“You see, I went to confession last night, and——”
“I understand. You are properly trying to undo
the wrong you have done. You will never be able to undo the mental torture you have inflicted on Henning all these months.”
“I never shall. I am sorry for all that now, and I ask your pardon, Henning.”
The three boys were discovering that there was something manly in Stockley after all.
“That's all right,” said Roy heartily. “It's all over now. Try and keep straight for the future.”
“Now,” said Bracebridge, “there is only one thing more to be done. Of course you will sign a paper exonerating Henning from all possible implication, now you have acknowledged your own guilt. Our word as witnesses would be sufficient, but it would come with better grace from you, don't you think so?”
“There's not much gracefulness in the whole wretched business, I'm thinking, but I'll sign.”
That afternoon, with the permission of the prefect, there was posted on the bulletin board a notice which created more intense excitement than anything since the loss of the money during the Christmas holidays. It ran as follows:
“This is to certify that I, of my own free will and without coercion, admit that I stole the seventy-two dollars last Christmas week, and that no one now at the college had the least thing to do with planning or carrying out the theft except myself.”