"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.