A minute later the door opened with a slight knock, and Richard Plantagenet entered, pale and trembling.
'My father,' he cried, looking about the room with a restless glance—'what have you done with my father? I heard his voice as I passed below your windows outside college a minute ago.—Where's he gone, Gillingham? What's he been doing in these rooms with you?'
'Mr. Plantagenet has been spending the evening as my guest,' Faussett answered, trying to look as unconcerned as possible; 'but he's just now left, and I believe he's gone home to his own lodgings.'
Dick drew back in horror. He knew from the sound of his father's voice something very unwonted and terrible had happened. Though he had not caught a single word, never before had he heard those lips speak out with such real and angry dignity, and he trembled for the result of so strange an adventure. He rushed back to the porter's lodge, for he had taken a stroll outside that evening on purpose, lest he should see his father the laughing-stock of Faussett and his companions.
'For heaven's sake, porter!' he cried with fervour, 'let me out—let me out—let me out, or there may be murder!'
'Very sorry, sir,' the porter answered with official calmness; the clock's gone eleven. Can't allow you out now without leave from the Dean, sir.'
'Then Heaven save him!' Richard cried, wringing his hands in helpless terror; 'for if he goes out alone like that, God only knows what may become of him!'
'If you mean the elderly gentleman from Mr. Faussett's rooms, sir,' the porter answered cheerfully, 'he seemed to me to walk out quite soberlike and straight, as far as I could see, sir.'
But Dick turned and rushed wildly to his own rooms in the Back Quad, in an agony of suspense for his father's safety.