"Hallo!" she cried, "I'm just by Miss Maitland's study. I shall go in, and pay her a call. Ta-ta!" and she disappeared suddenly through the open window.

"What will Miss Maitland say if she's there?" exclaimed Lettice.

"I don't believe she'd be cross," said Maisie. "She'd be amused to see anybody come in so funnily."

Honor was absent only about a minute, then her beaming face peeped from the window once more.

"Miss Maitland's not at home," she announced. "I've left my card with the footman, and said I'd call again another day, in my aeroplane. Keep out of the way down there--I'm coming!" and down she came, with a rush and a scramble, arriving quite safely, however, with only her hair ribbon untied and her hands a little grazed.

"You see, it's really a very easy matter," she explained; "we do far harder things in the gym."

"Can you find a good foothold?" asked Flossie.

"Oh, yes! There are heaps of places that seem made on purpose to put your toe in. It's almost like a ladder."

"Here's Vivian!" said Chatty. "I'm afraid she's come to call us in."

"What a nuisance! I don't want to go to bed."

Chatty had accurately guessed the monitress's errand.

"It's nearly nine o'clock," proclaimed Vivian. "Didn't you hear the bell? I rang it at the side door."

"We didn't hear a sound," replied Lettice. "But then, we were all laughing so much. Honor Fitzgerald has just been climbing the lime tree, and she went right through the window into the study."

"Honor Fitzgerald is a hoyden, then," said Vivian. "And what business had she to go inside Miss Maitland's room? It was a piece of great impertinence."

"I'm sorry I told you," said Lettice ruefully.

"I wish Vivian could have heard the verse you made about her!"

whispered Pauline to Honor. "Is hoyden a dictionary word, or not? I'm afraid I should have said 'cheek' instead of impertinence, but I'm not a monitress."

The girls had entered the dressing-room, and were putting away books and sewing materials in their lockers, when Maisie exclaimed:

"Oh, what a bother! I've left my work-basket on the gra.s.s. It was open, too, and if there's a heavy dew my scissors and crewel needles will be covered with rust. Lettice, do go and fetch it for me!--there's just time."

Lettice was so accustomed to wait upon her elder sister that she did not even remonstrate, but turned straightway and ran into the garden to fetch the lost property. It had grown suddenly very dusk, almost dark.

The lime tree stood out tall and black by the side of the house, and the bushes were dense ma.s.ses of shadow. Lettice had to grope for the basket, but found it at last, and began to retrace her steps along the hardly-discernible path. She was about twenty yards away from the lime tree when a slight noise made her look back, and she noticed the figure of a girl swinging herself down by the branches in the same way as Honor had done. Whoever it was alighted on the ground gently, and rushed off into the bushes before Lettice could see her face, though it would have been too dark, in any case, to distinguish her features. It was all done very quickly, and so silently that, except for the first sound, there was scarcely a rustle.

Lettice was in a great hurry, and did not stop to make any investigation; indeed, she did not trouble to give the matter a thought. It seemed a trifling little incident, not even worth mentioning to the others; yet it was one that she was to remember afterwards, in view of certain events that followed, for it was destined to make a link in the strangest chain of circ.u.mstances that ever occurred at St. Chad's.

CHAPTER XIV

A Stolen Meeting

Honor had hurried with the other girls from the garden, laughing and joking as she went, and was almost in the act of running into the house when quite unexpectedly something happened, something utterly amazing and out of the common, and which was to be fraught with entirely unlooked-for consequences. As she put her foot on the first of the steps that led to the side door a figure moved silently from under the shade of a lilac bush close by, and, tapping her upon the arm, drew her aside with a whispered "Sh-sh!"

Honor suppressed an exclamation of astonishment, and, peering through the dusk to see who thus accosted her, recognized Annie, an under-housemaid who had only lately come to St. Chad's.

"I've been waiting to catch you alone, miss," whispered the girl, "and a difficult matter it's been too. I didn't dare speak to you before the other young ladies. I'm to give you this letter, safe into your own hand. I'd never have done it if I hadn't promised so faithful--it's almost as much as my place is worth!"

"What is it? Who sent it?" asked Honor, taking the note.

"It's from one of the young gentlemen at Orley Grange, and I was to be sure you got it secretly. Put it in your pocket, miss, and run indoors!

