The Master of Man: The Story of a Sin

by Sir Hall Caine

"Yes, Sir."

"You fool! You infernal fool!"

The Speaker had talked himself out of breath and for a moment his wife intervened.

"Alick," she said, "if it was you, as you say, who walked out with the girl, who was she?"

"She was .... a servant girl, mother."

"But who?"

"Tut!" said the Speaker, "what does it matter who? .... You say you confessed to the Principal?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Then if he chose to disregard your confession, and to act on his own judgment, what did it matter to you?"

"It was wrong to expel Stowell for what I had done and I couldn't stand it," said the boy.