When Miss Fletcher arrived that morning, she found her little pupils almost too excited to do lessons. They wanted to go and look at the burnt house; but this was not allowed, and Nurse begged Miss Fletcher to keep them in the schoolroom. She asked if Bertie might be kept there too, as she was going up to the Hall at once. Miss Fletcher willingly agreed.
Edmund made himself scarce. He had been very quiet all breakfast-time, and had gone out to the stables to see Shylock directly afterwards. There he made friends with the lad who had succeeded Michael, by name Hal Brown. Hal expressed his opinion that "somebody like those good-for-nothing suffragettes had set the Hall on fire."
"And if they get cotched they'll be taken to prison," he said.
"Will they really?" asked Edmund, trembling.
Hal nodded.
"Our policeman and a lot from Cressford are going round now trying to get the rights of it, and find out the one who did it."
Edmund left the stable silently. He wandered out into the garden and round and round the paths. Even Grinder, following him patiently in hopes of a game, could not gain his attention. Fibo lay by his study window and saw him there. He tapped sharply on the window-pane and beckoned to him.
Edmund appeared at the study door a few minutes afterwards, quite expecting to find the room full of policemen.
Fibo called to him cheerfully.
"Come and amuse me," he said; "we're the two men in the house who have nothing to do. Neither of us are doing lessons just now, are we?"