bbing.

As Maud came in Eleanor lifted her head and stared at her for a moment.
Then she dropped her face again into her hands without a word. Brief as
was the glimpse that Maud had got of her face, she was startled beyond
measure at the expression it wore. It was as white as a sheet of paper,
and her eyes, though dry and tearless, were full of grief and misery.

"Hilary!" Maud said in an awed tone. She did not venture to address
Eleanor. "What is it? Where is Miss Anstruther?"

But she had to cross the room and repeat the question with her hand on
her sister's shoulder before the latter heard her.

Then Hilary lifted her face in turn and stared vacantly at her sister.
It was so blurred and swollen with incessant crying that if Maud had not
known it was her sister who lay crouched there before her, she could
scarcely have recognised her.

"Miss Anstruther is dead!" she wailed. "She fell over the cliffs and was
killed. And it is all my fault. If I hadn't----" But at that point her
tears, which never ceased for an instant, choked her further utterance,
and letting her head drop back on the cushions, she went on crying.

Seeing that it would be as useless as it was cruel to question Hilary
further, and still not daring to disturb the rigid, stony silence in
which Eleanor sat, Maud hurried, horror-struck at what she had heard,
from the room, and crossing the hall, went into the dining-room. The
three boys were seated at the table eagerly devouring some hot soup,
which Martin, whose face was very grave, had had in readiness for them.

Evidently he had not told them the dreadful news, and checking the
questions which had been on the point of rising to her lips, Maud
beckoned him from the room. He came out, carefully closing the door
behind him.

"It's no use upsetting the young gentlemen by letting them know about it
to-night," he said in a low tone. "They had better be got off to bed as
soon as possible."

"It is really true, then?" Maud said, feeling sick at heart.

"I am afraid there is no doubt about it, Miss. It was a coastguardsman
that told Master Geoffrey about it. He had been up to Windy Gap and heard
that Miss Anstruther had not been seen there. And then coming back, he
lost his way--went clean off the road in the dark, and then couldn't find
it again for ever so long. He might have gone over the cliffs himself,
Miss Maud. Then he met a coastguardsman and told him he was out looking
for a young lady and a