"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 shore 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 shore. 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.
"Your loving brother,
"Dermot."
"Oh, Honor! Are you going?"
"Of course I am. I wouldn't fail Dermot at such a pinch. Luckily I have the money too. I shall let myself out by the dressing-room window, and climb over the fence at the end of the cricket field. It won't take very long. I shall be back before any of the servants are stirring."
"But it's such a frightfully risky thing! Suppose you were caught, you'd certainly get into a scrape."
"I shall have to take the risk. Dermot will get into a far worse scrape if I don't go. I couldn't bear to think of him waiting for me on the shore, and finding I never came. Hush, Janie! Please don't ask me any more. I've made up my mind."
Honor had put on her tennis shoes, and now stole very softly out of the room and down the passage. Janie went to bed again, though certainly not to sleep. She heard the stairs creak, and wondered if anyone else were awake in the house, and would notice the compromising sound.
"Oh, dear! What is to be done?" she thought anxiously. "It's fearfully naughty of Honor, yet I sympathize with her wanting to help Dermot. I believe I should have gone myself, if I'd had a brother of my own in trouble. Major Fitzgerald must be a very stern man; they both seem too frightened of him to tell anything, and their poor mother is so ill she mustn't be disturbed. I'm sorry for Honor. I hope she won't be long away; I shall be wretched till she comes back. Somebody might see her from a window, even if no one hears her in the passage, and then—I don't like to think of the consequences!"
Honor was indeed determined to do her utmost for Dermot. Of all her five brothers, he was the dearest. Rather younger than herself, he had been her inseparable companion in nursery days, when the pair had shared everything, from sweets to scoldings, with strictest impartiality. Honor had never forgotten the terrible parting when her father had decreed that Dermot was old enough to go to school—how she had cried herself sick, and how absolutely lonely and deserted the Castle had seemed when she was obliged to wander about and amuse herself alone. She had grown accustomed in time to solitary rambles, but she had always looked forward to her brother's return with keenest anticipation, and regretted bitterly that holidays were so short.