“Why!” he exclaimed impulsively, “I—” Another word would have betrayed him hopelessly. He saw his mistake in time, checked himself, and dropped into his chair in red-faced confusion.
Colonel Silsbee waved his hand toward the door.
“That is all, Brightly,” he said. “The figures will stand as they are. You are excused.”
Brightly bowed, left the office, and returned to his place in the schoolroom. A few minutes later Brede came out also. His countenance had greatly changed. Instead of the scornful smile of self-satisfaction, his face bore marks of humiliation and of bitter disappointment. He shot one angry glance at the enemy who had outwitted him, and passed to his seat. But his books were nothing to him; he had been baffled, crushed, out-Heroded. He smarted and writhed with a sense of ignominious defeat.
The night passed and the morning came, and the days went by; but this feeling remained with him,—he could not shake it off.
To know that his intended victim had been guilty of an offence so enormous that its mere disclosure would bring down upon the offender punishment and permanent disgrace, and yet to be powerless, to see this unblushing liar go scot-free from the penalty of a crime which he did not dare to bring to light, hurt him, galled him, exasperated him almost beyond endurance.
It made him careless at drill, neglectful of his studies, violent in temper. He spoke lightly of rules; he sought the society of boisterous fellows; he fraternized with the ruder and disorderly element. His demoralization was so marked and rapid that it became the talk of the school.
He never spoke to Brightly; he tried to ignore him; but whenever these two met in those days, whether in the drill-hall, the classroom, or the corridor, each felt that the other knew to a certainty the guilt of both.
And Brede, measuring his enemy’s feeling by his own, had no conception of the true state of Brightly’s mind.
Had he known what this young fellow suffered, he might have asked no greater revenge. The lie was scarcely cold on the lad’s lips before he regretted having spoken it. Within ten minutes from the time he uttered it he would have given much to be able to recall it; but that was clearly impossible. He felt that it would only make the matter so much the worse.