Mr. Gordon’s cane fell sharply across the boy’s back; he stopped, glared for a moment; and then saying: 

“Very well, sir!  I shall tell Dr. Rowlands that you strike before you hear me,” he angrily left the room, and slammed the door violently behind him.

Before Mr. Gordon had time to recover from his astonishment, Russell stood by him.

“Well, my boy,” said the master, softening in a moment, and laying his hand gently on Russell’s head, “what have you to say?  You cannot tell how I rejoice, amid the deep sorrow that this has caused me, to find that you at least are uncontaminated.  But I knew, Edwin, that I could trust you.”

“O sir, I come to speak for Eric—­for Williams.”  Mr. Gordon’s brow darkened again, and the storm gathered, as he interrupted vehemently, “Not a word, Russell; not a word.  This is the second time that he has wilfully deceived me; and this time he has involved others too in his base deceit.”

“Indeed, sir, you wrong him.  I can’t think how he came to write the paper, but I know that he did not and would not use it.  Didn’t you see yourself, sir, how he turned his head quite another way when he broke down.”

“It is very kind of you, Edwin, to defend him,” said Mr. Gordon coldly, “but at present, at any rate, I must not hear you.  Leave me; I feel very sad, and must have time to think over this disgraceful affair.”

Russell went away disconsolate, and met his friend striding up and down, the passage, waiting for Dr. Rowlands to come out of the library.

“O Eric,” he said, “how came you to write that paper?”

“Why, Russell, I did feel very much ashamed, and I would have explained it, and said so; but that Gordon spites me so.  It is such a shame; I don’t feel now as if I cared one bit.”

“I am sorry you don’t get on with him; but remember you have given him in this case good cause to suspect.  You never crib, Eric, I know, but I can’t help being sorry that you wrote the paper.”

“But then Graham asked me to do it, and called me cowardly because I refused at first.”

“Ah, Eric,” said Russell, “they will ask you to do worse things if you yield so easily.  I wouldn’t say anything to Dr. Rowlands about it, if I were you.”

Eric took the advice, and, full of mortification, went home.  He gave his father a true and manly account of the whole occurrence, and that afternoon Mr. Williams wrote a note of apology and explanation to Mr. Gordon.  Next time the form went up, Mr. Gordon said, in his most freezing tones, “Williams, at present I shall take no further notice of your offence beyond including you in the extra lesson every half-holiday.”

From that day forward Eric felt that he was marked and suspected, and the feeling worked on him with the worst effects.  He grew more careless in work, and more trifling and indifferent in manner.  Several boys now beat him whom he had easily surpassed before, and his energies were for a time entirely directed to keeping that supremacy in the games which he had won by his activity and strength.