I was begging?'

'At all events,' said Jacintha, candidly, 'he would be rather surprised,
you know. Because you do look most tremendously dirty--just as if you
were a regular tramp--and yet your face would be all right if it were
only washed and you had your hair properly cut.'

I felt that my cheeks were growing red, and for the moment I was tempted
to make an angry retort, although, remembering what I owed to Jacintha,
I simply held out my hand and muttered 'Good-bye!'

'Oh, you mustn't go on yet,' she exclaimed. 'I want to hear all you've
been doing. I must go in now, but please promise to wait till I come out
again. I won't be long.'

'I am not in a hurry,' I admitted.

'Only don't stay here,' she said. 'Wait till I am out of sight, and then
follow me until you come to our hedge. Right in the corner you will
find a place you can get through, and nobody ever comes to that field.
You get through the hedge and stay till I come back.'

CHAPTER XIV.

I stood in the road while Jacintha mounted her bicycle and rode up the
slight hill to the gate, when she looked back and waved her hand as she
turned into the grounds. Having waited a few minutes, I followed her
directions, found the weak spot in the hedge, scrambled through, and at
once sat down on the grass.

I saw I was in a remote corner of a large field, in which a few Jersey
cows were grazing. But this was not quite an ordinary field, as it
contained a good many foreign trees with iron railings round them. It
was more like a park. In the middle stood a small mound, looking as if
it had been made artificially, with a kind of arbour on the top
overgrown with some sort of creeper and shut in by trees.

The time seemed to pass very slowly, but at last I saw the flash of
Jacintha's white dress in the sunshine as she walked rapidly towards my
corner, the house not being visible from where I sat. To my vexation,
however, she was not alone. A few yards behind came a boy of about my
own age and size, with a straw hat on the back of his head, a
red-and-blue blazer thrown over his white cricket shirt, and his hands
thrust in the pockets of his flannel trousers.

While Jacintha tripped quickly over the grass, her companion, who, no
doubt, was her brother, seemed to follow far less cheerfully. I could
not help thinking there was something unwilling, almost resentful, in
his manner, so that I felt prepared to pay him back in his own coin.
Although I might look as