such a queer, stiff way. I
think you said she had been brought up entirely at home. It used to seem
odd to me that Miss Carson--Miss Anstruther, I mean--should have been a
governess in a girls' school for years and years. I forget how long she
said she had been at Hampstead, but I know it was a long time, and yet
she did not understand a word of slang. That was when she first came
here. She has learned to speak rather differently now."

"I regret to hear it, madam," said Mr. Anstruther, who had, with
difficulty, restrained himself from interrupting Mrs. Danvers' rambling
speech. "I abhor slang in men, women, and boys. In girls I would not
tolerate it for one instant. But all this is beside the point. And now,
if you please, will you be so kind as to summon my granddaughter. I wish
to have an interview with her immediately."

His look was so exceedingly stern, his tone so fraught with ominous
meaning as to the reception his erring granddaughter would get when she
entered his presence, that scarcely one of the young Danvers but felt
glad that the terrific scolding he so evidently had in store for her must
inevitably be postponed for the present. And perhaps by the time he did
see her his wrath would have had time to cool.

"Where is my granddaughter?" he demanded.

"That is what we should all like to know, sir," said Geoffrey, "but what
none of us do know. We were talking of that when you came in. I am sorry
to say she has left our house. She has run away. The rest of us were out,
and she had a sort of quarrel--a misunderstanding--with one of my
sisters----"

"With the one, no doubt, who ransacked her boxes and called her a thief
and a burglar," interpolated Mr. Anstruther.

"And she ran straight out of the house. We are hoping she means to come
back, but we are very much afraid she will not."

"I am dreadfully upset about it," said Mrs. Danvers helplessly. "If you
had only come an hour--even half an hour--ago, you would have found her
here safe and sound. If anything happens to her--such a dreadful foggy
night as it is, too--I shall never forgive myself for not having known
she was going to run away, and stopped her."

"I fail to see any reason for anticipating that harm will come to her,"
said Mr. Anstruther harshly. He turned to Eleanor, "Perhaps you, Miss
Carson, as her accomplice in this disgraceful business, can inform us
where she would be likely to go?"

"She would come up to me," Eleanor answered; "tha