"Yes."
"But you were seen coming from the passage leading to the Study door."
No answer.
"Do you admit that you were in that passage?"
"Yes." (Sensation.)
"Philip," said Mr. Pocklington, "that passage leads only to the Study. What other motive can have taken you there?"
No answer. It is difficult on the spur of the moment to frame a plausible excuse for having in cold blood arranged a sanguinary encounter outside your Principal's study door.
"Do you decline to answer?"
Again no reply from Pip. Another pause. Mr. Pocklington, now as excited as a terrier halfway down a rabbit-hole, with difficulty refrained from pronouncing sentence on the spot. However, he restrained himself so far as to remember to sum up.
"Appearances are against you, Philip," he began. "You were seen leaving the—the scene of the outrage in a suspicious manner shortly after that outrage was committed. You decline to state what business took you there. No one else visited the spot during the time under consideration—at least—by the way, did you see any one else while you—during that period?"