“I’m sorry, sir, but I—I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t,” replied the other impatiently. “Very well, have it so. Why have you confessed to-day?”
“I didn’t want Dyer and Loring to—to be punished, sir.”
“I wish you might have owned up a little earlier, Vinton,” said Mr. Collins with a sigh. “I’m afraid the Doctor will think your repentance rather too late to be satisfactory. I will do all that I can for you, my boy, but you mustn’t expect to get off without punishment.”
“I don’t, sir,” answered Dan in a low voice. “I’m willing to take what’s coming to me.”
“Even if—it amounts to being expelled?”
Dan looked up with startled eyes.
“It—it won’t be that, sir, will it?” he asked troubledly.
“I’m afraid,” began Mr. Collins, “that the Doctor—But, no, Vinton, I don’t think it will come to that. I will do everything I can for you. I only wish you would be a little more frank with me; I could help you better.”