She looked at him so wistfully, so sweetly and sadly and confidentially, that he would have been either more or less than human boy if he had failed to see her heart’s desire, and how it was still in his power to save her the supreme humiliation and distress of sharing their secret with the world. He made up his mind on the spot; and yet it was a mind that looked both ways at every turn of affairs, and even then he saw what he was going to lose. Fred and Horace would not sit nearly so spellbound as they might have done, would probably back their penetration of the mystery against his! There would be no boasting about it in front of the hall fire at school, no breathing it even to Smith minor out for a walk; no adventure to recount all his days; and Pocket was one to whom the salt of an adventure would always be its subsequent recital. But he could “play the game” as well as Horace himself, when he happened to have no doubt as to the game to play. And now he had none whatever. “Phillida, if you wish it, I’ll never breathe a syllable of all this to a single soul on earth, I don’t care who they are, or what they do to me!” He wanted them to put him on the rack that moment. “Oh, Tony, do you mean it?” Her eyes had filled. “Of course I mean it! I’ll swear it more solemnly than I’ve ever sworn anything in my life so far.” “No, no! Your word’s enough. Don’t I know what that’s worth, after this terrible week?” And she cried again at its hideous memories, so that Pocket turned away and put the camera together again, and wrapped it up in her waterproof, so that he might not see her tears. “I’ll never breathe a single word to a single soul,” he vowed, “except yourself.” She caught at that through her tears. He could talk to her about it, always, as much as ever he liked; it would be a bond between them all their lives. And not until she said it, to be just to Pocket, did he think of a reward or look beyond those days. But what were they to do with a stereoscopic camera containing an automatic pistol? It was not to be burnt in a grate like a sheaf of MS. They thought about it for some time with anxious faces; for it was getting on towards evening now, though the sun was out again, and it was lighter than the early afternoon; but Mr. Upton might be back any minute. It was Phillida who at last said she knew. She would not tell him what she meant to do; but she put on her waterproof again, little as it was wanted now, and the camera under it as before; and together they sallied forth into the noisy and crowded Strand.