"Hullo!" she heard, "are you there? Is that The Cedars? Mrs. Danvers? Who then? I can't hear—Carson?—Eleanor Carson, you say? What! the young lady who has been impersonating my wife's niece? Yes, I know all about it. Yes—yes, I am telling you. Margaret Anstruther is here. I found her myself, not half an hour ago, in a wood shed in the wood at the back of our house here. She lost her way on the downs last night trying to get to Mrs. Murray's. Yes—yes, well and safe. My wife has sent her to bed. She has a temperature and a bad cold in the head. We have sent for a doctor. No—no not ill, but it is best to be on the safe side. And I sent a motor off ten minutes ago to let Mrs. Danvers know she is safe——" But the rest was a buzzing noise only. Either they had been cut off or Sir Richard had abruptly stopped speaking.
But Eleanor had heard enough. Margaret was safe. In her intense relief and joy at the news Eleanor let the receiver fall with a clang, and when Geoffrey and Maud, having heard her voice at the telephone, came flying downstairs, they found her shedding tears of joy.
"Margaret is found!" she said in glad accents. "Sir Richard Strangways has just telephoned." And she repeated to them the substance of what she had heard.
"I wonder why they did not send her back here," said Maud presently, when their first excitement was over.
"Because Margaret has evidently told them everything," replied Eleanor. "For Sir Richard spoke of her as Margaret, and, of course, they know now that she, not I, is Lady Strangways' niece."
"Is she really Lady Strangways' niece?" said Maud, in the wildest astonishment, "but they did not seem to know each other."
"They didn't," said Eleanor, "or, of course, our plot would have been found out at once. It's rather a long story to tell you now, but the gist of it is that as Lady Strangways has been out of England for years she and Margaret had never met. And so when Mrs. Murray told her that she had a niece of Mr. Anstruther's staying with her—meaning me then, of course—I had to pretend to be her niece. But she didn't take to me," added Eleanor ruefully.