a long time, and yet she did not understand a word of slang. That was when she first came here. She has learned to speak rather differently now."

"I regret to hear it, madam," said Mr. Anstruther, who had, with difficulty, restrained himself from interrupting Mrs. Danvers' rambling speech. "I abhor slang in men, women, and boys. In girls I would not tolerate it for one instant. But all this is beside the point. And now, if you please, will you be so kind as to summon my granddaughter. I wish to have an interview with her immediately."

His look was so exceedingly stern, his tone so fraught with ominous meaning as to the reception his erring granddaughter would get when she entered his presence, that scarcely one of the young Danvers but felt glad that the terrific scolding he so evidently had in store for her must inevitably be postponed for the present. And perhaps by the time he did see her his wrath would have had time to cool.

"Where is my granddaughter?" he demanded.

"That is what we should all like to know, sir," said Geoffrey, "but what none of us do know. We were talking of that when you came in. I am sorry to say she has left our house. She has run away. The rest of us were out, and she had a sort of quarrel—a misunderstanding—with one of my sisters——"

"With the one, no doubt, who ransacked her boxes and called her a thief and a burglar," interpolated Mr. Anstruther.

"And she ran straight out of the house. We are hoping she means to come back, but we are very much afraid she will not."

"I am dreadfully upset about it," said Mrs. Danvers helplessly. "If you had only come an hour—even half an hour—ago, you would have found her here safe and sound. If anything happens to her—such a dreadful foggy night as it is, too—I shall never forgive myself for not having known she was going to run away, and stopped her."

"I fail to see any reason for anticipating that harm will come to her," said Mr. Anstruther harshly. He turned to Eleanor, "Perhaps you, Miss Carson, as her accomplice in this disgraceful business, can inform us where she would be likely to go?"

"She would come up to me," Eleanor answered; "that was the agreement we had both made, that if either of us were suddenly found out, or couldn't for any reason continue any longer to be the other, we would come and say so at once. She knows the way quite well; she often came up in the afternoon to see me."

"Yes, but it is one thing to find your way there on a summer's afternoon," said Mrs. Danvers nervously, "but quite another on a night like this. Why, the fog is now so thick that you can't see a yard in front of you down here even; and if it is like that here, it will be ten times worse up on the downs, and instead of finding her way to Windy Gap, she would be far more likely to walk in the opposite direction."

"Oh, don't say that, mother, for the opposite direction would lead her straight over the cliffs," said Geoffrey, and was immediately sorry for his thoughtless remark when he saw how alarmed Mrs. Danvers became; "but I agree with you that she is not very likely to arrive at Windy Gap in such a fog as this, so I suggest that we turn ourselves into a search party without loss of time, and go and look for her."

"One minute, if you please," said Mr. Anstruther; "when you say 'we,' to whom do you refer?"

"Why, to my brothers and myself," Geoffrey answered; "you Noel, and Jack, and Edward. Of course, you will all turn out and search?"

"Rather!" they answered in chorus, and from their eager voices it was easy to see that they looked upon the expedition as a novel and delightful adventure.

"I intend also to accompany you," said Mr. Anstruther.

"Just as you like, of course, sir," said Geoffrey, in rather a doubtful tone, "but if you will excuse my saying so, we would get on quicker without you. You see we know every yard of the way, and my idea was for us all to scatter when we get to the top of the downs, and search separately. We shall cover more ground in less time that way; for I feel perfectly certain that though Miss Anstruther may have started from here with every intention of getting to Windy Gap, she will never find it. The mist will be almost as thick as a London fog, and she will get hopelessly lost. But just on the chance that she may have got as far, I will go up to Windy Gap on my motor bicycle and find out, for it is no good our spending hours searching about on the downs if she is safe and sound there all the time."

He left the room as he spoke, and the three younger boys slipped out quickly after him, each fearing to be the last, lest Mr. Anstruther should persist in accompanying them. The latter, however, recognising that Geoffrey was right, and that his presence would be a hindrance rather than a help, had already given up the idea of joining them.

