With a little puzzled frown, the girl took a long gulp of the liquid, then fled up the staircase, pausing at the first landing only long enough to pick up a candle. "Good-night, Auntie," she called down to the bejewelled and rouged figure standing at the bottom. "I'll be better to-morrow." With a little nod she vanished, and the listeners heard her light footfall on the bare staircase of the second flight. A moment later there came the click of a door shut to. Lady Margaret had retired for the night. A sigh of relief came from Miss Cheyne's lips and she met the peculiar look of her servant with one equally significant. "Send Aggie up to her," she commanded, "and don't forget to lock her in." With this remark she turned on her high-heeled shoes, and minced painfully back to the dining room. Whether it was the effects of her journey, or what was more likely the strong spirit in the lemonade, Lady Margaret slept as soundly as the proverbial top till close on mid-day, when she was awakened by the rough entry of the person designated as "Aggie." She was a queer-looking maid, Lady Margaret thought to herself, with rough, unkept hair, and strangely roughened and stained fingers. She did not like the way the woman looked at her as she banged on the table a cup of weak tea and some thick slices of bread and butter. "Here you are, Miss--yer ladyship, I mean," she said in harsh cockney tones which made Lady Margaret wince unconsciously, accustomed as she was to the soft, pure French of the good nuns at Notre Dame. "An' the quicker you gets up and attends to yerself, the better I shall like it," the woman continued, muttering more to herself than to the girl. "It's a bit more than I bargained for." "That will do very well. I shall not require anything more, and please tell my aunt I shall be with her directly." "I don't doubt you will," responded the blunt Aggie in a rather surprising manner, then without another word she swung on her heel, and stalked out of the room, banging the door behind her. "What an awful creature," said Lady Margaret as she jumped lightly out of her bed. "I shall get Auntie to discharge her very soon. Oh, I am so thankful to be home," and she ran lightly to the window and looked out. With all the resilience of youth, she seemed a different being this morning from the worn-out, fragile child who had been driven home last night by Lieutenant Deland. A few minutes later she ran lightly down the staircase and into the dining room where she found the Honourable Miss Cheyne deeply absorbed in the morning newspapers. She greeted her niece a little gruffly, but knowing her eccentric ways, Lady Margaret took but scant notice. It was not long, however, before she realized that her future life was not to be entirely a bed of roses. "I am going over to see Miss Lorne to-day, Auntie," she said presently, "and to thank her for getting me out of my difficulties."