u run away?"

"Nonsense!" said Cecilia, controlling her voice with difficulty. "I was
going to meet Bob."

There was silence, and a whispered consultation. Then Avice spoke.

"Will you give us your word of honour you weren't going to run away?"

Words of honour meant little to the young Rainhams. But they knew that
Cecilia held it as a commonplace of decent behaviour that people did not
tell lies. They had, indeed, often marvelled that she preferred to "take
her gruel" rather than use any ready untruth that would have shielded
her from their mother's wrath. Avice and Wilfred had no such scruples on
their own account: but they knew that they could depend upon Cecilia's
word. They were, indeed, just a little afraid of their own action in
locking her up; their mother might have condoned it as "high spirits,"
but their father was not unlikely to take a different view. So they
awaited her reply with some anxiety.

Cecilia hesitated. Never in her life had she been so tempted. Perhaps
because the temptation was so strong she answered swiftly.

"No--I won't tell you anything of the kind. But look here--if you will
let me out I'll give you each ten shillings."

Ten shillings! It was wealth, and the children gasped. Wilfred, indeed,
would have shot back the bolt instantly. It was Avice who caught at his
arm.

"Don't you!" she whispered. "It'll cost heaps more than that to get
a new governess--and we'll make Mater give us each ten shillings for
keeping her. I say, we'll have to get the Pater home."

"How?" Wilfred looked at her blankly.

"Easy. You go to the post office and telephone to him at his office.
Tell him to come at once. I'll watch here, in case Eliza lets her out.
Run--hard as you can. Mater'll never forgive us if she gets away."

Wilfred clattered off obediently, awed by his sister's urgency. Avice
sat down on the head of the stairs, close to the bolted door; and when
Cecilia spoke again, repeating her offer, she answered her in a voice
unpleasantly like her mother's:

"No, you don't, my fine lady. Wilfred's gone for the Pater--he'll be
here presently. You just stay there quietly till he comes."

"Avice!" The word was a wail. "Oh, you don't know how important it
is--let me out. I'll give you anything in the world."

"So'll Mater if I stop your little game," said Avice. "You just keep
quiet."

Eliza's sharp little face appeared at the foot of the flight of stairs.

"Wot's up, Miss Avice? Anyfink wrong