"A great deal. How should I feel if you fell into one of the pits and got drowned?" And the tears welled into her eyes at the thought.
"Pooh! I'm not likely to do that!" he retorted scornfully.
"Did you forget Uncle Edward had forbidden you to go there? But, no! You told me a story, thinking it wouldn't be found out where you'd been."
"Well, you needn't make such a fuss about it. I won't tell you what isn't true again. I went with Reginald Hope to get some fish for his aquarium; I couldn't well refuse to go; if I had, it would have seemed so disobliging."
"Not if you had told him Uncle Edward had forbidden us to go near the clay pits."
Gerald was silent, not deeming it prudent to explain that he had informed his friend of that fact, and had been laughed out of the thought of obedience.
Gilbert Mickle had not been very far wrong when he had said that Reginald Hope had Gerald under his thumb.
"I didn't want to go," the boy acknowledged at length, "but Hope made such a point of it, and so—and so I went. Of course, I know it wasn't right of me, and I wouldn't have father or Uncle Edward hear about it for anything. You won't tell them, will you, Angel?" And he placed a coaxing arm around his sister's neck.
"I don't want to get you into trouble," she said gently, "but you have behaved so very badly, and—and I want to do what's right."
"You always do that, Angel," he told her with sincerity in his tone, "you're heaps better than I am; but then," he added, "you're only a girl, and it's easy for you to be good."