What a wretched day the next one was for me. I could not read, and I hardly felt inclined to talk even to mother. I thought of the prisoners in the tower-room, and wondered what they were doing. The day was so long, and my hand was rather painful, so that at last when tea-time came I felt quite cross and miserable.
"Don't you think I might go upstairs for a few minutes," I said to mother when she came in with her bonnet on; "it's so dull."
"I am sorry, darling, I must go out, but I shall not be gone more than half-an-hour. Here's a book you have not read. The time will soon pass, and you will be able to go upstairs again; but you must not disobey father."
I did try to read, but I could not. I was not quite happy, because I felt that there was something unfair in my cousins being punished and my being let off with only a finger less. At last I turned round on my sofa and had what Jack called "a little weep."
A light touch on my shoulder startled me—Jack stood by my side.
"Oh Jack! how could you?" I whispered; "you have broken your word of honour."
"That's what Rupert says, so he is sticking up in that room, fretting himself to fiddle strings. I never promised anything, and so I'm not bound to stay there. I nearly broke my neck corning down, my foot caught in the ivy. But what do you think I found out? There's a regular ladder up to one of the windows on the side that looks towards the water-mill."
"A ladder! Nonsense; how could a ladder be there without our seeing it?"
"Oh! you matter-of-fact creature. I don't mean a ladder of wood or a ladder of rope thirty yards long. I found that there were little places cut in the bricks just to put your toes in. I counted six of them; but there was a noise, and I didn't dare to count any more. How are you, old man? They all want to know badly; they seem to think we had almost killed you, but I know better—I believe we did you good. I must go now; if uncle found me here he'd eat me."
"Wait a minute. What did you say about those steps? I wonder whether—— Do you know both our servants left last year because they said the place was haunted? Of course it was all rubbish, because there are no such things as ghosts, but nothing that mother could say would make them happy; they said if it wasn't ghosts it was burglars or smugglers, and off they went."