“How glorious! In a moment I shall be quite wet,” she cried. In a moment everyone else was quite wet also—for with a movement that was something between a squirm and a jump, she dropped from the edge with a splashing flop. And disappeared entirely. CHAPTER FIVE _Consequences_ THE THREE CHILDREN looked at each other. “Well!” said Mavis. “I do think she’s ungrateful,” said Francis. “What did you expect?” asked the Spangled Child. They were all wet through. It was very late—they were very tired, and the clouds were putting the moon to bed in a very great hurry. The Mermaid was gone; the whole adventure was ended. There was nothing to do but to go home, and go to sleep, knowing that when they woke the next morning it would be to a day in the course of which they would have to explain their wet clothes to their parents. “Even _you_’ll have to do that,” Mavis reminded the Spangled Boy. He received her remark in what they afterward remembered to have been a curiously deep silence. “I don’t know how on earth we _are_ to explain,” said Francis. “I really don’t. Come on—let’s get home. No more adventures for me, thank you. Bernard knew what he was talking about.” Mavis, very tired indeed, agreed. They had got over the beach by this time, recovered the wheelbarrow, and trundled it up and along the road. At the corner the Spangled Boy suddenly said: “Well then, so long, old sports,” and vanished down a side lane. The other two went on together—with the wheelbarrow, which, I may remind you, was as wet as any of them. They went along by the hedge and the mill and up to the house. Suddenly Mavis clutched at her brother’s arm. “There’s a light,” she said, “in the house.” There certainly was, and the children experienced that terrible empty sensation only too well known to all of us—the feeling of the utterly-found-out. They could not be sure which window it was, but it was a downstairs window, partly screened by ivy. A faint hope still buoyed up Francis of getting up to bed unnoticed by whoever it was that had the light; and he and his sister crept around to the window out of which they had crept; but such a very long time ago it seemed. The window was shut. Francis suggested hiding in the mill and trying to creep in unobserved later on, but Mavis said: “No. I’m too tired for anything. I’m too tired to _live_, I think. Let’s go and get it over, and then we can go to bed and sleep, and sleep, and sleep.” So they went and peeped in at the kitchen window, and there was no one but Mrs. Pearce, and she had a fire lighted and was putting a big pot on it. The children went to the back door and opened it. “You’re early, for sure,” said Mrs. Pearce, not turning. This seemed a bitter sarcasm. It was too much. Mavis answered it with a sob. And at that Mrs. Pearce turned very quickly.