"What have you done with your rod?" Gilbert questioned curiously.
"Oh, I left it at Hope's house."
"Because you didn't want your sister to see you return with it, I suppose," the other remarked with a slight sneer. "What made you tell her a lie, and say you were going to play cricket?"
"Oh, I say, I wish you'd mind your own business," Gerald cried hotly. "Why need you interfere? It's nothing to do with you. You've no right to say I told a lie."
"But you did!" Gilbert declared in cold accents of disgust.
Gerald's eyes fell beneath the other's accusing glance. For a minute the lame boy hesitated whether to continue the conversation or not; then he said—
"Of course, it's nothing to do with me, really; but it's so—so dishonourable to wilfully mislead any one. Your sister told me you had gone to the cricket-field—I knew you had not. I was—"
"Did you tell her so?" Gerald interrupted in dismay.
"No."
"That's all right, then. It doesn't do to let girls know everything, and Angel's awfully curious."