The sting of shame she had felt before. Mrs. Murray's unvarying kindness and the gratitude she showed for any little mark of attention or service rendered to her while she had been ill, had made Eleanor both remorseful and ashamed, but her repentance then had not led to amendment. Even while she had been deeply ashamed of herself, she had known that, for the sake of her voice, she would have done it all over again, deceived Mrs. Murray, taken advantage of Margaret, held her, in spite of her tears, to her word, sacrificed her own truth and honesty to her ambition.
And this was the pass to which her ambition had brought her. Even though Margaret's death was not mercifully to be laid at her door, as for two long, never-to-be-forgotten hours that night she had feared, who could tell what the effects of a night of exposure and fright on the downs might not have upon her constitution?
No wonder, then, that with those miserable thoughts for company, Eleanor could not rest. But her repentance if tardy was at least sincere. Could the clock of time have been put back seven weeks, and were she and Margaret to be meeting now for the first time in the dingy little waiting-room at Carden Station, ah, how differently would she act! Not for the sake of being the greatest singer in the whole round world would she have consented to the deception. Rather would she have drudged as a poorly paid teacher in second-rate schools all the days of her life.
"Oh—if I could only have the time over again!" groaned Eleanor. It seemed such a small thing to wish for she thought despairingly. Just seven short weeks over again.
At five o'clock Mr. Anstruther opened the drawing-room door and came out into the hall. He did not see Eleanor who, wearied out at length with her ceaseless pacing to and fro, had flung herself down a few-minutes previously on Nancy's favourite couch behind the screen, but the ever watchful Martin came forward immediately, and though his offer of coffee was declined, he was permitted to help Mr. Anstruther into his overcoat. From the brief colloquy that ensued between them Eleanor gathered that he was going down to the police station. As soon as he had left she sprang up and went out into the garden. The long and seemingly endless night was at least over, and surely with daylight they might hope for news of Margaret. The morning had broken cold and chilly, but the mist was sweeping away in great rolling clouds before a light easterly breeze that had sprung up at dawn.
At six o'clock Geoffrey and Maud came home. Eleanor, who then was pacing up and down the drive, was the first to greet them, and her heart sank when, in answer to her eager look, they shook their heads. They had neither seen nor heard anything of Margaret.
"But no news is at least good news," said Geoffrey, quickly seeing how sick at heart she looked, and remembering the news with which he had returned the time before, she could not but agree with him there. "We have scoured the downs between here and Windy Gap thoroughly, and I am beginning to believe that she never tried to get there at all. We have just come straight back from there now. Mrs. Murray has been up all night with a hot bed, and hot blankets, and a hot bath, and all sorts of other hot things, waiting for Miss Anstruther directly she turns up. And her coachman and a couple of men from the village have been beating about on the downs most of the night. I really believe she has crept into a rabbit hole and means to lie low until all this fuss has blown over."
Though this remark did not succeed in bringing a smile to Eleanor's pale lips, his cheery manner insensibly comforted her, and she turned and walked back to the house with him and Maud, feeling that the load of her trouble was somewhat lightened by their society.
"Hot soup again, Martin!" Geoffrey exclaimed, as the servant made his appearance with a tray bearing some steaming cups directly they entered the house, "we really can't do it. What with you at this end of the journey, and Mrs. Murray at the other, this night has been a perfect picnic of hot soup."
"It's not soup, Master Geoffrey, it's coffee," said Martin imperturbably.