night beats. The
sergeant had also telephoned up to the coastguard station, telling them
that the poor girl at the hospital was not the missing young lady, and to
ask them to keep a sharp look-out for her on the cliffs all night, and to
ring up the police station at once if anything was seen or heard of her.

Though Geoffrey's first search had proved so barren of result, he
announced his intention of going up on to the downs again, this time on
foot, and Maud volunteered to go with him. Her mother would have
preferred her to go to bed, but she scouted that notion. Hilary, however,
and the two Green girls, were glad enough to go docilely off to bed, and
when Maud and Geoffrey, fortified with sandwiches and soup, had departed
with freshly filled lanterns on a second expedition, Eleanor and Mr.
Anstruther and Mrs. Danvers were left alone in the drawing-room together
to get through the intervening hours of waiting as best they could.

Mr. Anstruther had deprecated the idea of Mrs. Danvers sitting up, but
she had averred that she had no desire either to go to bed or to sleep.
The former statement might have been true, but the latter was soon
contradicted by the gentle snores which emanated from the direction of
her chair. Mr. Anstruther sat so still that he, too, might have been
asleep, but Eleanor, glancing at him once or twice, saw that his eyes
were wide open and gazing fixedly before him. After awhile, his utter
immobility no less than Mrs. Danvers' regular snoring, got on Eleanor's
nerves, and rising quietly she slipped from the room, closing the door
softly behind her.

The lights were burning in the hall, and there she kept her lonely vigil,
pacing up and down. The slow hours wore away, two o'clock, three o'clock
struck, and still Geoffrey and Maud did not return. The huge relief and
joy she had felt when Geoffrey had come back from the hospital with the
news that the girl who had fallen over the cliffs was not Margaret had
long since ebbed away, and the anxiety to know what had become of her was
almost torturing in its intensity. She wondered how any one in the house
could sleep, or how Mr. Anstruther could sit patiently hour after hour by
the fire waiting for news. Then she remembered that at least his
conscience was at ease, for it was through no fault of his that his
granddaughter was wandering about on the downs on such a dreadful night,
and she envied him, envied any one who was not, like herself, burdened
wit