on't mind telling you fellows," answered the other. "You know
my guv'nor isn't well off, and he says he's lost money, and can't afford
to keep me at Ronleigh. I know I'm no good, and you fellows'll get on
all right without me, and--"

The sentence not being completed, the two other boys glanced at the
speaker's face, and from previous indications in the tone of his voice
were not surprised to find that he was crying. Two years appear a long
time when one is on the bright side of twenty, and the friendship seemed
to have lasted for ages. At the near prospect of separation all
Mugford's little failings were forgotten, and both Diggory and Jack
Vance felt that life without him would be a blank.

"Oh, dash it all!" said the latter; "you mustn't go? Isn't there
anything we can do? Shall I write to your guv'nor?"

The idea of Jack Vance addressing a remonstrance to his respected parent
caused the ghost of a smile to appear on Mugford's doleful face.

"No, it's no good," he answered. "There's nothing for it; I shall have
to leave."

During the interval which divided morning school and the free time
before dinner the three friends mooned about together, trying in vain to
regard the future in a more cheerful light, and to make plans for
keeping touch of each other by an interchange of letters and a possible
meeting in the holidays.

"It's all very well," said Jack Vance to Diggory, when late on in the
afternoon he happened to come across the latter flattening his nose
against the glass of the box-room window--"it's all very well talking
about writing and all that; but this is the end of the Triple Alliance."

"Yes," answered Diggory, after a moment's thought, "I suppose it is.
I wish we could do something more before it's broken up."

As he spoke, he passed his hand mechanically along the lower surface of
the window ledge; then with a sudden exclamation he went down on his
knees, and picked something out of the wall.

It was another note written in cipher!

The missive was certainly very brief, consisting of only seven
letters:--

"GLMRTSG."

"Hullo!" said Jack Vance; "they're at it again!"

His companion made no reply, but taking out a pencil, copied the cipher
on the back of an envelope, and then replaced the mysterious document in
the crack between the window-frame and the bricks.

"What are you doing that for?"

"Why, because they may miss it, and smell a rat. Come on; let