There was a moment's pause, as the master's solemnity sank deep into the boys' consciousness. Dimly they realized that the issue was something far greater and graver than anything they had known before.
Horace broke the silence.
"Have we deserved that you should distrust us, sir?" he asked.
The old patriot flashed a quick look at him.
"You are boys, still," he said, "that is all. It is your youth, not your disloyalty that I fear."
He studied the faces one by one. Each boy returned his gaze frankly and unflinchingly.
"I will trust you," the master said.
He leaned down to his desk and, with all the lads watching him, wrote in heavy letters on a sheet of paper that lay on his desk.
"There lack but ten days to the end of the term," the master said, when he had finished writing. "I am to trust you for that length of time. You give me your word of honor?"