They all three shivered a little as the car grew smaller and smaller in the distance. They were afraid for John, and also puzzled by his acquiescence in the situation—an acquiescence so out of keeping with the little bit of ribbon on his jacket. Added to which they were all three very cold, and a longish walk and drive lay between them and tea.
Noreen broke the silence. "I vote we get on to Deeping Royal, and tell Miss Conyngham what has happened. Some story anyhow, if she does row us for sloping off. Won't she be jolly excited to know about the Professor? What do you say, Gabrielle and Joey?"
"Yes, I think we had better go now," Gabrielle agreed. "I'm afraid we can't do anything for John, and Miss Conyngham ought to know."
But Joey stood still stubbornly by the roadside. "I don't care if she ought; I'm going to wait for John," she said. "At least, I mean, I'm going along to Mote to tell Cousin Greta what's happened to him."
Joey tried to speak as though she did not mind a bit about the three-mile tramp, or anything. "You two go along to the match, and tell Miss Conyngham. I'll try and square up the disobedience and being so untidy, and letting Redlands down, afterwards, when there's time."
Joey thought she had never realised till then what her two friends could be. Each seized an arm.
"Slink back to the match, and leave you to be in a row all by yourself? Likely, isn't it, you juggins?" Noreen inquired scornfully. And Gabrielle—Gabrielle, Head of the Lower School, who had never been known to break a rule since Joey had known her, added calmly:
"We'll all go to Mote, Joey; I think you are right. Of course it is disobeying the Redlands rule; but I will explain to Miss Conyngham why we did it, afterwards. In any case we couldn't leave you."
"I say, you are bricks!" Joey said rather chokingly, and then the three set out together at a run towards the turning to Mote. They had passed it in the car, and were indeed now within about half a mile of the Round Tower. Joey found herself noticing, for all her anxiety about John, how gaunt and sinister it looked, standing up against the shivering sodden grass, and the dreary wind-swept sky, in that minute before she and the others turned their backs upon it, and began to struggle towards Mote in the teeth of a wind that seemed to have grown overwhelmingly strong in the last few minutes.
Now that they faced towards the sea it was truly terrific. Noreen and Gabrielle had their close school hats jammed low upon their foreheads, and even then it was almost impossible to keep them on. Joey, being hatless, was not affected by this difficulty; but her djibbah flapped furiously about her, her hair was all over the place, and she found it really difficult to keep her footing. It was extraordinary how much the gale had grown within the last twelve or fifteen minutes.