"Ask me nothing," shuddered Margaret. "I am going to have the affair sifted to the bottom."
"But why didn't you raise the house? Wasn't it a burglar?"
"No. I can tell you nothing about it until I have put myself under the protection of Mr. Davenport and the doctor."
She spoke quite evenly, but there was a suspicious wildness about her eyes which struck a new vein in the prolific brain of the housekeeper.
"Miss Margaret, deary! you didn't surely make that hole yourself?"
Margaret burst into vehement laughter. Her brain was so tried and over-strained that a touch might turn it. To ask her if she had done it!
And then, on the other hand, to think that Mrs. Chetwode should seem to be distrusting her sanity, like the others!
Down came the tears in a rushing torrent!
"My! She's in hysterics!" shrieked Mrs. Chetwode, catching the poor girl in her arms. "Don't, dear, don't!" shaking her vigorously. "Be quiet now, deary, love! Whisht! whisht!"
Wilder grew Margaret's sobs, shriller her laughter. She writhed herself out of Mrs. Chetwode's arms, and pointed to the door.