"You!" exclaimed simultaneously every voice in the room except Hilary's, and she was too utterly dumbfounded even to utter that monosyllable.

"It was a joke," said Noel. "Tommy started it really. It was his idea, and he got us to hide the whole of the beastly things here. I am sure we wish we had never seen them. Of course we didn't know the trunk belonged to Miss Carson, or we wouldn't have hidden them in it. We thought it was an old one of mother's that was never used. We would have taken them back to Colonel Baker ages ago, only Tommy, the young idiot! chose to go off to Scotland and took the key with him. We couldn't open the trunk anyhow, though we tried ever so many keys."

"Oh boys, boys!" moaned Mrs. Danvers, "a nice mess you have got yourselves into. The Colonel will be furious. You have made him the laughing stock of the town. He will certainly summons you, and it will get into the papers, and you will certainly be expelled from Osborne and Dartmouth."

"And serve them right too, for a couple of silly young a.s.ses!" growled Geoffrey.

"That is all very well," said Hilary, swallowing her intense mortification as well as she could; "but what about this case?" opening it and displaying as she spoke the locket encircled by the string of pearls. "I found it locked up in her dressing bag, and she declares it is hers, although 'To my daughter Margaret' is inscribed inside the locket."

But Geoffrey would not as much as glance at it.

"I think you have behaved disgracefully," he said, turning upon his sister, "and ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. The idea of going prying about in her room."

"I did it in a good cause," said Hilary, who, fully conscious now of the sorry figure she cut, had much ado to keep tears of mortification and rage from coming into her eyes. "How was I to know that the boys had put them into her box and not she herself? It's as much their fault as mine that Miss Carson got accused of taking them."

"Oh, oh, Miss Hilary!" said Edward, "that's rather good from one who not five minutes ago was boasting of having alone and unaided--those were your exact words, I think--brought the criminal to justice."

Hilary winced. She knew that for weeks, perhaps months to come, her brief and inglorious career as a detective would be one of the stock jokes of the family, and the thought of all the chaff she would have to endure was anything but pleasing to her.

"Never mind whose fault it is," said Geoffrey with a touch of impatience in his voice, "what does that matter now? The point is that a girl staying in our house has been terribly insulted and practically driven out of it, and she ought to be found and persuaded to come back, when the first thing you will do, Miss," turning to Hilary, "will be to make her the most abject apology you ever made to any one in all your born days."

"She'll come back of her own accord, surely, by dinner-time," said Mrs.

Danvers uneasily.

"Don't you believe it, mother," Geoffrey said emphatically. "When we met Miss Carson just now the very last thought she had in her mind was the intention of ever darkening our doors again."

At that moment Martin opened the drawing-room door. They had all been so intent upon the conversation that was taking place that none of them had heard the sound of wheels upon the gravel a few minutes previously, consequently they were all taken by surprise to see two strangers behind Martin.

"Mr. Anstruther and Miss Eleanor Carson," Martin said, and a tall and thin old man with a long white beard, and a girl who none of them had ever seen before, advanced into the room.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HOUR OF RECKONING

The cheerless weather that had prevailed during the last few days had, as Margaret had foreseen it would, prevented Eleanor from spending her afternoons in the little summer-house, as had been her custom since she had come to Rose Cottage. For bad though the mist was in the town, it was worse on the downs, and the excessive rawness and chilliness of the atmosphere had laid poor Mrs. Murray low with a very bad attack of rheumatism.

As a rule, Eleanor slept soundly from the moment she laid her head on the pillow until she was roused in the morning, but a few nights ago she had been wakened by hearing Mrs. Murray moving about her room. Her first inclination had been to turn round and fall asleep again, but fearing that Mrs. Murray was ill, she had got rather reluctantly out of bed, put on her dressing-gown, and after tapping at Mrs. Murray's door, a useless proceeding, as the poor lady was far too deaf to hear her, had opened it and gone in. She had found Mrs. Murray sitting in her armchair, with her face twisted with pain, rubbing lotion into her rheumatic knee. The candles, which were burning low, showed that she had been awake for some hours.

When she perceived that she had wakened Eleanor, her distress was great, and she begged of her to go back to bed at once.

"My dear," she said, as she poured a fresh supply of embrocation into the hollow of her hand and set to work again, "I never disturb any one in the night if I can help it. Oh dear, how selfish it is of me to keep you out of your bed like this!" This last protest was uttered when Eleanor, taking the bottle from her hand, knelt down on the floor and began to rub the swollen knee.