I must be off to the kitchen," and without another word Annie turned and fled, as if relieved to have accomplished her errand. Full of curiosity, Honor entered the house. The clock had not yet struck nine, so, seeing that the light was on in the dressing-room, she peeped inside. Fortunately, n.o.body was there, and she was able to go in and read her letter free from all observation. Its contents appeared to occasion her no little perplexity and dismay, for she knitted her brows and shook her head as she replaced the envelope in her pocket. She went, however, to the recreation room, where the rest of the girls were a.s.sembled waiting for the bell that always rang to proclaim bedtime; but she was in such an absent and abstracted frame of mind that several of her friends noticed and remarked upon it.

"What's wrong with Paddy?" asked Lettice. "She's shut up suddenly, like an oyster. I can't get a word out of her."

"I can't imagine," said Pauline. "I spoke to her just now, and she didn't seem to hear me."

"It's most unlike her," commented Ruth. "She generally goes to bed with so many jokes and parting shots."

To-night Honor walked upstairs with unwonted staidness and gravity. She went quietly into her cubicle and drew the curtain, and answered so briefly when her room-mate spoke to her that the latter was almost offended.

"Perhaps she's only tired though," thought Janie charitably. "This hot weather is enough to wear anybody out. I don't always care to talk myself."

Janie was certainly not a girl to push conversation where it was evidently not wanted, so the pair undressed in absolute silence. From Honor's cubicle came sounds that suggested that its occupant was fumbling with a key and unlocking a box, but as she did not volunteer any explanation, her room-mate made no comments. When Vivian arrived at half-past nine to switch out the light, both girls were in bed.

Next morning Janie woke suddenly just as the grey dawn was growing strong enough to show faintly the various objects that were in the room. Some unusual noise had disturbed her, and she lay listening intently. She could hear stealthy movements in the next cubicle, and wondering what her friend was doing, she popped out of bed and peeped round the curtain. There was Honor, fully dressed, and in the act of putting on her hat.

"What's the matter?" asked Janie anxiously. "Honor! where are you going?"

"I hoped I shouldn't waken you," replied Honor in a whisper. "Hush!

Don't talk loud, because with all the windows so wide open the girls in No. 6 can hear quite plainly when we speak in this room."

"All right. But do tell me why you're getting up at this extraordinary hour?" said Janie, in a subdued tone.

"I'm in a dreadful fix! I must meet Dermot down on the beach soon after five o'clock."

"Meet Dermot! Your brother? But why?"

"He's in such a sc.r.a.pe, and I have to get him out of it."

"How do you know?"

"One of the servants slipped this note into my hand last night, as we came in from the garden. You can read it if you like."

Janie took the letter, which was written in a scrawling, boyish hand on a piece of paper apparently torn out of an exercise-book. It ran thus:--

"ORLEY GRANGE, "_Tuesday_.

"DEAR HONOR,

"I am in the most awful row, and if I can't get a sovereign by to-morrow morning I shall be done for. I owe it to Blake. I haven't time to tell you the whole affair, but I have been an absolute idiot. Blake wants the money, and he's a mean sneak. He says if I don't pay up he'll let on about something that I'm trying to keep dark. He really means it, too, and if it gets to the Head's ears I shall be expelled. Can you possibly lend me anything? I'd have written to the Mater, but I hear she has one of her bad attacks, so it wouldn't do to upset her. As for the governor, he'd be furious if he knew. He told me last term that if I ran into debt I needn't trust to him to get me out of it, for he wouldn't stir a finger to help me, and would give me a thrashing for my pains. He must not know on any account. It is of no use writing to Brian or the others, because it is so near the end of the term they're sure to have no money left. Have you spent all yours? I am going to get up before five o'clock to-morrow and climb out through the dormitory window, and go along the sh.o.r.e to the beach below Chessington, just by your bathing-place. Can you manage to do the same, and bring me any cash you can gather? Perhaps Blake might take something on account, if you haven't the whole. The janitor has promised to go with this letter to St. Chad's; he says he thinks he can get it smuggled in through his niece, who is a servant there. But he won't have time to wait for an answer, so the only way to give me the money is to meet me on the sh.o.r.e. I am awfully sorry to have to ask you to do this, but it is the one chance I have left, and if you knew what a hole I am in I think you would be sorry for me. I must stop now. The bell is ringing.