"I don't say that, because you're my cousin; but I think you've been a big coward to let your father believe the Calais Noble had been stolen, when you knew all the time you'd lost it. I didn't tell at home that you'd taken it to school because I'd promised you I wouldn't; but, of course, everyone will know about it now. I shan't hold my tongue any longer."
"I don't know what Polly will think of me," said Edgar dolefully; for, truth to tell, he was afraid of the little girl's sharp tongue. "Mother meant to call to see Aunt Mary this afternoon," he continued, "so I expect she knows by now that the Calais Noble is found. Oh, dear, what a to-do there will be when I get home! I do dread it. I wish I hadn't been a coward and had told father the truth, but—but he would have been so angry."
"I expect he'll be angrier now, won't he?" questioned Roger.
Edgar nodded, his eyes full of tears, a choking sensation in his throat. Much though his companion blamed him, he was sorry for him too, and when he spoke again his voice took a gentler tone.
"Father says if we do anything wrong it's always right and much easier to confess it at once," he said. "And Uncle John isn't very strict with you, he wouldn't be hard on you, I know."
"Of course not; but, you see, I had no right to touch his coins."
"There now, that's what father says," said Roger, "it's doing wrong that makes us cowards. If you'd taken the Calais Noble with Uncle John's consent you wouldn't have been so afraid to tell him you'd lost it. But, I say," he proceeded with an abrupt change of the subject as several carts passed them laden with black clay, "look at the stuff in those carts! Did you ever see clay like that before?"
"Yes, I saw the pit it comes from the other day; it's the best clay, father says, and will burn quite white. He hopes there's a big vein of it; they are at work on one shaft now."
"Let us go on, Edgar, now we're so near the works, and have a look round, shall we?" Roger suggested.
Edgar hesitated. He was wishful to assent to the proposition, which would delay his return home for a short while; but he had been forbidden to visit the clay works—a fact of which his cousin was unaware. He glanced at his watch—a present he had received from his parents on his last birthday—and asked: