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.