Quentillian could see the circle of scared, perplexed faces still—Lucilla, troubled, but unastonished, keeping a vigilant hold on Adrian all the time, Val, frankly horrified and full of outspoken predictions of the direst description, Flossie in tears, stroking and fondling Adrian’s hand with the tenderest compassion. He even visualized the pale, squarely built, little flaxen-haired boy that had been himself.
They could not persuade Adrian to confess.
At last Lucilla said: “If you don’t tell him, Adrian, then I shall.”
And so it had been, because Canon Morchard, re-entering the schoolroom, had, with a penetration to which his children were accustomed, instantly perceived the tears and the terror on Adrian’s face.
“What is it, little lad? Have you hurt yourself?”
The kind, unsuspicious concern in his voice, as he held out his hand!
Quentillian was certain that a pause had followed the enquiry—Adrian’s opportunity, conceded by Lucilla, even while she knew, as they all did, that he would take no advantage of it.
Then Lucilla had told.
Quentillian’s thoughts went off at a tangent, dwelling for the first time, with a certain surprised admiration, upon Lucilla’s resolute, almost matter-of-fact performance of her painful and alarming task.
Canon Morchard had been incredulous at first, and Lucilla had steadily repeated, and reiterated again and again, the dreadful truth.