OAKLEIGH.
BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND.
CHAPTER XII.
"Why has he come home?"
This was the question on the lips of each one of the family when they heard of Neal's arrival.
It was soon answered. He had been suspended.
He would give little explanation; he merely asserted that he was innocent of that of which he was accused. Some of the boys, the most unmanageable at St. Asaph's, had plotted to do some mischief. Neal, being more or less intimate with the set, was asked to join in the plot, but refused. He was with the boys, however, up to the moment of their putting it into execution. Afterwards circumstances pointed to his having been concerned in it, and his known intimacy with these very boys condemned him.
There was but one person who could prove absolutely that he had not been with the culprits that night, and that person held his peace.
Of course Cynthia rightly suspected that it was Bronson.
A letter came from the head master of the school, stating the facts as they appeared to him, and announcing with regret that he had been obliged to suspend Neal Gordon for the remainder of the term.