When he entered the schoolroom, he was so pale that Garabed was frightened:
“Why, what is the matter with you? Are you ill?”
“I have a bad headache.”
He took up a book, but the words danced before his eyes, without conveying the slightest meaning to his mind.
Garabed, seeing that he did not want to talk, asked no more questions. Every time the door was opened, the culprit trembled: now, his misdeed had been discovered, he thought, and some one was coming to question the boys. His heart beat like a trip-hammer, and he felt as if he must suffocate. The evening passed without any disturbance, but Archag had a restless night; he kept dreaming that he had been sent away in disgrace, and his classmates’ shouts of derisive laughter seemed to ring in his ears. Several times he woke up with a start, to hear Garabed anxiously asking if he were ill, and if he would like to have Badvili Melikian called. He would reply impatiently that he did not need anything, and turn over on the other side.
The next morning, Dr. Mills came into the schoolroom before prayers, looking very grave.
“Now for it!” said Archag to himself.
The president told them what had happened, and made the misdeed appear very disgraceful. When he called on the guilty one to come forward and acknowledge his fault, our friend rose mechanically and went to the desk.
“It was I who did it,” he said simply.
“You! you!” repeated Dr. Mills. “A boy whom we have all loved! How can you have done a thing like that? It can’t be possible!”