For once, as Edward remarked, Geoffrey's motor bicycle happened to be in full working order, and in less than five minutes he had his acetylene lamp lighted, and had gone vigorously hooting down the drive. It was then half-past seven; he expected, he said, to be easily back by a quarter past eight with the news whether the fugitive had reached Windy Gap or not. Edward, however, had shaken his head at that, and replied that, what with the bad roads and the fog, he could not be back in anything like that time.

Hardly had Geoffrey gone than the boys were joined by Maud.

"I am coming with you three," she said. "Mother has just asked Mr. Anstruther to dinner, and though I'm pretty hungry, I don't fancy the meal in his society. What a waxy old gentleman it is! and how mother will catch it if she airs any of the slang she has picked up from us!"

The three boys laughed, and when presently, armed with lanterns and bicycle lamps, they set off down the drive, they all amused themselves by repeating and jesting over as many of Mr. Anstruther's caustic remarks as they could remember. They agreed among themselves that poor Margaret must indeed have an awful time of it with him, and that she was highly to be commended for the pluck she had shown in calmly escaping from his authority directly she got the chance.

"But who would have thought she had it in her to go in for a thing of this sort?" said Noel. "The cool cheek of it beats anything I ever heard. I say, I wonder what the other girl—the real Eleanor Carson—is like? She looked frightfully subdued, didn't she? I expect she has been catching it from him pretty well."

The plan that the little band of searchers had formed was to follow the road taken by Geoffrey until they got to the top of the steep brow of the hill, and then, leaving the road, to strike across the grass, for it was probable that Margaret had essayed the short cut to Windy Gap, and that she might be wandering about hopelessly lost not very far from the point where she had left the road. In any case, they resolved not to stay out for more than an hour or so, but to return home at the end of that time and find out what news Geoffrey had of her.

But it was not until the town hall clock was solemnly striking midnight that the four searchers, who had set out so gaily and valiantly at half-past seven, turned wearily in at their own gate. The thing they did not believe possible had happened, and long before the hour they had planned to stay out was over, they were hopelessly lost themselves, and must, as Maud said with a groan, have walked miles and miles before they found themselves quite by chance not far from the point where they had first left the road.

They were tired and hungry, damp, and very cold; and the last time Edward had tripped and tumbled headlong into a furze bush—they had each had so many stumbles and falls that they had lost count of the number they had had—he dropped his new bicycle lamp, and had been unable to find it again. Their expedition could not therefore be termed a success, and Maud said that the last straw would be if they heard directly they got in that Margaret had been found hours ago.

"As, of course, she has been," said Edward, when turning the corner of the drive they saw Geoffrey's bicycle leaning against the porch. "I expect she's in the drawing-room with her grandfather. There seem to be lights everywhere. Well, I'm going to make a bee-line for the dining-room for grub. We had a very sketchy lunch, no tea, and no dinner, so I think we've earned something."

So as soon as they got into the house, the three boys went off in the direction of the dining-room, but Maud, although she was hungry enough too, felt that she must first hear if Miss Anstruther had been found. Considering that lights were burning everywhere, the house seemed strangely silent, and Maud was beginning to wonder if every one had gone to bed, when the door leading from the pantry opened, and Martin, without seeing her, followed the three boys into the dining-room, closing the door after him. Yes, that must be it, Maud thought—every one must have gone to bed, and he had shut the door lest their voices might disturb the household. She was just about to go to the dining-room too, when the sound of some one crying violently in the drawing-room came to her ears, and rather hesitatingly she opened the door and went in.

Hilary and Eleanor Carson were alone there together. The latter, with her elbows on her knees and her head buried in her hands, was sitting motionless in a chair near the fire, and Hilary was crouched in a huddled-up position on the ground by a sofa into the cushions of which she was sobbing.

As Maud came in Eleanor lifted her head and stared at her for a moment. Then she dropped her face again into her hands without a word. Brief as was the glimpse that Maud had got of her face, she was startled beyond measure at the expression it wore. It was as white as a sheet of paper, and her eyes, though dry and tearless, were full of grief and misery.

