he instant she awoke. She
found herself wishing most fervently that she had been content to remain
Margaret Anstruther, and had never met Eleanor Carson, or conceived the
mad idea of changing places with her. However, as it was obviously too
late to entertain reflections of that sort now, she made an effort to
dismiss that unprofitable wish from her mind, and in order to divert her
thoughts the more effectually, resolved, early though it was, to get up.

As soon as the sound of many feet clattering noisily downstairs told her
that the coast was clear, she found her way to the bathroom, and having
bathed and dressed felt more courage to face the trials of the day that
lay before her.

There was no one about as she went downstairs, and she passed out through
the open front door and went into the garden.

The Cedars--described by the local house agents as one of the finest
residential mansions in Seabourne--stood in about three acres of ground,
which, though to Margaret accustomed to the big gardens of the country,
seemed a small enough piece of land to belong to such an imposing looking
house as The Cedars, was in reality unusually large for a town where
property was so valuable and ground rents as enormous as they were in
Seabourne. The grounds had been laid out to the utmost advantage. A wide
lawn, planted here and there with clumps of flowering shrubs, sloped
slightly away from the front of the house, and at the bottom of it lay
two sunk tennis courts surrounded by high wire-netting. On the other side
of the drive were kitchen and fruit gardens.

Her tour of the grounds finished, Margaret conceived the idea of going on
to the downs, the foot of which were scarcely a stone's throw away from
the gate, and seeing if she could discover in which direction Windy Gap
lay. It was still quite early and she had plenty of time at her disposal
before breakfast. It was a stiff climb to the top of the downs and took
longer than she had thought, even though she left the white road that
went zigzagging to the summit and took a short cut up an exceedingly
steep footpath. But the view that she got when she reached the top
brought a little cry of amazed wonder to her lips, and she felt amply
repaid for her long, toilsome climb. Accustomed as she had been all her
life to the flat, tame scenery that surrounded her native village, she
had had no idea that anything as lovely as this could exist. Never had
she seen anything like it. The wi