And that was what had brought Margaret into such serious trouble with her grandfather.
CHAPTER III
MARGARET STARTS ON A JOURNEY
The immediate result of the conversation that Mr. Anstruther had overheard between his granddaughter and her imaginary friend was a visit from the doctor to Margaret. Mr. Anstruther was sure that Margaret would never have dreamed of rebelling against him even in her thoughts had she not been ill, and within an hour from the time he had dispatched his granddaughter in disgrace to the house, Mr. Anstruther followed her there accompanied by Dr. Knowles. Dr. Knowles it was whose conversation with the clergyman Margaret had in her turn overheard from behind the hedge, and if he had pitied Margaret before, his pity increased tenfold, when by a series of skilfully put questions he had drawn from her a description of her daily life. But he smiled reassuringly at her as he bade her good-bye, and promised to send her a prescription that he knew she would like.
But though, when she came to hear of it, Margaret approved this prescription, her grandfather strongly objected to it when it was first mooted to him. For it was change of air that the doctor prescribed—change of air immediate and complete.
"If you could fill this house with young people, and let her lead a gay, lively life here, I don't say that it might not do her as much good as a change of climate, but," perceiving that Mr. Anstruther's face was set like a flint at a mere suggestion of such a thing, "a change would be better still. She has been too long in this flat, low-lying district; Brighton or Eastbourne, or any part of the Sussex Downs, would be of immense benefit to her."
"And if I follow neither of these alternatives," said Mr. Anstruther harshly, "if I let her go on as she is doing now, what then?"
"Then I think you will run a great risk of having a morbid, melancholy young lady on your hands—a delicate one too—for she is in danger of becoming anemic, unless her health improves."
Dr. Knowles spoke so emphatically that, averse though he was to the idea of letting his granddaughter go away, Mr. Anstruther dared not disregard his warning. Nothing, he told himself obstinately, would have induced him to accept the alternative proposal and fill his house with young people for her sake. That would have been denying the very principles on which she had been brought up. But the change was another matter altogether. The next point to be considered was where he should send her; the doctor had specified the Sussex downs, and that brought to Mr. Anstruther's mind the fact that he had a friend who lived in a village high up on those same downs. Many years ago he had visited her in the breezy place in which she had chosen to make her home, and if his memory served him rightly, and he had no doubt on that point, Windy Gap, as the village was called, would be bracing enough to please the doctor, and quiet enough to satisfy him. To the best of his belief there was scarcely another house within three or four miles, and even if she had possessed near neighbours Mrs. Murray would not have been likely to hold much intercourse with them, for she was very deaf, and, as when he had known her, at least, she had objected strongly to using an ear-trumpet, and few people had sufficient lung power to make her hear without it, she had been quite content not to hear them at all. Mr. Anstruther smiled rather grimly as he reflected that Margaret's stay at Windy Gap was not likely to make her own home seem dull by contrast when she returned to it.