"Hilary!" Maud said in an awed tone. She did not venture to address Eleanor. "What is it? Where is Miss Anstruther?"

But she had to cross the room and repeat the question with her hand on her sister's shoulder before the latter heard her.

Then Hilary lifted her face in turn and stared vacantly at her sister. It was so blurred and swollen with incessant crying that if Maud had not known it was her sister who lay crouched there before her, she could scarcely have recognised her.

"Miss Anstruther is dead!" she wailed. "She fell over the cliffs and was killed. And it is all my fault. If I hadn't——" But at that point her tears, which never ceased for an instant, choked her further utterance, and letting her head drop back on the cushions, she went on crying.

Seeing that it would be as useless as it was cruel to question Hilary further, and still not daring to disturb the rigid, stony silence in which Eleanor sat, Maud hurried, horror-struck at what she had heard, from the room, and crossing the hall, went into the dining-room. The three boys were seated at the table eagerly devouring some hot soup, which Martin, whose face was very grave, had had in readiness for them.

Evidently he had not told them the dreadful news, and checking the questions which had been on the point of rising to her lips, Maud beckoned him from the room. He came out, carefully closing the door behind him.

"It's no use upsetting the young gentlemen by letting them know about it to-night," he said in a low tone. "They had better be got off to bed as soon as possible."

"It is really true, then?" Maud said, feeling sick at heart.

"I am afraid there is no doubt about it, Miss. It was a coastguardsman that told Master Geoffrey about it. He had been up to Windy Gap and heard that Miss Anstruther had not been seen there. And then coming back, he lost his way—went clean off the road in the dark, and then couldn't find it again for ever so long. He might have gone over the cliffs himself, Miss Maud. Then he met a coastguardsman and told him he was out looking for a young lady and asked him if he had seen her, and then the man said that about eight o'clock a young lady had fallen over the cliffs, just beyond the lighthouse, and had been picked up in a dying condition on the rocks below. They had taken her along the beach until they got to the end of the sea-wall, and then they had telephoned for an ambulance, and she was taken to the hospital, for, of course, they didn't know her name or where she lived then."

At that moment the three boys stumbled wearily into the hall rubbing their eyes. "I say, we're off to bed," said Noel. "Martin says that Miss Anstruther hasn't come back yet, but we can't do anything more, he thinks, so as we can scarcely keep our eyes open, we are going to turn in. Go and have some grub, Maud, and do likewise." And yawning their heads off as they went, the three boys trailed up to bed, far too sleepy to notice Maud's silence and horror-struck face.

"And Mr. Geoffrey has gone down to the hospital with Mr. Anstruther," continued Martin, as soon as the boys were out of earshot. "They were obliged to walk, for there wasn't a cab about when Mr. Geoffrey came back, for it was then close on eleven, and they wouldn't wait until I went to get one from the livery stables up the road. And now, Miss Maud, you must come and have something to eat. You had no dinner."

But Maud turned away with a little shake of the head. The mere idea of food was distasteful to her. She asked where her mother was. Martin was about to answer that his mistress was upstairs with Miss Joan and Miss Nancy, when the sound of footsteps coming at racing speed up the drive was heard, and the next moment Geoffrey dashed breathless and hatless into the house. "I say," he panted out as soon as he could speak, "it's all right. It wasn't Miss Anstruther who fell over the cliffs. It was somebody else altogether. A visitor at one of the hotels, they say. Poor thing, she has been terribly injured, and won't live till the morning, I believe. But the point is that it wasn't Miss Anstruther. Where are Hilary and poor Miss Carson? I must tell them at once."

He broke away from Maud, who would have detained him with a dozen eager questions, and burst into the drawing-room, shouting out his good news as he went.

Hilary, who was still crying—she had cried steadily for over two hours—received his news with a scream of joy, but though Eleanor heard it much more quietly, no one looking at her could fail to see how deeply she was moved to thankfulness.

