Cecil’s reply was inaudible.
There was a moment’s pause, and then the clear, monotonous voice was raised again.
“Your crime has been great, Aviolet, and of a very determined character. You have brought shame on to the old and honoured name of your family, and you cannot possibly plead either ignorance or poverty to excuse your actions. Every advantage of education and upbringing has been yours, and yet you have committed a dastardly theft for which in ordinary circumstances I should probably sentence you to three months’ imprisonment in the Second Division. Not content with theft, you have also had the almost incredible baseness and folly to try and pass yourself off as a subject for admiration on account of your skill and strength at games, your popularity with your fellows, and the like, by means of entirely fictitious inscriptions, composed by yourself, and engraved at your own expense on your stolen trophies. A more senseless, pointless, and idiotic fraud was never perpetrated, and I can only hope that your present humiliation and shame may cure you for ever of what seems to be a form of megalomania.
“For the sake of your unhappy relatives, Aviolet, who have undertaken to make the fullest restitution possible on your behalf, and because of the plea so earnestly put forward, that you are not wholly responsible for your actions, I am prepared to deal with you very leniently.
“You are young, and you have friends to help you. This is a moment when every man in England has a chance of proving his worth. My advice to you is to enlist at once. Are you prepared to do so, if I allow you to leave this Court a free man?”
Cecil raised his head for the first time.
Ford made a movement as though to intervene and Rose saw the doctor lean forward and grip him by the arm. In the lightning interval during which the eyes of the two men met, Cecil spoke:
“Yes, sir.”
The tears rushed to Rose’s eyes, blinding her.
“Very well. Try and redeem your character in the Army. You have been dealt with very mercifully, as I hope you fully realize, but you have also got to realize that you are now, to a certain extent, a marked man. If you fail to make good, if your name comes before the authorities again in the same capacity—then you need not hope for anything but the very strictest justice. And that, let me tell you, will be neither more nor less than prison.