She shook her head, but made no reply in words. Surprised at her silence, he looked at her scrutinously, and noted the signs of recent grief upon her countenance.
"You've been crying!" he exclaimed in accents of intense astonishment, for his sister was not of a tearful disposition as a rule. "What's the matter? Have you quarrelled with the girls at school, or—"
"Oh no, no! But I'm very unhappy, Gerald, and—and it's about you!"
"About me!" Gerald's face at first expressed nothing but bewilderment; then he flushed and began to look somewhat uneasy. "What me?" he asked. "What have I been doing to make you cry? Why, we've not been alone together for days. You're talking nonsense."
"I have heard where you were on Saturday afternoon," she said in low, reproachful tones; "you went to the clay pits fishing, and you told me that you were going to play cricket with the grammar school boys. Oh, what made you tell me such a story? And why did you disobey Uncle Edward?"
For a moment there was dead silence, then Gerald burst out wrathfully, "I know who told you! It was that sneaking cripple, Gilbert Mickle! But I'll be even with him yet! Oh, how I hate him! He's always prying into my business—and interfering with me! The wretched—"
"Hush, hush!" Angel interrupted indignantly. "Don't speak like that. How can you, Gerald? Besides, it was not Gilbert who told me."
"Not Gilbert? Who was it, then?"
"It doesn't matter who it was," she replied, "and I shall not tell you."
"Don't! I don't care! It was some meddlesome busybody! If I did go to the clay pits, what has that to do with you?" he demanded angrily.