Frank held his head high as he walked out of the room. There was a flush upon his face, but nothing there or in his manner to indicate his real feelings.
They were in truth very much confused. He was simply bewildered at the discovery of one of the examination papers on his desk.
How it got there he could not imagine. His heart burned with rage at the way in which Prof. Babbitt accused him in the presence of all the class, and he felt, too, how hopeless it would be to clear himself in the face of this damaging evidence.
Expulsion would follow, unless there could be some explanation of the matter.
Frank knew that he could explain nothing, and the thought of the disgrace that awaited him was very hard to bear. With it all, however, there was a consciousness of absolute innocence that gave him strength to leave the room much as if nothing had happened.
"My best friends will know that I am not guilty of any such conduct," he reflected, "and the rest of them may think as they like."
At the outside door of the hall, he paused, in doubt as to what he should do next. Knowing that Babbitt, already disliking him, would insist on his expulsion, Frank was inclined to go straight to his room and pack up his belongings.
The event had made everything about the college extremely distasteful to him, but it was only for a moment, and then he realized how sad he would feel at having to go away from good old Yale forever.
"It won't do," he said to himself, emphatically. "I must make some kind of effort to clear myself; there's no hope of persuading Babbitt that I'm innocent, but there must be members of the faculty who would believe me, and it would not be right to go away without trying to show them that I've been straight in this. If I should leave without making the hardest kind of a defense, everybody would be justified in believing me guilty."
With this thought in mind, Frank debated for a moment whether it would not be well to go straight to the office of the dean and tell him all he could about it.