'To my daughter Margaret' is inscribed inside the locket."

But Geoffrey would not as much as glance at it.

"I think you have behaved disgracefully," he said, turning upon his
sister, "and ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. The idea of
going prying about in her room."

"I did it in a good cause," said Hilary, who, fully conscious now of the
sorry figure she cut, had much ado to keep tears of mortification and
rage from coming into her eyes. "How was I to know that the boys had put
them into her box and not she herself? It's as much their fault as mine
that Miss Carson got accused of taking them."

"Oh, oh, Miss Hilary!" said Edward, "that's rather good from one who not
five minutes ago was boasting of having alone and unaided--those were
your exact words, I think--brought the criminal to justice."

Hilary winced. She knew that for weeks, perhaps months to come, her brief
and inglorious career as a detective would be one of the stock jokes of
the family, and the thought of all the chaff she would have to endure was
anything but pleasing to her.

"Never mind whose fault it is," said Geoffrey with a touch of impatience
in his voice, "what does that matter now? The point is that a girl
staying in our house has been terribly insulted and practically driven
out of it, and she ought to be found and persuaded to come back, when the
first thing you will do, Miss," turning to Hilary, "will be to make her
the most abject apology you ever made to any one in all your born days."

"She'll come back of her own accord, surely, by dinner-time," said Mrs.
Danvers uneasily.

"Don't you believe it, mother," Geoffrey said emphatically. "When we met
Miss Carson just now the very last thought she had in her mind was the
intention of ever darkening our doors again."

At that moment Martin opened the drawing-room door. They had all been so
intent upon the conversation that was taking place that none of them had
heard the sound of wheels upon the gravel a few minutes previously,
consequently they were all taken by surprise to see two strangers behind
Martin.

"Mr. Anstruther and Miss Eleanor Carson," Martin said, and a tall and
thin old man with a long white beard, and a girl who none of them had
ever seen before, advanced into the room.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HOUR OF RECKONING

The cheerless weather that had prevailed during the last few days had, as
Margaret had foreseen it would, prevented Eleanor from spending he