he matter
leniently, nothing more remains for me to say," Mr. Anstruther said in a
displeased tone. "I gather, then, that you are not even angry with Miss
Carson for her treatment of you. Certainly I have not yet heard you utter
one word of blame to her, and when you consider how callously she has
deceived you all these weeks no condemnation could be too strong for
her."

"I don't believe you are callous, my dear," said Mrs. Murray, looking
gently into Eleanor's downcast face.

"Oh, I am ashamed, so dreadfully ashamed!" Eleanor said, "when I think of
all your kindness to me, and of how little right I had to any of it."

"And so you ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Mr. Anstruther. "But,
however, as I said before, your share in the matter has not so much to do
with me as my granddaughter's has. I am going now to see her, and you
must come with me. I do not intend to lose sight of you until I have
found her. How do I know that you are telling me the truth, and that she
is at this particular house you mention?"

Though Eleanor's eyes flashed at this remark, she recognised the justice
of it and received it in silence. After all, why should Mr. Anstruther
believe anything she said?

"Yes, go, my dear," said Mrs. Murray, and Eleanor rose obediently.

"And if you will take my advice Charlotte, you will get your housemaid to
pack her boxes, so that she can leave for good and all the first thing
to-morrow," Mr. Anstruther said before she was well out of the room.

He was standing in the hall when she came down with her hat and coat on,
and he motioned her to precede him into the cab, but giving her head a
little shake, Eleanor opened the drawing-room door and, after hesitating
for a moment on the threshold, went in. Mrs. Murray was sitting before
the fire crying silently. At the sight of her tears Eleanor's hesitation
vanished and she ran across the room and flung herself on her knees and
put both her arms in a protecting fashion round the old lady's neck.

"Don't cry about me," she said. "Oh, I am so sorry, so ashamed! I ought
never to have done it."

"And I thought you were such a dear girl," said Mrs. Murray, "so good,
so straightforward, so merry, and charming. And to think that you were
deceiving me all the time. Oh, it is bitter to be disappointed in any one
like this! Tell me what tempted you to do it. Mr. Anstruther says it was
the thought of living in comparative ease and comfort for a time, and so
you se