The Danvers could only dimly realise how great her suffering had been during the last two hours, ever since Geoffrey had returned from the downs and in an awestruck tone, and with halting, stammering speech had broken to them all the news of the catastrophe which had, so he then thought, overtaken Margaret. Hilary had at once broken out into the noisy grief and passionate self-reproaches which she had kept up without intermission ever since, but Eleanor's agony of mind had lain too deep for outward expression. She knew that if Margaret had really been killed, she would never have been able to forgive herself. The awful thought that it was she who was responsible for her death would never have left her, and now that the strain of those terrible hours was over, Eleanor could only look back upon the utter blackness of despair that had been hers through every minute of them with a shudder.

Then Mrs. Danvers who had been upstairs with her two nieces, for Joan had had an attack of crying only second in intensity to that to which Hilary had given way, informed by Martin of the good news which Geoffrey had brought, came down, followed by Nancy and Joan in their dressing-gowns, to share in the general rejoicing, and presently Mr. Anstruther returned, having been driven up in a motor by one of the doctors who had been at the hospital.

And Mr. Anstruther's harshness and anger against his erring granddaughter was now a thing of the past. Though he had given scarcely more outward sign of his inward feelings than Eleanor, the tragic fate that he had believed to have overtaken Margaret had so appalled and shaken him that the escapade of which she had been guilty had sunk to but insignificant proportions in his eyes, and had she only returned now he would have uttered no word of blame to her.

But meanwhile she had not come back, and they were as far off as ever from knowing what had become of her, although in the general relief and gladness that for anything they knew to the contrary at least she was still alive, they had temporarily lost sight of that fact.

It was Mr. Anstruther who reminded them of it by mentioning that the doctor who had so kindly driven him up to The Cedars had taken him round to the police station on the way, where he, Mr. Anstruther, had given the sergeant on duty a brief description of his granddaughter. This was to be immediately telephoned to all the policemen on their night beats. The sergeant had also telephoned up to the coastguard station, telling them that the poor girl at the hospital was not the missing young lady, and to ask them to keep a sharp look-out for her on the cliffs all night, and to ring up the police station at once if anything was seen or heard of her.

Though Geoffrey's first search had proved so barren of result, he announced his intention of going up on to the downs again, this time on foot, and Maud volunteered to go with him. Her mother would have preferred her to go to bed, but she scouted that notion. Hilary, however, and the two Green girls, were glad enough to go docilely off to bed, and when Maud and Geoffrey, fortified with sandwiches and soup, had departed with freshly filled lanterns on a second expedition, Eleanor and Mr. Anstruther and Mrs. Danvers were left alone in the drawing-room together to get through the intervening hours of waiting as best they could.

Mr. Anstruther had deprecated the idea of Mrs. Danvers sitting up, but she had averred that she had no desire either to go to bed or to sleep. The former statement might have been true, but the latter was soon contradicted by the gentle snores which emanated from the direction of her chair. Mr. Anstruther sat so still that he, too, might have been asleep, but Eleanor, glancing at him once or twice, saw that his eyes were wide open and gazing fixedly before him. After awhile, his utter immobility no less than Mrs. Danvers' regular snoring, got on Eleanor's nerves, and rising quietly she slipped from the room, closing the door softly behind her.

The lights were burning in the hall, and there she kept her lonely vigil, pacing up and down. The slow hours wore away, two o'clock, three o'clock struck, and still Geoffrey and Maud did not return. The huge relief and joy she had felt when Geoffrey had come back from the hospital with the news that the girl who had fallen over the cliffs was not Margaret had long since ebbed away, and the anxiety to know what had become of her was almost torturing in its intensity. She wondered how any one in the house could sleep, or how Mr. Anstruther could sit patiently hour after hour by the fire waiting for news. Then she remembered that at least his conscience was at ease, for it was through no fault of his that his granddaughter was wandering about on the downs on such a dreadful night, and she envied him, envied any one who was not, like herself, burdened with remorse, and that awful sense that had grown up with her anxiety that, for whatever might befall Margaret that night, she alone was directly responsible.

