Reginald was sure to stand marvellously well in the examination, Digby said so. Ralph and Cyril were going to sing at the school concert. It was such a pity Salome could not be there. Everybody always went, and it was such fun. Kate wanted Salome to go round by the college ground, where a football match was on; but as the sun set and the winter's fog gathered, Salome knew her hour was drawing near, towards which she was looking with nervous dread.
The boys ran into the house, and clattered upstairs as soon as they reached home. Salome lingered in the porch a moment irresolute; then started off past the shop, where the gas was already lighted, up the road towards the quarry. The hedges were higher as she advanced, and, indeed, the road was cut out of the rock.
It was dusk, almost dark, and Salome felt lonely and frightened. She had not long to wait in suspense. A tall figure advanced towards her from the overhanging rocks of the old quarry.
"Miss Wilton?" asked a voice, so pleasant and gentleman-like in its tones that Salome was reassured. "I was coming to call on Mrs. Wilton. I am Philip Percival. At your brother's entreaty, and not wishing to press too hardly on him, I consented to see you first, as he tells me his mother is in such delicate health that excitement might hurt her. Is that true?"
"Yes, quite true," Salome said; but she was shivering with nervousness, and her voice trembled.
"We had better walk up or down the road," Philip Percival said; "you will take cold. It is a most unpleasant business, Miss Wilton; but I honestly think the only hope of saving your brother is to deal openly with you. He has deceived me so grossly, and you cannot wonder that I am indignant. He represented to me that his mother and sisters were in great difficulty, and that if I lent him the money for a month he could repay it with interest. It was foolish of me to be taken in. I was completely taken in. He has a winning, plausible manner; and he is treated so roughly by some of the clerks who resent the airs he gives himself, that I tried the more to befriend him. I have had a nice reward!"
"I am so sorry," Salome said. "I want to beg you to wait a little while, and perhaps I shall be able to pay you. Mother has no money, I know, just now; and it is not only on that account I do not like to ask her, but because it will grieve her so much to hear of Raymond's deceit. She loves him so dearly, and it would be such a shock to her. Do you think you could wait?"
Philip Percival looked down on the little slight figure in its sombre dress with very different feelings to what he had expected. "My eldest sister will make it all right, if you will see her," had conveyed to his mind the idea of a woman of mature years—not of a young girl, who ought to have been sheltered by Raymond's care, not exposed by him to this painful revelation.