s wife.
"Oh, this is splendid!" Ansell came in. "I'm so glad you managed this.
I couldn't leave these wretches last night!" The boys tittered suitably.
The atmosphere seemed normal. Even Herbert, though longing to hear what
had happened to the blackmailer, gave adequate greeting to their guest:
"Come in, Mr. Ansell; come here. Take us as you find us!"

"I understood," said Stewart, "that I should find you all. Mrs. Elliot
told me I should. On that understanding I came."

It was at once evident that something had gone wrong.

Ansell looked round the room carefully. Then clearing his throat and
ruffling his hair, he began--"I cannot see the man with whom I have
talked, intimately, for an hour, in your garden."

The worst of it was they were all so far from him and from each other,
each at the end of a tableful of inquisitive boys. The two masters
looked at Agnes for information, for her reassuring nod had not told
them much. She looked hopelessly back.

"I cannot see this man," repeated Ansell, who remained by the harmonium
in the midst of astonished waitresses. "Is he to be given no lunch?"

Herbert broke the silence by fresh greetings. Rickie knew that the
contest was lost, and that his friend had sided with the enemy. It was
the kind of thing he would do. One must face the catastrophe quietly
and with dignity. Perhaps Ansell would have turned on his heel, and left
behind him only vague suspicions, if Mrs. Elliot had not tried to talk
him down. "Man," she cried--"what man? Oh, I know--terrible bore! Did
he get hold of you?"--thus committing their first blunder, and causing
Ansell to say to Rickie, "Have you seen your brother?"

"I have not."

"Have you been told he was here?"

Rickie's answer was inaudible.

"Have you been told you have a brother?"

"Let us continue this conversation later."

"Continue it? My dear man, how can we until you know what I'm talking
about? You must think me mad; but I tell you solemnly that you have a
brother of whom you've never heard, and that he was in this house ten
minutes ago." He paused impressively. "Your wife has happened to see
him first. Being neither serious nor truthful, she is keeping you apart,
telling him some lie and not telling you a word."

There was a murmur of alarm. One of the prefects rose, and Ansell set
his back to the wall, quite ready for a battle. For two years he had
waited for his opportunity. He would hit out at Mrs. Elliot like
any ploughboy no