Mr. Anstruther looked her up and down; then he took the open case from her hand, snapped it to, and slipped it into his pocket.
"And so they are hers," he said. "Does your assertion that my granddaughter is a burglar and a thief rest on any other evidence but this?"
"N—no," faltered Hilary, feeling smaller and of less account than she had ever felt in her life before.
"Then do me the favour of not addressing me again while I remain in this house," said Mr. Anstruther; and turning his back upon the now thoroughly discomfited girl, he resumed his conversation with Mrs. Danvers at the point at which it had been broken off. And Hilary shrank back behind the others, and received scant comfort for the snubbing she had got from any of them.
"I did my best to stop you making such an awful goat of yourself," whispered Edward. "Couldn't you see that that precious bit of proof of yours was just so much evidence for the other side? He had just told us that Miss Carson's name was Margaret Anstruther, and Margaret was written inside the locket, wasn't it, and the initial outside was 'A'?"
Hilary nodded, too mortified even to speak. Now that it was too late she did see the silly, stupid blunder she had made, and she could have bitten out her tongue with annoyance.
"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.