For the sight of the deaf old lady sitting up in pain and alone, during the night had roused a sudden wave of pity in Eleanor's rather hard heart. A swift feeling of compunction smote her as she reflected how little thought she had taken of Mrs. Murray since she had come to live in her house. All her kindness had been accepted as a matter of course, and when Eleanor found that in return for that kindness no claim of any sort was made upon her, she had been conscious of a feeling of relief. She remembered how she had thought that her time would be far too fully occupied in taking advantage of all the lessons she was going to get to have any over to spend in providing companionship for Mrs. Murray.

For over half an hour Eleanor knelt and rubbed gently and steadily, first with one hand and then with the other, and though Mrs. Murray entreated her over and over again to go back to bed, Eleanor paid no heed to her.

"Think of your studies, my dear," Mrs. Murray said at last; "you won't feel fresh for them, and that will distress you so much to-morrow."

Eleanor winced. In what a selfish light must she have appeared to Mrs.

Murray all these weeks if the latter could suppose that the fear of being too sleepy to do her lessons to-morrow would send her post-haste back to bed now!

"Bother my studies!" she said energetically, and Mrs. Murray seeing the uselessness of further protest said no more. But at last she declared that the pain was gone for the moment, and that if she got into bed quickly she might fall asleep before it returned. So Eleanor helped her into bed, and had the satisfaction of seeing her doze off before she left the room. It would be rather too much to say that Eleanor returned to her bed an hour and a half after she had left it with a totally changed character, but she did go back with a clearer recognition of her besetting sin of selfishness than she had ever had before.

"It's always been Eleanor Carson first, Eleanor Carson second, and Eleanor Carson third with me," she thought, "and the rest of the field nowhere. I take all and I give nothing. I am selfish and hard and narrow.

Miss McDonald knew it. That was what she meant when she said one day that selfish people didn't know what they missed, and that I should be a happier girl if I thought more of others. Oh dear! there I go again; I don't seem able to leave myself out of consideration for a moment. And if I am only going to be unselfish for the sake of becoming a nicer character myself, I don't see where the true n.o.bility of unselfishness comes in."

Eleanor fell asleep before she had worked that question out to her satisfaction, and all the next day she was too busy practising the quality to have much time to think about it. Madame Martelli had sent up in the morning to say that the sudden change in the weather had given her such a bad cold that she would be unable to receive her pupil until further notice, and as Mrs. Murray had wisely resolved to stay in bed for a few days, Eleanor, with a total disregard for her studies of which a few days ago she really would not have believed herself capable, devoted all her energies to nursing her. She carried all her meals up to her, sat with her, rubbed her knee, gave her her medicine, brought her hot bottles, and generally made a great fuss over her. And Mrs. Murray was so appreciative of all she did that Eleanor told her ruefully she was spoiling it all by being too grateful.

"For, you see," she explained as Mrs. Murray not unnaturally looked much perplexed at this remark, "I wanted to be unselfish and improve my character; but you make it such a pleasure to do anything for you, that if I was really to practise self-denial I would go away and leave you to Hannah."

"All the time I have been with you," she went on suddenly dropping her tone of half-whimsical complaint, and speaking very earnestly, "I have taken all and given nothing. And people who do that must have such hard, selfish natures that I feel dreadfully ashamed of myself."

"My dear, it has been an infinite pleasure to have you with me," said Mrs. Murray, when she had gathered the drift of Eleanor's remark.

"Though, owing to my being so deaf, and you being always so busy, we have not perhaps been much together; still, I have enjoyed having you in the house more than I can say. You have been a fresh interest in my rather restricted life, and I shall feel parting with you dreadfully. Ah, how I wish your grandfather would let me keep you altogether! But that, of course, I cannot expect. Did he give you any idea how long he meant you to stay?"

"I--I don't remember," Eleanor said, flushing scarlet. And to herself she thought sadly how completely Mrs. Murray's good opinion of her would change when she knew how she had deceived her. That reflection was really her first step towards repentance, and she was astonished and not a little dismayed to find how rapidly her newly awakened conscience was driving her along to a point where confession would become essential to her own peace of mind. But she had some distance yet to travel before she reached it, and as it happened she missed for ever the opportunity of making a voluntary confession of her misdeeds, for on the afternoon of the day on which Margaret left The Cedars, Mr. Anstruther made a totally unexpected appearance at Rose Cottage.

