'I'm afraid we've done it now, Faussett,' Trevor Gillingham exclaimed, with a very white face, turning round to the awed and silent company. 'I hope to goodness he won't go and do himself some mischief!'
'Too drunk for that,' Faussett answered carelessly. 'By the time he's got downstairs he'll forget all about it, and reel home to his lodgings as well as he can; he'll never remember a word to-morrow morning.'
A minute later the door opened with a slight knock, and Richard Plantagenet entered, pale and trembling.
'My father,' he cried, looking about the room with a restless glance--'what have you done with my father? I heard his voice as I passed below your windows outside college a minute ago.--Where's he gone, Gillingham? What's he been doing in these rooms with you?'
'Mr. Plantagenet has been spending the evening as my guest,' Faussett answered, trying to look as unconcerned as possible; 'but he's just now left, and I believe he's gone home to his own lodgings.'
Dick drew back in horror. He knew from the sound of his father's voice something very unwonted and terrible had happened. Though he had not caught a single word, never before had he heard those lips speak out with such real and angry dignity, and he trembled for the result of so strange an adventure. He rushed back to the porter's lodge, for he had taken a stroll outside that evening on purpose, lest he should see his father the laughing-stock of Faussett and his companions.
'For heaven's sake, porter!' he cried with fervour, 'let me out--let me out--let me out, or there may be murder!'
'Very sorry, sir,' the porter answered with official calmness; the clock's gone eleven. Can't allow you out now without leave from the Dean, sir.'
'Then Heaven save him!' Richard cried, wringing his hands in helpless terror; 'for if he goes out alone like that, God only knows what may become of him!'
'If you mean the elderly gentleman from Mr. Faussett's rooms, sir,' the porter answered cheerfully, 'he seemed to me to walk out quite soberlike and straight, as far as I could see, sir.'
But Dick turned and rushed wildly to his own rooms in the Back Quad, in an agony of suspense for his father's safety.
|Mr. Plantagenet had missed his son by walking through the archway of the Fellows' Quad, instead of through the Brew House. He emerged from the college by the big front gate. The High Street was lighted and crowded; so he preferred to turn down the dark lanes and alleys at the back of Christ Church, till he came out upon St. Aldate's and the road to the river. Somewhat sobered as he still was by the unwonted excitement of that curious episode, he found the sherry once more beginning to gain the upper hand; it was hard for him to walk erect and straight along the pavement of St. Aldate's, where a few small shops still stood open--for it was Saturday night--and a few people still loitered about in little knots at the corners. With an effort, however, he managed to maintain the perpendicular till he reached Folly Bridge; then he turned in at the wicket that leads down from the main road to the little tow-path along the dark and silent bank of the swollen Isis.