“Digby, there is some vile secret underlying all this, and I don’t know what it is.  But I declare to you, solemnly, that I am innocent of this charge.  If you have spoken against me to-day because you thought you ought to do it, I can’t blame you, but if you have done it from any wrong motive, I hope you’ll confess it before evil is added to evil.”

But Digby merely shrugged his shoulders, and turning to the Doctor, said:  “Have you anything more you wish to ask me, sir?”

Dr. Brier was fairly nonplussed.  The fog grew denser all around him.  Addressing a few words of caution to those who had been summoned to this the strangest meeting that was ever held in Blackrock School, he dismissed the boys, ordering Howard and Digby to be kept in separate rooms until he should arrive at some judgment in the case.

CHAPTER IV.

THE VERDICT.

It was all very well for the Doctor to decide to keep the boys in two separate rooms until he should form some judgment on the case, but toward the close of the day, after the most searching inquiries had been instituted, he was no nearer to a final decision than when he started, and he feared they might have to remain where they were until Doomsday, unless he could find out something positive about the matter.

Howard and Digby were missed from their accustomed places in the school, and by the mid-day play-time the secret had oozed out, and great discussions were being held as to the merits of the case.  There was not a boy in the school who in his heart believed that Howard was really guilty, although the evidence seemed clearly against him.  There was not, on the other hand, one who felt justified in thinking that Digby had willfully accused his friend falsely, and yet there was an uncomfortable suspicion that it might be so.

All the next day inquiries went on, and nothing of importance was the result.  The Doctor had seen the prisoners, and talked to each separately; he had taken counsel from those of the boys upon whose judgment he could rely, and in the evening all those who had constituted the preliminary meeting were again called together.  The first count in the indictment, namely, that Howard had attempted to pocket the miniature, was discussed and dismissed as a misconstruction of motive.  The second charge as to his being about in his room during the night was not so easily got rid of.  Howard pleaded that he had gone to sleep as usual, and slept soundly, but that he was aroused by hearing, as he thought, some one in his room.  He went to sleep again, and was aroused a second time by the stumbling of some one over a box, as it seemed to him, which was followed by the sudden closing of a door.  He got up, went into Digby’s room, listened by his bedside, and found he was breathing hard, and then, noticing that his window was not fast, he opened it and looked out.  The nightingales were singing, and he sat up for a long time listening to them.  Then, as he grew chilly, he closed the window and turned into bed again, and slept till Digby called him.  Beyond this he knew nothing.