At that moment the three boys stumbled wearily into the hall rubbing their eyes. "I say, we're off to bed," said Noel. "Martin says that Miss Anstruther hasn't come back yet, but we can't do anything more, he thinks, so as we can scarcely keep our eyes open, we are going to turn in. Go and have some grub, Maud, and do likewise." And yawning their heads off as they went, the three boys trailed up to bed, far too sleepy to notice Maud's silence and horror-struck face.
"And Mr. Geoffrey has gone down to the hospital with Mr. Anstruther," continued Martin, as soon as the boys were out of earshot. "They were obliged to walk, for there wasn't a cab about when Mr. Geoffrey came back, for it was then close on eleven, and they wouldn't wait until I went to get one from the livery stables up the road. And now, Miss Maud, you must come and have something to eat. You had no dinner."
But Maud turned away with a little shake of the head. The mere idea of food was distasteful to her. She asked where her mother was. Martin was about to answer that his mistress was upstairs with Miss Joan and Miss Nancy, when the sound of footsteps coming at racing speed up the drive was heard, and the next moment Geoffrey dashed breathless and hatless into the house. "I say," he panted out as soon as he could speak, "it's all right. It wasn't Miss Anstruther who fell over the cliffs. It was somebody else altogether. A visitor at one of the hotels, they say. Poor thing, she has been terribly injured, and won't live till the morning, I believe. But the point is that it wasn't Miss Anstruther. Where are Hilary and poor Miss Carson? I must tell them at once."
He broke away from Maud, who would have detained him with a dozen eager questions, and burst into the drawing-room, shouting out his good news as he went.
Hilary, who was still crying--she had cried steadily for over two hours--received his news with a scream of joy, but though Eleanor heard it much more quietly, no one looking at her could fail to see how deeply she was moved to thankfulness.
The Danvers could only dimly realise how great her suffering had been during the last two hours, ever since Geoffrey had returned from the downs and in an awestruck tone, and with halting, stammering speech had broken to them all the news of the catastrophe which had, so he then thought, overtaken Margaret. Hilary had at once broken out into the noisy grief and passionate self-reproaches which she had kept up without intermission ever since, but Eleanor's agony of mind had lain too deep for outward expression. She knew that if Margaret had really been killed, she would never have been able to forgive herself. The awful thought that it was she who was responsible for her death would never have left her, and now that the strain of those terrible hours was over, Eleanor could only look back upon the utter blackness of despair that had been hers through every minute of them with a shudder.
