h an abominable charge."

"He's not a liar," said Scaife.

"It's true," said John, in a strangled voice.

"You have wished that he might be sacked?"

"Yes."

John met Desmond's indignant eyes with an expression which the other
was too impetuous, too inexperienced, to interpret. Into that look of
passionate reproach he flung all that must be left unsaid, all that
Scaife could read as easily as if it were scored in letters of flame.
Because, in his modesty and humility, he had ever reckoned that Scaife
would prevail against himself--because, with unerring instinct, he had
apprehended, as few boys could apprehend, the issues involved, he had
desired, fervently desired, that Scaife should be swept from Caesar's
path. But this he could not plead as an excuse to his friend; and
Scaife had known that, and had used his knowledge with fiendish
success. John lowered his eyes and walked from the room.

When he met Desmond again, nothing was said on either side. John told
himself that he would speak, if Desmond spoke first. But evidently
Desmond had determined already the nature of their future relations.
They no longer shared No. 7, John being in the Upper Sixth with a room
to himself, but they still "found" together. To separate would mean a
public scandal from which each shrank in horror. No; let them meet at
meals as before till the end of the term. Indeed, so little change was
made in their previous intercourse, that John began to hope that Caesar
would walk with him as usual upon the following Sunday. And if he
did--if he did, John felt that he would speak. On the top of the
tower, looking towards the Spire, alone with his friend, exalted above
the thorns and brambles or the wilderness, words would come to him.

But on the following Sunday Desmond walked with Scaife.

[1] Of these, the Park, now a boarding-house, was a characteristic
specimen. It belonged to Lord Northwick, Lord of the Manor of Harrow.

[2] In the thirties Harrow boys played "Jack o' Lantern," or nocturnal
Hare and Hounds. They used to attend Kingsbury Races and Pinner Fair.
Lord Alexander Russell, when he was a boy at the Grove, kept a pack of
beagles at the foot of the Hill.

CHAPTER XII

"LORD'S"

"There we sat in the circle vast,
Hard by the tents, from noon,
And looked as the day went slowly past
And the runs came all too soon;
And never, I think, in the years gone by,
Since cricketer first went in