Was the purport of her presence here merely to pay a passing call? Did she simply wish to make a few inquiries, and then return from whence she came? Would she be content with a few more or less civil words being spoken to her at the partly open door, or would she insist on entering and being allowed to visit Cuthbert Grahame in his room? In that case Isabel's domination would be at an end. The chances were that those two had but to exchange half-a-dozen words, and the castle which she had already in imagination builded would resolve itself into an edifice even less substantial than a house of cards. The wild scheme of which she had conceived the embryo would never move from that condition. The situation out of which she had determined to wrest a great opportunity would be there and then at an end if Margaret Wallace won her way past that front door. But would she win it? The fates were on Isabel's side. Nannie upstairs helpless in her bed; Cuthbert Grahame still more helpless in his; the two girls out--Margaret Wallace would have to reckon with her. Isabel overrated herself if, in such a contest as was likely to ensue, she did not prove the better of the pair. A sudden thought occurring to her she hurried into the hall. By some fortunate chance the front door was closed, so that she remained unseen by the approaching visitor. She remembered that she had closed it when she herself had come in; as a rule it stood wide open. If it had been then it would have been impossible for her to perform the part she proposed to play. As soon as she reached it she turned the key--only just in time. Within thirty seconds the handle was tried by some one on the other side. "That settles it," observed Isabel to herself. "I didn't look at the face in the miniature so closely as all that, it was the setting which occupied me. I might have mistaken the likeness, and it mightn't have been Margaret Wallace after all. But the style in which she turned that handle gives her away. She's come in and out of this house too often not to be aware that, even if the door does happen to be shut, you've only got to turn the handle to come in. When she found that it wouldn't open, I'll bet that she had a bit of a shock. Holloa! it seems that she can't believe it now. I daresay it's the first time in all her life that she's found that door closed against her." Something of the kind did seem possible. The person on the other side was giving the handle various twists and turns, as if unable to credit that the door was actually locked. It was only after continued efforts that the fact was realised. There was an interval, as if the person without was considering the position. "Now what'll she do?" wondered Isabel. "Go round to the back, and see if she can't get in that way? She won't think it a possible thing that both doors can be locked. The odds are that she's come in one way as often as the other. She won't come in that way this time, and so I'll show her."