"Hang school for once! I tell you I must talk to you. I'm in the most awful mess I've ever got into in my life. Is it true what Claudia telegraphed? Is that pocket book really gone from the grotto?"
He spoke rapidly, catching his breath. Lorraine felt that, as in the case of yesterday, school must yield to weightier matters. She could not desert Morland now for the sake of a botany class. His business was urgent.
"Leave your bike then, and I'll come," she consented.
So they walked up the hill together towards Windy Howe, and he poured out his story.
"It seems there were most important papers in that pocket case," he confided. "The captain's kicked up an awful shindy at losing them. He's inquired and advertised, and put it into the hands of the police. At first I was like Brer Rabbit, I just 'lay low and said nuffin', and chuckled to think I was leading him such a dance. Then one of the chaps told me he'd heard that a coast-guard at Porthkeverne had seen a Tommy picking something up on the road. I can tell you that made me sit up. I'd forgotten we were close to that wretched coast-guard station. I twigged in a flash that I was in the greatest danger of discovery. Blake would remember passing me on the moor. I stood aside and saluted. There was no other Tommy near. Lorraine, if they fix this on to me I shall be court-martialled! I tell you I simply can't face it!"
It seemed indeed the most desperate problem with which they had ever dealt. Unless the case were found, ruin stared Morland in the face. Captain Blake, strictest of martinets, would not be likely to overlook so grave an offence.
"How did you manage to come over here to-day?" asked Lorraine.
"Pitched it strong about urgent business and got a few extra hours off, borrowed a motor-bike and pelted here for all I was worth. I felt I didn't care whether I broke my neck or not."
"Oh, Morland!"
"Well, I tell you I didn't! I rode part of the way at sixty miles an hour, and I whizzed down that long hill to St. Cyr simply like a hurricane. Look here, I don't want to show up at home for fear Dad or Violet ask questions. What's to be done?"