"Please—please do not ask me, sir!" begged the boy.
"Ahem! you are still stubborn, are you!"
"Ye—yes, sir," said Bobby, not knowing what else to say.
"Very well. I shall keep you indoors no longer. I see that gentle means will not cure your trouble. At the last, I should have been tempted to keep the matter to myself and give you a chance for the medal. But I see leniency is wasted upon you.
"You may have your freedom, Robert. Nothing you can do now will wipe out the fact that you have deliberately refused to answer my questions. That is all."
And Bobby Blake forgot the Doctor's office door was unlocked!
He accepted the punishment of Mr. Leith as final. He knew he had lost all chance of winning the Medal of Honor. Young as he was, it seemed to him as though his punishment was almost too great for him to bear!
CHAPTER XX
ON THE BRINK OF WAR
To everybody else, affairs at Rockledge School seemed to go on as ever. There were hard lessons, and easy lessons (the former predominating, the boys thought) and there were many, many good times as the season advanced.