Google Reconsideration Mystery

A few months ago I removed links and submitted a reconsideration request and disavow file for a client.

We got a response saying that Google wanted us to remove some more links and ask again for reconsideration.

I removed some more links but was still trying to get even more offline when we noticed that the reconsideration button has dissapeared from my client’s webmaster tools and that her ranking is starting to improve for some keywords.

Has anyone else experienced this? And do you think it is a glitch or that Google has just decided to remove the penalty without saying?
I’m puzzled.