Eleanor was seeing things very clearly that night, and quite dispassionately she told herself that she hated her own character. It was selfish through and through. The specious plea with which she had salved her conscience heretofore, that Margaret had been far the more eager of the two for the mutual exchange of their names, she brushed aside as worthless. Though there was little difference in their ages, Margaret was, as regarded experience of the world, a mere child compared to her, and she felt that in acceding to the deception she had been like a grown-up person cheating a child. Of course, Margaret had been old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, but that was no excuse for her; she ought not to have taken advantage of her.

The sting of shame she had felt before. Mrs. Murray's unvarying kindness and the gratitude she showed for any little mark of attention or service rendered to her while she had been ill, had made Eleanor both remorseful and ashamed, but her repentance then had not led to amendment. Even while she had been deeply ashamed of herself, she had known that, for the sake of her voice, she would have done it all over again, deceived Mrs. Murray, taken advantage of Margaret, held her, in spite of her tears, to her word, sacrificed her own truth and honesty to her ambition.

And this was the pass to which her ambition had brought her. Even though Margaret's death was not mercifully to be laid at her door, as for two long, never-to-be-forgotten hours that night she had feared, who could tell what the effects of a night of exposure and fright on the downs might not have upon her constitution?

No wonder, then, that with those miserable thoughts for company, Eleanor could not rest. But her repentance if tardy was at least sincere. Could the clock of time have been put back seven weeks, and were she and Margaret to be meeting now for the first time in the dingy little waiting-room at Carden Station, ah, how differently would she act! Not for the sake of being the greatest singer in the whole round world would she have consented to the deception. Rather would she have drudged as a poorly paid teacher in second-rate schools all the days of her life.

"Oh—if I could only have the time over again!" groaned Eleanor. It seemed such a small thing to wish for she thought despairingly. Just seven short weeks over again.

At five o'clock Mr. Anstruther opened the drawing-room door and came out into the hall. He did not see Eleanor who, wearied out at length with her ceaseless pacing to and fro, had flung herself down a few-minutes previously on Nancy's favourite couch behind the screen, but the ever watchful Martin came forward immediately, and though his offer of coffee was declined, he was permitted to help Mr. Anstruther into his overcoat. From the brief colloquy that ensued between them Eleanor gathered that he was going down to the police station. As soon as he had left she sprang up and went out into the garden. The long and seemingly endless night was at least over, and surely with daylight they might hope for news of Margaret. The morning had broken cold and chilly, but the mist was sweeping away in great rolling clouds before a light easterly breeze that had sprung up at dawn.

At six o'clock Geoffrey and Maud came home. Eleanor, who then was pacing up and down the drive, was the first to greet them, and her heart sank when, in answer to her eager look, they shook their heads. They had neither seen nor heard anything of Margaret.

"But no news is at least good news," said Geoffrey, quickly seeing how sick at heart she looked, and remembering the news with which he had returned the time before, she could not but agree with him there. "We have scoured the downs between here and Windy Gap thoroughly, and I am beginning to believe that she never tried to get there at all. We have just come straight back from there now. Mrs. Murray has been up all night with a hot bed, and hot blankets, and a hot bath, and all sorts of other hot things, waiting for Miss Anstruther directly she turns up. And her coachman and a couple of men from the village have been beating about on the downs most of the night. I really believe she has crept into a rabbit hole and means to lie low until all this fuss has blown over."

Though this remark did not succeed in bringing a smile to Eleanor's pale lips, his cheery manner insensibly comforted her, and she turned and walked back to the house with him and Maud, feeling that the load of her trouble was somewhat lightened by their society.

"Hot soup again, Martin!" Geoffrey exclaimed, as the servant made his appearance with a tray bearing some steaming cups directly they entered the house, "we really can't do it. What with you at this end of the journey, and Mrs. Murray at the other, this night has been a perfect picnic of hot soup."

"It's not soup, Master Geoffrey, it's coffee," said Martin imperturbably.

