The young man’s simple face beamed, and presently he drew out of his pocket a little note-book, into which he carefully entered Cecil Aviolet’s initials, and the date.
The boy did not voluntarily seek him again at first, and Perriman said nothing to him, but rejoiced whole-heartedly in a certain lightening of Cecil’s whole aspect that had become evident.
One evening, however, meeting him, the clergyman invited him again into his room. “How are things going with you, eh?”
“Much better, thank you, sir.”
The boy’s face was radiant, and Perriman felt a glow of satisfaction, not unmixed with a little honest self-congratulation.
But two days later came the first check.
“I—I’ve done it again, sir.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Aviolet. But, of course, these things are not overcome in a minute, one knows. Tell me what happened.”
Cecil unfolded a long and piteous story: the flat denial of a piece of folly perpetrated in school.
Perriman encouraged him, exhorted him, and assured him of his own unshaken trust.