nce had been
pressed into those three weeks, and she had learned many things. Among
them she had learned what perhaps at the time she had scarcely believed
that there was, as Eleanor had said bitterly, a good deal of difference
in their respective positions, and that an escapade which could not be
visited very seriously on one might affect the other rather disastrously.
Margaret knew now that Mrs. Danvers, good-natured as she was, would
certainly have refused to take Eleanor in her place if she, Margaret, had
carried out her intention of confessing everything. But in spite of that
knowledge she still clung to the hope that the post at Los Angelos, which
was being so warmly pressed upon the false Eleanor Carson, might
eventually be offered to the real one! And so, if only for the sake of
keeping the place open to Eleanor, she felt that she could not refuse it
outright. What Eleanor meant to do when the holidays were over and they
had to take their own names again, Margaret did not know. As far as she
could judge from their brief, stolen interviews at Windy Gap, Eleanor
continued to be radiantly happy there and to be earning golden opinions
from Madame Martelli, and to be absolutely untroubled by any thoughts
beyond the immediate present. The fact that she could not be Margaret
Anstruther for ever never seemed as much as to enter her head. She gave
no thought to the future at all. And of course, Margaret reflected, if
she expected to be a celebrated Prima Donna by the end of the summer
holidays, that was all right, but if not, did she intend to stay on at
Windy Gap indefinitely and send her, the real Margaret, back to the
school in her place? If such a thing were possible, Margaret felt sure
that Eleanor would despatch her there with the utmost cheerfulness, and
consequently Margaret was deeply thankful that such a course was not
feasible, for Eleanor could hardly hope to pass another girl off as
herself in a school where she had lived for the last seven or eight
years. What, then, did Eleanor mean to do?

"My dear," said Mrs. Danvers reproachfully, breaking in upon Margaret's
perplexed musings, "you are not listening to a word that I am saying,
and what I want to have from you is a plain answer to the question why
you refuse to go to Los Angelos."

"I--I could not leave England," Margaret answered. "I--I should not be
allowed to."

"But, my dear, I understood from Miss McDonald that both your parents
were dead and tha