"I thought not; but for all that I shall send for them to come. Their nephew needs looking after, and they should know it."
"This is your fault," cried Valentine, turning upon Elizabeth. "All would have gone right if you had not been a traitor. I could have gone off to-morrow morning, and no one would have known anything. Now the 'Q. R. K.' is done for as far as I am concerned, and I am in this scrape besides."
"Elizabeth did quite the proper thing," said Miss Herrick, "and now I wish you to explain yourself. I give you five minutes. At the end of that time, if you have not begun to explain, I will telegraph to your uncle." She glanced at the clock as she spoke.
"Oh, I suppose there is no help for it," said Valentine. "I've got to tell you! The 'Q. R. K.' is a secret society at our school, and you have to be initiated. I have been wanting to belong for ever so long, and this year I was elected. I had been telling the fellows about this house, and the queer room no one ever goes into, and how Elizabeth had the Brady girls there once, and they said that part of my initiation would be to come on here without any one knowing it, and spend the night in that room, and get back again the next day. They knew I couldn't do it, but if I did they would put me on the executive committee, and that is a big honor for a new member. Of course I thought it would be a lark to do it, and I was sure I could manage it. Aunt Helen thinks I am spending the night with one of the fellows. It would have been all right if Elizabeth hadn't gone back on me. I was to take back a statement from her that no one had seen me."
The Misses Herrick looked at him in amazement. "Do you mean to say that such things are customary among school-boys?" asked Miss Rebecca.
"I don't know," returned Valentine, sullenly. "I am only telling you about our club."
"Do you think, Valentine, that it was the proper thing for you to do, after you had been a guest in this house and had profited by our hospitality, to return to your home and gossip of our private affairs? Of that—that room? And we your own aunts, your father's sisters?"
It was Miss Herrick who asked these questions.
"No," said the boy, "I don't suppose it was. But I didn't gossip; only girls do that. One day when we were all telling queer stories, I told this. I never thought at the time, and afterwards when they were planning my initiation rites one of the fellows remembered it. That is all."