The colour rushed into Margot's cheeks, and her heart beat with suffocating quickness. Here was the opportunity for which she had longed, offered to her without any preliminary effort or contriving on her own part! The place, the time, the person were all in readiness, waiting for her convenience. If through cowardice or wavering she allowed the moment to pass, she could never again hope for another such opening. Already the Chieftain was watching her with surprise and curiosity, the softness of the last few minutes giving place to the usual alert good-humour. "Hey? Well! What is it? What's the trouble? Out with it! Anything I can do?" "Mr Elgood," said Margot faintly, "you are very good, very kind; I am most grateful to you. I hope you _will_ help me, but first there is something I must say... I--I have been deceiving you from the beginning!" "What's that?" The Chieftain sat up suddenly and stared at her beneath frowning brows. "Deceiving me? _You_? I don't believe a word of it! What is there to deceive me about, pray? You are not masquerading under a false name, I suppose? Not married, for instance, and passing yourself off as single for some silly school-girl freak?" "Oh no! Oh no! Everything that I have told you about myself is true, absolutely true." "I knew it. You are not the sort that could act a lie. What's all the fuss about, then?" "What I have told you is true, but--but--I have not told you _all_!" "I should think not, indeed! Who expected that you should? I am not at all sure that I care to hear it." "Oh, but--I want to tell you!" The Chieftain chuckled with amusement. He was evidently comfortably convinced of the non-importance of the forthcoming revelations, and Margot's courage suffered another ebb as she returned his unsuspicious glance. "I--we--we knew that you were staying at the Nag's Head!" The Chieftain cocked a surprised eyebrow, startled but unresentful. "You knew that we were here, before you arrived, and met us in the flesh? Is that so? I wonder how you heard! I make it a rule to keep my holiday plans as secret as possible, for the very good reason that a holiday _is_ a holiday, and one wants a change of companionship as well as scene. How in the world did you hear that we were bound for Glenaire? I'm curious!" Margot's eyelids fell guiltily, but Nature had generously endowed these same lids with long black lashes, the points of which curled up in a manner distractingly apparent when shown in contrast with a flushed pink cheek; so it happened that instead of being hardened by the sight, the Chieftain drew a few inches nearer, and smiled with genial approval. "Well, out with it! _How_ did you hear?" "I--asked!"