Dick led him in grim silence down the path to the village-road, past the Ricketts’ cottage, now in darkness, up the hill beyond that led to the school.

Robin went with him submissively enough, but he stumbled several times on the way.  As they neared the end of the journey he began to talk again anxiously, propitiatingly.

“I didn’t mean to go, Dicky, but I was so hot and thirsty.  And I met Jack and I went in with him.  There were a lot of fellows there and Jack treated me, but I didn’t have very much.  My head ached so, and I sat down in a corner and went to sleep till it was closing time.  Then old Swag made me get out, so I came to wait for you.  I didn’t hit him or anything, Dicky.  I was quite quiet all the while.  So you won’t be cross, will you,—­not like last time?”

“I am going to punish you if that’s what you mean,” Dick said, as he opened the garden-gate.

Robin shrank again, shivering like a frightened dog.  “But, Dicky, I only—­I only—­”

“Broke the rule and lied about it,” his brother said uncompromisingly.  “You know the punishment for that.”

Robin attempted no further appeal.  He went silently into the house and blundered up to his room.  There was only one thing left to do, and that was to pay the penalty—­of which Dick’s wrath was infinitely the hardest part to bear.

He crouched down on the floor by the bed to wait.  The light from the passage shone in through the half-open door and the great lamp at the lodge-gates of the Court opposite, which was kept burning all night, glared in at the unblinded window, but there was no light in the room.  There was something almost malignant to Robin’s mind about the searching brilliance of this lamp.  He hid his eyes from it, huddling his face in the bed-clothes, listening intently the while for Dick’s coming but hearing only the dull thumping of his own heart.

There was no one in the house except the two brothers.  A woman came in every day from the village to do the work of the establishment.  Now that Jack had found quarters elsewhere there was not a great deal to be done since Robin was accustomed also to making himself useful in various ways.  It occurred to him suddenly as he crouched there waiting that Dick had been too hurried to eat much supper before his departure for High Shale that evening.  The thought had been in his brain before, but subsequent events had dislodged it.  Now, with every nerve alert and pricking with suspense, it returned to him very forcibly.  Dicky was hungry perhaps—­or consumed with thirst, as he himself had been.  And he would certainly go empty to bed unless he, Robin, plucked up courage to go down and wait upon him.