Mrs. Murray had come downstairs for the first time, and she and Eleanor were sitting over the fire about half-past four enjoying a cosy tea, when the sound of wheels grating on the gravel was heard, and Eleanor saw a cab draw up at the front door. Visitors on such a day when the mist was so thick that even the other end of the lawn was shrouded from view, were totally unexpected, and Eleanor glancing out of the window wondered who the brave people might be who would venture up on to the downs in such weather. But when she saw that the cab was a station cab, and that its pa.s.senger was a tall, thin, elderly man, her heart gave a great jump, and then suddenly seemed to sink away into her shoes. She felt sure that this visitor was Mr. Anstruther. She looked at Mrs. Murray, who was just unfolding the _Times_ and preparing herself for an hour or so of peaceful enjoyment. She had heard neither the wheels of the cab on the gravel, nor the ring at the bell, nor did she even look up until Hannah, who had ushered Mr. Anstruther into the room, crossed it herself, and bending over her mistress p.r.o.nounced his name clearly in her ear.

Eleanor meanwhile stood immovable on the hearth-rug, bracing herself to meet the hour of reckoning that had come so swiftly and in such a totally unannounced manner upon her. She watched Mrs. Murray greet her old friend with mingled surprise and pleasure, and then saw her look with perplexity from him to herself as she stood motionless before the fire. Why, her face mutely asked, did they not greet one another? Why did he merely glance at his granddaughter and bow slightly in his stiff, old-fashioned way as if to a stranger? and why did she give no greeting at all to her grandfather?

"Margaret," she said at last, when the pause had lasted a full thirty seconds, "do you not see your grandfather, dear?"

Mr. Anstruther fairly jumped at that, and shot a keen glance at Eleanor, who still stood rigidly silent with the curious feeling strong on her that the direction of affairs did not lie with her at all. This stern old man who was eyeing her so severely would bring them to a crisis far more swiftly than she was capable of doing. From her expressionless face he looked straight into Mrs. Murray's puzzled, perturbed one. Obviously his first thought was that her mind was as deficient as her hearing. What he saw seemed to convince him that such was not the case, and very deliberately he bent down and spoke loudly and clearly in her ear.

"That girl," pointing a lean accusing finger at Eleanor, "is not my granddaughter Margaret. I never saw her before. Where is Margaret?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THAT GIRL," POINTING WITH A LEAN ACCUSING FINGER AT ELEANOR, "IS NOT MY DAUGHTER MARGARET."]

"My dear, is it true?" said Mrs. Murray in a bewildered tone. "I don't understand. If you are not Margaret Anstruther, who are you, and where is she?"

"That is precisely what I wish to know," broke in Mr. Anstruther sternly.

"What is this girl doing here, and where is my granddaughter? Do you really mean to say," he added, "that Margaret has not been here at all?

What is your name, and what are you doing masquerading here in hers?"

Though Mr. Anstruther in his anger had spoken loudly, he had not used the tone of voice suited to a deaf person, and it was pitiful to see the anxious way in which Mrs. Murray looked from one to the other, striving to hear what was said. So realising that the kindest thing she could do for her now was to tell her story quickly and not allow Mr. Anstruther to drag it from her by means of questions which Mrs. Murray could not hear, Eleanor knelt down by her chair and put her lips close to her ear.

"Shall I tell you everything from the beginning?" she said. "I can do it quickly. My name is Eleanor Carson, and on the 28th of July I was on my way from London to Seabourne to take up a position as holiday governess there, which had been offered to me for the summer holidays. I had to wait at Carden Junction for over an hour and a half, and as I was sitting in the waiting-room a girl came in. We began to talk presently, and she told me her name was Margaret Anstruther and that she was on her way to Windy Gap to stay with a Mrs. Murray, an old friend of her grandfather's, and she was to spend the summer learning Italian and having singing lessons with Madame Martelli. I envied her from the bottom of my heart, and said I wished I was in her shoes, and she said she wished she were in mine. And so in the end we decided to change. She became Eleanor Carson and went on to The Cedars, and I became Margaret Anstruther, and came here."

"The audacity, the unparalleled insolence, the unheard-of irregularity of the whole proceeding astounds me!" said Mr. Anstruther. "And where is my granddaughter now?"

"She is still with Mrs. Danvers at a house called The Cedars, Durham Road, Seabourne," said Eleanor.

"And you mean to say, Charlotte," Mr. Anstruther said loudly, "that you had no idea of the deception that had been practiced on you?"