“I don’t know what you can do. I want to think it all out before I talk with you any more. But if I were you I’d get down on my knees and ask God to forgive me.” Tony again put his hand on the doorknob. “I am going. I have got to think it out. I reckon you can see that you have been the cause of a lot of trouble. Don’t worry about me, though. I won’t throw you over in the way you think I might. But I can’t talk about it any more now. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” said Finch, with a gulp.
He sat for a long time on the edge of his couch with his face in his hands, staring blankly in front of him. The world upon which his soul looked out was as bare, as comfortless as his little room. He was dumbly miserable. He knew he had hurt Deering, but just how, he could not see. The fear that possessed him chiefly was that Deering would throw him over. “And I did it because of him,” he would say now and then between his clenched teeth. He could not understand Tony’s horror of the deceit, he could not fathom his unwillingness to take advantage of the information which he himself had risked so much to obtain. He knew of course that he had done a wicked thing, but the wickedness seemed almost justified because the temptation had been so strong. He was sorriest about Wilson. As for the eavesdropping—when he thought of that, he clenched his fists. If Roylston were successful! I may be a sneak, he thought, but so is he. All was fair in war—and if Tony didn’t get the Head Prefectship, whatever Tony might say or feel, war it should be. “I’ll show him,” he muttered, conjuring up the vision of Mr. Roylston reading The Spectacle to his colleagues. “If he queers Deering, I’ll get even with him whatever happens!”
When Tony returned to Number Five study he found that the boys had left and that Jimmie had gone to bed. He undressed slowly, trying to think out the situation. Of course, he had misjudged Finch almost from the first, he realized that. The others were right. He was a difficult case, too difficult for a place like Deal. He could not have believed, had he not heard it from the boy’s own lips, that he could stoop to such methods for revenge. But there it was! He had an actual situation to deal with; a living soul, just so tempted, so weak, so corrupted by misery, to help or hurt now by fresh judgments, which might be right or wrong. That he had been too generous before toward Finch, was no reason, however, with Tony, even for a moment, why he should be ungenerous now. He must do his best. He hoped Finch would be willing for him to talk it all over with Mr. Morris.
After a time, as he lay in bed, sleepless and still feverishly thinking, his attention wandered from Finch to his own case, to the facts, that, much as he wished to close his mind to them, were very much there. It was hard to believe that Mr. Roylston was so bitterly hostile, so absolutely unforgiving. His own conscience had long ceased from troubling him about The Spectacle, and he wondered if the Head could take Mr. Roylston’s point of view. He had forgiven himself in that matter so completely, that he could hardly realize how it still rankled with the offended master, how it might impress others. At last he fell asleep, quite assured that things would right themselves and confident that on the morrow he would learn that he had been appointed Head Prefect.
He saw Finch in the morning on the way to Chapel, and tried to greet him naturally. Finch seemed stolid, unresponsive, but not keenly conscious, as Tony had supposed he would appear, of what had taken place between them the night before.
Finch had spent a sleepless night. But now he had set his teeth and was waiting. He was staking his all, as it were, on the Head proving fair as he called it to himself. He was staking his reform, his remorse, his repentance on the issue which, beyond his control now by fair means or foul, depended on the Head.
The morning hymn was “I need Thee every hour,” and Finch joined in it. He dumbly felt he was willing to bribe heaven to gain his end. He looked about the Chapel, and noted that Mr. Roylston was not present, and his heart leaped with the thought that the master had lost his case, perhaps even, Finch passionately hoped, the Head had accepted his resignation. He tried, but he could not listen to the reading of the scriptures and the prayers. Then the Grace was said, and the boys were settling back in their seats into attitudes of attention, for the Doctor was still at the reading-desk as if he had something to say to them.
“There is still”—the Doctor’s voice seemed to Finch to come from a great distance—“there is still an important appointment to be announced. The Head Prefect for the year will be——”
There was a slight disturbance in the back of the Chapel—some one had dropped a hymn-book, and the Doctor paused, it seemed to Finch for an intolerable age.