“I was with them, sir,” said Ray, making the same answer as I had.
“And you were masked like the others?”
“No, sir.”
Dr. Drayton looked at him quickly.
“Mr. Wendell,” he said, in a still sharper tone of voice, “we are speaking upon information furnished us by Mr. Elder.”
Ray turned with a quick movement and looked at me. I shall never forget that look—a look of mingled surprise, disappointment, and reproach. It cut me like a knife, for I saw only too clearly what it meant. Coupling the display of the match box, which he remembered giving me the night before, with Dr. Drayton’s last words, Ray had concluded, as was only natural in the face of such evidence, that I had betrayed him. The thought that he should suspect me of such baseness, for one instant, was more than I could stand, so I hastened to correct the impression at once.
“Dr. Drayton,” I said quickly, “my words misled you. When I said that I wore no mask I did not intend to imply that all the rest wore masks.”
“That was certainly the impression you gave me, sir,” answered Dr. Drayton, “and I think the other gentlemen of the faculty placed a similar construction upon your language.”
“I am very sorry, sir,” I stammered. “There were several others besides myself who wore no masks, and Mr. Wendell was one of them.”
I glanced quickly at Ray as I said this, in order to mark the effect of my words. He would not look at me, and it was only too evident from his manner that his doubts had not been cleared by my attempted explanation. Dr. Drayton’s positive tone, and my hesitancy and embarrassment, Ray had undoubtedly interpreted to my disadvantage. It must have seemed to him that Dr. Drayton was right, and that I had weakly shifted my position. I was distressed to see that I had not improved matters appreciably.