"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 antic.i.p.ating 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 gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.sionate 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.