“No, no, sir!” I cried. “Don’t—pray don’t think I took the wretched watch!”
There was so much passionate agony in my voice that the Doctor paused for a few moments, before, in the midst of the solemn silence which ensued, he said coldly,—
“Do you deny that you took the watch?”
“Yes, yes. Indeed, indeed I did not take it, sir!” The Doctor sighed.
“Do you deny that you were seen by Dicksee this morning with the watch in your hands?”
“No, sir; that is true,” I said, with a look at Mercer, who hung down his head.
“Then I am bound by the statements that have been made, painful as it is to me, to consider that in a moment of weak impulse you did this base thing. If I am wrong, Heaven forgive me, for humanum est errare. The truth, however, seems too clear.”
“I—I found it there,” I panted.
The Doctor shook his head.
“It is like charging your school-fellow with stealing the watch. Do you do this?”