"Can't you tell me anything about it, dear?" she asked, puzzled and amazed; "can't you give me any explanation?"
"No," said Paul faintly. And his mother, never for a moment suspecting that he could wilfully deceive her, or that such a thing as had really happened could be possible, began to look elsewhere for the explanation.
"Do you know if any of you walk in your sleep?" she asked, with a sudden thought.
"I never saw the others do it," said Paul quickly, delighted at the possibility of a new way out of his dilemma, "and of course I shouldn't know if I did myself, should I?"
"Perhaps not, unless something happened to wake you. But don't worry, or frighten yourself. Of course no one is to blame if it is a case of sleep-walking,—only it will be a great anxiety for the future. You had better get up now and dress. I will take these things down; they may help to explain what is such a puzzle to us all, and to relieve their minds."
As soon as his mother had gone, Paul quickly began to bestir himself; he was not particularly anxious to face people and all the questions which would probably be levelled at him, but never could he lie still and think of the deception he had practised on his mother. When he came to move, the stiffness and pain in his scraped knees almost made him cry out, and when he put his feet on the floor, he quickly sat back on the bed again, for the bottoms of his feet were full of tiny prickles, and the pain, when he pressed on them, was almost unbearable.
CHAPTER X.
RUMOUR AND APPREHENSION.
In the excitement and talk which the events of the night called forth, Paul's boots escaped notice, and Paul himself many times wished he could have done the same. But he was the most interesting person in the house just then, and was questioned, cross-questioned, pitied, talked at, until he was heartily sick of everything, and longed to run away, back to school, or anywhere, to escape it all; for he could not answer a question without involving himself in deeper deceit, and he did honestly long to be able to throw it off, and stand with a clear conscience again.