“I took down the headings on my cuff.”
“Why do you tell me this now?” Perriman asked slowly.
“Because it was on my mind, and I wanted to start fresh from my Confirmation, sir. It—it seemed my one chance.”
The boy caught his breath, and his tone left no room for doubt as to his earnestness. Then he dropped his eyes and stood waiting.
Perriman spoke at last, and at the first sound of his voice, Cecil started violently, looked once at him, and then seemed almost physically to shrink into himself.
“Cecil Aviolet, if I did my duty, I believe that I should advise the Head to disqualify you altogether as a candidate for Confirmation to-morrow. Either you are mentally unsound, or, for heaven knows what reason, you wish to make me think you so. You did not cheat over the terminal examinations. You did not obtain any sight of the questions set for the History paper. It so happens that no questions for that particular paper were set beforehand. Owing to a press of other matters, the History paper was overlooked, and I myself set the questions, at the eleventh hour, just before the examination began. Nobody on this earth can have seen them, except the Head and myself, for the simple reason that they never left my hand from the moment they were written to the moment I brought them into the class-room and laid them on the desk.”
There was dead silence, while master and boy confronted one another.
“You have made a fool of me, Aviolet, if that was your object,” said Perriman slowly. “Heaven knows, that when I first spoke to you, I did so in all sincerity. I saw that you hadn’t many friends, and cared little for games, and seemed rather out of your element. I saw—or thought I saw—that you were interested in the Confirmation class, and seemed anxious to enter into the right spirit of it all. What you hoped to gain by your bogus confessions and self-accusations, I don’t pretend to know.”
“It wasn’t—it wasn’t—I didn’t——” The boy’s eyes were dilated as though with terror, and his lips white.
“Have you any explanation to offer?” said Perriman incredulously.