t," said Lindsay, "they won't begin until it's dark,
so they can't have been doing anything while we've been in prep."

"It's generally light for quite half an hour after we're in bed," said
Cicely. "I don't see yet how we're to know when they're starting."

"We shall find out," returned Lindsay confidently. "I have a kind of
feeling that something is going to happen to-night."

"What are you two whispering about?" asked Nora Proctor curiously.

"Oh, only a joke of our own!"

"You've got some secret, I'm sure," said Beryl Austen; "you're always
looking at each other and making signs. I noticed you yesterday during
arithmetic."

"Do tell us, Cicely," begged Marjorie Butler. "You and I used to be
friends, but we never have a secret together now."

"There's really nothing worth telling," declared Cicely, much
embarrassed.

"We shall have to be careful though," said Lindsay afterwards. "We don't
want the others to hear, and then go poking about and making
discoveries."

"Certainly not; if there's anything to be found out, I'd rather we found
it out ourselves."

Cicely was tired when bedtime arrived, and ready to curl herself up and
forget what might be happening outside. Lindsay, on the contrary, lay
with wide-open eyes, watching the room grow darker and darker. When the
wardrobe and the chest of drawers and the washstand had at last all
merged together into one deep mass of shadow, she got up and peeped
through the open window. What she saw there caused her to run hurriedly
and shake her sleepy companion.

"Cicely! Do wake up! There's a light moving in the garden."

It took a second or two for Cicely to recover her senses, but when she
realized the nature of the news, she hopped out of bed in frantic
excitement.

"Is it Mrs. Wilson and Scott?" she asked eagerly.

"I expect so, but of course I can't tell. Be quick! We must go at once
and see what they're doing."

The two girls hastily scrambled into their clothes, and tiptoed
downstairs to the side door. The servants had not yet locked up, so it
was still standing ajar.

"Suppose we were to meet Miss Russell or Miss Frazer!" shivered Cicely,
with a nervous glance down the corridor.

"Don't think about it. They're both safe in the drawing-room."

In another minute they had closed the door gently behind them, and were
running softly across the lawn. It was a cloudy night, with neither moon
nor stars in the sky. The outlines of the trees and shrubs were