"Oh, if it's coffee I am on for some. You must have some, too, Miss Carson. You look a perfect wreck. I expect you have had a harder time of it than we have."

Eleanor shook her head. His sympathetic tone made her lower lip tremble. "I have done nothing all night—" she said, "but wait," she added.

"And awfully hard work that must have been by the look of you," he said; "and where is everybody, Martin?"

"The mistress is in the drawing-room, Mr. Anstruther has gone down to the police station, and the rest of the young ladies and gentlemen are in bed. And I think, Mr. Geoffrey, if you and Miss Maud went to bed now, too, it would be a good thing."

"Go to bed at half-past six in the morning! What an idea! Do you want to go to bed, Maud?"

"No," she answered promptly; "but what I do want is a stinging hot bath. That would freshen me up wonderfully. Come and have one, too, Miss Carson. It would do you a world of good."

Eleanor did not feel as if she particularly wanted a hot bath at that moment, but both Maud and Geoffrey so strongly advocated her taking one that out of gratitude to them for the sympathy they evidently desired to show her, she followed them upstairs. After all, she might as well have a bath as do anything else; it would at least help to pass the time. And when she had had her bath and done her hair, and was dressed and downstairs again, she certainly felt wonderfully better for it. The horrid sort of up-all-night feeling that she had experienced had quite left her.

Presently the whole household was astir. Mrs. Danvers, firmly convinced that she had been awake all night, left the drawing-room when the housemaid entered it and went upstairs, intending to have a bath and dress, but she went to bed instead.

To escape the curious eyes of the servants, who now seemed to be in every room and to be regarding her with not unnatural curiosity, Eleanor wandered out into the hall again and resumed the restless pacing to and fro which she had kept up the greater part of the night. By eight o'clock she seemed to have the principal sitting-rooms to herself. Geoffrey and Maud had not yet come downstairs, and the servants, having finished their dusting and sweeping, had gone to their breakfast.

Consequently when the telephone bell in the morning-room rang sharply she was the first person to hear it. Hurrying toward it with the wild hope that at last she was to hear news of Margaret, she caught up the receiver.

"Hullo!" she heard, "are you there? Is that The Cedars? Mrs. Danvers? Who then? I can't hear—Carson?—Eleanor Carson, you say? What! the young lady who has been impersonating my wife's niece? Yes, I know all about it. Yes—yes, I am telling you. Margaret Anstruther is here. I found her myself, not half an hour ago, in a wood shed in the wood at the back of our house here. She lost her way on the downs last night trying to get to Mrs. Murray's. Yes—yes, well and safe. My wife has sent her to bed. She has a temperature and a bad cold in the head. We have sent for a doctor. No—no not ill, but it is best to be on the safe side. And I sent a motor off ten minutes ago to let Mrs. Danvers know she is safe——" But the rest was a buzzing noise only. Either they had been cut off or Sir Richard had abruptly stopped speaking.

But Eleanor had heard enough. Margaret was safe. In her intense relief and joy at the news Eleanor let the receiver fall with a clang, and when Geoffrey and Maud, having heard her voice at the telephone, came flying downstairs, they found her shedding tears of joy.

"Margaret is found!" she said in glad accents. "Sir Richard Strangways has just telephoned." And she repeated to them the substance of what she had heard.

"I wonder why they did not send her back here," said Maud presently, when their first excitement was over.

"Because Margaret has evidently told them everything," replied Eleanor. "For Sir Richard spoke of her as Margaret, and, of course, they know now that she, not I, is Lady Strangways' niece."

"Is she really Lady Strangways' niece?" said Maud, in the wildest astonishment, "but they did not seem to know each other."

"They didn't," said Eleanor, "or, of course, our plot would have been found out at once. It's rather a long story to tell you now, but the gist of it is that as Lady Strangways has been out of England for years she and Margaret had never met. And so when Mrs. Murray told her that she had a niece of Mr. Anstruther's staying with her—meaning me then, of course—I had to pretend to be her niece. But she didn't take to me," added Eleanor ruefully.