s spirits and
advanced far in the esteem of his future kinsman.

"Awfully brickish of you, sir," he said. "It wouldn't be a bad score
for our house if we got all the prizes at the exams, would it?"

"Not at all. But we mustn't be too confident."

"Jolly lucky we're cut off from the rest of the chaps, isn't it? It
makes us all sit up."

"That state of things may end any time, you know," said the master.
"But we must `sit up' all the same."

"Oh, but it won't come out till the exams, are over, will it?"

"How do I know?"

Arthur glanced up at his kinsman, and inwardly reflected what a clever
chap he was to ask such a question in such a way.

"Oh, all right. All I meant was, it wouldn't suit our book, would it,
to let it out just yet?"

"It's not a question of what suits anyone. It's a question of what is
right. And if anybody in the house knows anything I don't, he ought to
speak, whatever it costs."

"There's an artful card," thought Arthur to himself, and added aloud--

"I don't fancy any fellow knows anything you don't, Marky--I mean Mr
Railsford. _I_ don't."

"Don't you? Do you know," said the master, "I have sometimes had an
impression you did. I am quite relieved to hear it, Arthur."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid of me," said Arthur, lost in admiration for
the cleverness of his future brother-in-law. "I'm safe, never you
fear."

"It's a strange mystery," said Railsford, "but sooner or later we shall
know the meaning of it."

"Later the better," put in Arthur, with a wink.

"I don't envy the feelings of the culprit, whoever he is; for he is a
coward as well as a liar."

"No, more do I, Perhaps you're too down on him, though. Never mind,
he's safe enough, for you and me."

"You have an odd way of talking, Arthur, which doesn't do you justice.
As I said, you have more than once made me wonder whether you were not
keeping back something about this wretched affair which I ought to
know."

"Honour bright, I know a jolly lot less about it than you; so you really
needn't be afraid of me; and Dig's safe too. Safe as a door-nail."

Railsford was able to write home on the following Sunday that Arthur had
quite recovered his appetite, and that the "low" symptoms to which Dig
had darkly referred had vanished altogether. Indeed, Arthur on this
occasion developed that most happy of all accomplishments, the power of
utterly forgetting that he had done or said anything either strange in
itself o