the motto for
the year, "Be ye stedfast, unmovable." He liked that motto. It had
appealed to him when he had first seen it on the wall, and he had often
repeated it to himself since. He had repeated it frequently to himself
that night.

"Be ye stedfast"--stedfast to his friend.

The empty bed beside him made him sad. Stan ought to have been resting
there. By the stern decree of Mr. Weevil he had been turned from his
bed, and was at that moment a prisoner, in solitary confinement. For
what? Simply because he had refused to speak. Oh, it was bitterly
unjust. If any one ought to have been sent to Dormitory X it was Newall,
but he had escaped without even a word of blame.

Half-past ten! Paul listened again. He felt certain that Parfitt was at
last sleeping; so he slipped out of bed as he had slipped into it--with
his trousers and stockings on. He drew on his coat; opened the dormitory
door, and glanced along the corridor. As he did so, the figure in the
end bed moved, and glanced in the direction of Paul; then breathed hard,
as though it were sleeping.

Paul, unconscious that Parfitt had seen him, passed into the corridor.
Dormitory X was in the room next to that occupied by Mr. Weevil, on the
floor above. Paul crept up the stairs. They seemed to creak horribly,
but it was the silence of the building that magnified the sound to
Paul's ears. He glanced along the passage. A light was still burning in
Mr. Weevil's room. He could see it stealing faintly through a crack in
the door.

"Studying late. Trying some scientific experiment, I expect. The fellows
say that he burns the midnight oil a lot. That's what gives him such a
sleepy look sometimes, I suppose. No wonder he's such a dab at science."

Paul knew that it was useless to try to get to Stanley along the
passage. He might succeed in getting past the master's room, but what
then? The door would be locked, and he could not pass through a locked
door. Dormitory X had a window looking on to the parapet outside, and it
was by this window he hoped to gain Stanley's room. There was a small
lavatory at the end of the corridor, and this likewise had a window
leading to the roof.

"Be stedfast!" he whispered to himself, as he climbed through the window
to the parapet. It was a rash thing to do--a wrong thing. Though Paul
might have questioned the justice of what Mr. Weevil had done in putting
his chum in Dormitory X., he had no right, from a chivalrous feeling of
friendsh