neither blade nor leaf stirred in the hot
stillness of the air. There was the way by which they had gone up, there
was the ruinous gap which Sissy had said was like a giant's bite.
Archie's grasp tightened on the stone as he looked. He might well feel
stunned and dizzy, gazing thus across the hideous gulf which parted him
from the moment when he stood upon the wall with Sissy Langton laughing
by his side. Not till every detail was cruelly stamped upon his brain
did he leave the spot.

By that time they had carried Sissy in. Little Lucy had been close by,
her rosy face blanched with horror, and had looked appealingly at
Latimer as he went past. She wanted a kind word or glance, but the
innocent confiding look filled him with remorse and disgust. He would
not meet it: he stared straight before him. Lucy was overcome by
conflicting emotions, went off into hysterics, and her mother had to be
called away from the room where she was helping Mrs. Latimer. Walter
felt as if he could have strangled the pretty, foolish child to whom he
had been saying sweet things not half an hour before. The rose that he
had gathered for her was fastened in her dress, and the pink bud that
she had given him lay in its first freshness on the turf in the ruins.

Some of the party waited in the garden. Fothergill stood in the shadow
of the porch, silent and a little apart. Archie Carroll came up the
path, but no one spoke to him, and he went straight to his cousin.
Leaning against the woodwork, he opened his lips to speak, but was
obliged to stop and clear his throat, for the words would not come. "How
is she?" he said at last.

"I don't know."

"Why do you look at me like that?" said the boy desperately.

Fothergill slightly changed his position, and the light fell more
strongly on his face. "I don't ever want to look at you again," he said
with quiet emphasis. "You've done mischief enough to last your lifetime
if you lived a thousand years."

"It wasn't my fault! Ray, it wasn't!"

"Whose, then?" said Fothergill. "Possibly you think it would have
happened if I had been there?"

"They said that wall--" the young fellow began.

"They didn't. No one told you to climb the most ruinous bit of the whole
place. And she didn't even know where the refectory was."

Carroll groaned: "Don't, Ray: I can't bear it! I shall kill myself!"

"No, you won't," said Fothergill. "You'll go safe home to your people at
the rectory. No more of this."

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