The sun was already so high that its bright rays, reflected in a little pool near their feet, warned the pair that it was no longer safe to delay their parting.
"It's a quarter to six!" exclaimed Dermot, looking at his watch. "I must absolutely fly. I'll run all the way to Dunscar. I hope you'll get back quite safely into the College. You were a perfect trump to come. Good-bye; I'm off!"
Honor stood watching him until he had disappeared round the rocks at the end of the cove, then half-regretfully she climbed up the steps again on to the headland. She returned to St. Chad's the same way as she had come, walking across the pasture and climbing the fence of the cricket ground. She found the French window in the dressing-room still ajar, and bolted it on the inside before she went upstairs. All was still quite quiet in the hall and on the landing, and she was able to regain her room without any alarms.
Janie looked up nervously as the door opened. She had been lying awake, suffering far more anxiety on her friend's behalf than Honor had experienced for herself, and she gave a sigh of intense relief on hearing that the interview was successfully accomplished.
"I've been thinking it over," she said, "and I really believe it would have been much the best to go straight to Miss Maitland and tell her about it. She's very kind and sympathetic; perhaps she would have let you meet Dermot, and then you could have gone openly, and without all this dreadful stealing up and down stairs."
"I daren't risk it," replied Honor. "Suppose she had said 'No'? I should have been far worse off than if I hadn't asked. Besides which, she might have insisted upon telling Dr. Winterton. That's quite within the bounds of possibility; and then I should have given poor old Dermot away."
"On the whole, wouldn't it be more satisfactory for Dr. Winterton to know?"
"Janie! How can you suggest such a thing?"
"Well, if, as you say, this man Blake is a scamp, and has really sold the dog, it ought to be enquired into. If it were all exposed, perhaps he would be obliged to leave Dunscar and go to some other place, and that would be much better for the boys at the Grange."
"But in the meantime Dermot would be the scapegoat."