I started for my room, but before I had taken three steps an idea occurred to me.
“Hullo, Dan!” I called after Murray’s receding figure. He stopped.
“Well, what is it, Mr. Elder?”
“When you are asked to report to-morrow, would you mind saying in my favor that I wore no mask?”
“Hullo! So the rest wore masks, did they?” exclaimed Murray gruffly. “That won’t help matters any.”
I saw the fatal mistake I had made, and I could have bitten my tongue off for speaking. I was so out of patience with myself that I turned abruptly and dashed up stairs to my room, where I threw myself on my sofa and brooded for half an hour in mortified silence.
It seemed, then, that Dan Murray had not known that the other fellows wore masks. It was probable that he did not arrive on the scene till quite late, and was unable to scrutinize any one closely except myself. Of course if I had kept silent the fact that masks were used would not have been known, but, now that I had betrayed it, the affair immediately took on a far more serious aspect.
“It is too bad,” I thought bitterly, “and yet how could I help it? It never occurred to me that Dan had not noticed the masks.”
One consideration alone arose to console me in my self recrimination, and that was rather a poor sort of consolation.
“After all,” I said, “since I am the only one caught to-night, none suffers by it except myself. I only made matters worse for myself by saying anything about the masks.”