Arthur nodded knowingly.
“And that you have believed it ever since the middle of last term?”
“Yes—I say, weren’t you the only one in it, then?” asked the boy, who could not any longer mistake the master’s bewildered and horrified manner for mere acting.
Railsford felt that this was a time of all others to be explicit.
“I did not do it, Arthur, and I had no more connection with the affair than—your father.”
Arthur was duly impressed by this asseveration.
“It’s a precious rum thing, then, about all those things, you know. They looked awfully fishy against you.”
“What things? I don’t understand you.”
“Perhaps I’d better not tell you,” said the boy, getting puzzled himself.
“I can’t force you to tell me; but when you know it’s a matter of great importance to me to know how you or anybody came to suspect such a thing of me, I think you will do it.”