!" cried Glyn
scornfully. "You muddle-headed idiot, you did it to injure me, for you
must have had some idea in your stupid thick brain that it would do me
harm. But come on. You have confessed it, and you shan't go alone to
the Doctor to say that you repent and that you are sorry for it all, for
you shall come with me. Quick! Now, at once, before the breakfast-bell
rings; and we will see what the Doctor says. Perhaps he will understand
it better than I do, for I hardly know what you meant."

"No, no, don't! Pray don't, Severn! Haven't I owned up? What more do
you want?" And the big lad spoke with his lips quivering and a curious
twitching appearing about the corners of his mouth; but Glyn seemed as
hard as iron.

"What more do I want? I want the Doctor to know what a miserable coward
and bully he has in the school."

"No, no," gasped Slegge, in a low, husky voice, and with his face now
all of a quiver. "I can't--I won't! I tell you I can't come!"

"And I tell you you shall come," cried Glyn, dragging him along a step
or two.

"Don't, I tell you! You will have Morris see," gasped Slegge.

"I want him to see, and all the fellows to see what a coward we have got
amongst us. So come along."

Slegge caught him by the lapel of his jacket, and with his voice
changing into a piteous whisper, "Pray, pray don't, Severn!" he panted.
"Do you know what it means?"

"I know what it ought to mean," cried Glyn mockingly; "a good flogging;
but the Doctor won't give you that."

"No," whispered the lad piteously. "I'd bear that; but he'd send me
back home in disgrace. There was a fellow here once, and the Doctor
called it expelled. Severn, old chap, I am going to leave at the end of
this half. It will be like ruin to me, for everything will be known.
There, I confess. I was a fool, and what you called me."

"Then come like a man and say that to the Doctor."

"I can't! I can't! I--oh, Severn! Severn!"

The poor wretch could get out no more articulately, but sank down upon
his knees, fighting hard for a few moments to master himself, but only
to burst forth into a fit of hysterical sobbing.

The pitiful, appealing face turned up to him mastered Glyn on the
instant, and he loosened his hold, to glance round directly in the
direction of Morris, and then back.

"Get up," he said, "and don't do that. Come along here."

"No, no; I can't go before the Doctor. Severn, you always were a good
fellow--a bet