In the midst of a turmoil of shame and remorse and misery, he clung to that conviction. He had no other hope to cling to.
The thought of his own self-exposure to Perriman left him utterly dazed. He felt that he did not even understand how it had happened.
Cecil’s first conversation with Perriman had brought to him the most exquisite sense of relief, proportionate to the wretchedness of a long previous spell of helpless, hopeless self-contempt. He had believed that his Confirmation would indeed prove a new beginning of life, in which the old conditions would no longer prevail any more.
Perriman knew of his degrading weakness, his perpetual breaking of a law of God and man, and yet Perriman had not despised him, had assured him again and again that he was ready to help him, that he believed in him. It had seemed, to Cecil, a very long while since any one in the world of school had been ready to believe in him. He knew that the other boys put him down as a boaster, and sometimes, more crudely, as a young liar. He knew that these things were true of him. Perriman’s interest had begun to revive his self-respect.
After the first difficult statement of fact, it had no longer cost him a great deal to make his avowals to the young clergyman. He had almost felt that they were expected of him, that they enhanced Perriman’s interest in him.
After a little while, he had diligently searched out in himself matter for self-accusation, twisting and distorting tiny incidents until they could be made to acquire some significance, exaggerating facts, sometimes misrepresenting them altogether, sometimes inventing.
And then the master’s hopefulness had seemed to flag, his friendly certainty of the boy’s ultimate conquest to slacken.
He had flicked Cecil upon the raw with that one sentence: “Do try and be more robust about it all, won’t you?”
It had been the stinging, humiliating recollection of those words that had led to the perpetration of the sorry farce that had ended it all.
Ages ago, as it seemed, Cecil Aviolet had indeed seen a pile of papers on Perriman’s own desk that he had perfectly well known to be the question-lists of the coming terminal examinations. There had even flashed across his mind the thought, “A chance for somebody to get a look at the questions now!” But no serious temptation had assailed him. For one thing, the risk of detection would have been too great. At any instant the door might have opened and Perriman have returned. Nor had he been possessed of sufficient presence of mind to think of noting the headings to the questions.