ng still more impossible to undo it.

It had become dark with an effect of suddenness to those who had been
intent on other things than the progress of the night; and it seemed to
Ishmael that the whole world was narrowed to a circle of dim moor, in the
midst of it that white thing crying about its back--always its back....

Carminow, the least perturbed, insisted on raising the sufferer to his
feet, and it was found, after much protest on his part, that he could
walk slowly with support on either side. It only remained to get him
back to the school somehow and in at the side door to his bed and the
ministrations of the matron if not the doctor.

The little procession began to move off, Polkinghorne and Carminow, the
two biggest, carrying Doughty on their crossed hands, and progressing
with a slow sideways motion, trying not to stumble over the uneven
ground. Killigrew ran on ahead to warn the matron and urge her to
silence, in case the injury might turn out to be but slight after all.

A miserable loneliness fell upon Ishmael. He had won, and none of the
sweets of victory were his. He lagged behind. There was a rustle at his
side, and Hilaria's hands were round his arm.

"What on earth--" he began--angry, confused, aware that tears were
burning in his eyes.

"Don't be cross.... I had to stay. I was up on the boulders. Oh,
Ishmael, have you killed him?"

The question jangled his frightened nerves, and he answered sharply,
telling her he neither knew nor cared, even while he was shaking with
the fear lest what she suggested might be true. "I'll say something to
those youngsters for having let you stay," he added, catching sight of
Polkinghorne minor and Moss, where they hesitated in the shadows.

"As though they could have prevented me!" she said, with swift scorn. He
looked at her more closely, struck by a something strange about her, and
saw that her skirts no longer swelled triumphantly on either side, but
fell limply, and so long that she had to hold them up when she took a
step forward by his side.

"I couldn't climb on the boulders in it," she said, answering his look.
"I made the boys turn their backs and I took it off."

"Well, I imagine you can't go home without it," said Ishmael wearily. He
supposed he would have to see her home, for it was already past the time
for the younger boys to be in. He felt he hated girls and the bother
that they were.

"Cut off in, you two," he ordered; "and mind, if you