It had, after all, been quite an easy one. The great secret was, he reflected to maintain an attitude of judicious firmness, and never to relax it. Not once had Margaret ever ventured to argue with him or to question his right to order her every action. And so very well pleased with himself Mr. Anstruther dismissed her from his mind and went about his own affairs. It had been a matter of some surprise to Margaret to find how soon she not only got accustomed to Miss Bidwell's absence, but ceased to miss her. Naturally she felt a little lonely at first, and it was rather strange to look up from her work and not see the thin, angular form of her governess seated at the head of the table with a book, at the pages of which she had latterly, at least, not looked much, open before her, nor to hear the ceaseless click click of her steel knitting needles. But as soon as the feeling of loneliness and the sense of almost oppressive silence that now surrounded her wore off Margaret grew to like her hours of solitary study. The hours that she found most irksome were those that she was compelled to spend taking exercise in the grounds. For though she liked being out in the open air, she soon grew heartily tired of walking about under the shade of the densely growing elms, and she missed the long country walks with Miss Bidwell to which she had been accustomed. Gradually the monotony and exceeding loneliness of her life began to tell upon her spirits, her appetite failed, she grew paler and thinner, and her step as she roamed aimlessly about the grounds grew daily more languid. But still no thought of rebelling against the queer existence she was leading entered her mind, for as yet she had scarcely realised how unhappy she was. It was an intensely hot summer, and she thought that the unusual heat was responsible for the lack of interest she felt in all her usual occupations, and for the tired feeling which made her now, instead of obeying her grandfather's orders to take exercise, deliberately seek out the shadiest spot among the trees and sit quietly there the whole afternoon. It was probably the very first deliberate act of disobedience of which she had ever of set purpose been guilty in her life, and it was to have consequences of which she little dreamed. One afternoon, some two or three weeks before the day on which her grandfather was to come so unexpectedly upon her, she was sitting there half asleep when the unusual sound of footsteps and voices in the field below her startled her into complete wakefulness. Though she was close to the hedge that divided the fields from the woods, she was so well screened from observation, not only by the hedge but by a clump of intervening young trees, that she was able to rise to her feet and look at the speakers as they passed without fear of detection.