Part 23 (1/2)

”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 companions.h.i.+p 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.