"Now, my lady, you'll just have to be still and patient," she said grimly. To Lady Margaret it seemed as if this eccentric relative were by no means ill-pleased at the catastrophe which had overtaken her niece.
"I thought it was burglars, Aunt Marion," said the girl, as Miss Cheyne's eye fell on the splintered lock, "and that reminds me, I was locked in——Did you know that? You won't dare to keep that woman now——"
"You go off to sleep, and I'll inquire into it," was all Miss Cheyne would say, and with that the girl was obliged to rest content. But when she fell into an uneasy sleep, it was with the profound intention to ask Edgar Brenton's advice at the earliest opportunity.
A sprained ankle is not a dangerous occurrence, but it is sufficiently painful and depressing to be worthy of more anxiety than was expended over Lady Margaret.
Rendered practically a prisoner she had only to rely on such books and magazines as Miss Cheyne brought up to her and the days passed very slowly indeed.
She wrote letters to Sir Edgar and to Miss Lorne, bribing Aggie with such coins as she possessed to post them, unknown to her aunt.
No answer came to them, though Aggie swore that they had been sent to the post, and later the girl was not surprised to find them in the possession of Miss Cheyne, opened and mutilated.
At intervals she heard the dull, distant moans, but had schooled herself to believe Aggie's statement.
On the first day that she could walk about her room she was almost hysterical with delight.
For once, too, Miss Cheyne relaxed her firm manner.