"If you please, sir, I must speak to Mrs. Brier."
So Mrs. Brier left the room for a moment, to return again in company with the servant.
"What is this all about?" asked the Doctor.
"If you please, sir, this morning, in making the bed Mr. Pemberton sleeps in, I noticed the ticking loose, and I put my hand in, as I felt something hard, and I found this snuff-box."
I have read in books about boys who, under some exciting necessity, have started in an instant from boyhood to manhood, just as I have read about people's hair in time of trouble turning from black to white in the course of a night. Howard Pemberton did not spring from boyhood to manhood at this strange discovery, nor did his hair turn white, but the words of the servant had a sudden and powerful influence upon him. In a moment he turned to his accuser and said:
"Digby, there is some vile secret underlying all this, and I don't know what it is. But I declare to you, solemnly, that I am innocent of this charge. If you have spoken against me to-day because you thought you ought to do it, I can't blame you, but if you have done it from any wrong motive, I hope you'll confess it before evil is added to evil."
But Digby merely shrugged his shoulders, and turning to the Doctor, said: "Have you anything more you wish to ask me, sir?"
Dr. Brier was fairly nonplussed. The fog grew denser all around him. Addressing a few words of caution to those who had been summoned to this the strangest meeting that was ever held in Blackrock School, he dismissed the boys, ordering Howard and Digby to be kept in separate rooms until he should arrive at some judgment in the case.