who cares for your promises? I don't believe you."

"Well, I know I met Greenfield senior coming out of the Doctor's study
on Saturday evening, about five minutes past nine. I'm positive of
that," said Simon.

"And I suppose he had the paper in his hand?" sneered Wraysford, looking
very miserable.

"No; I expect he'd put it in his pocket, you know, at least, that is, I
would have."

This candid admission on the part of the ingenious poet was too much for
the gravity of one or two of the Fifth. Wraysford, however, was in no
laughing mood, and went off to his study in great perturbation.

He could not for a moment believe that his friend could be guilty of
such a dishonourable act as stealing an examination paper, and his
impulse was to go at once to Oliver's study and get the suspicions of
the Fifth laid there and then. But the fear of seeming in the least
degree to join in those suspicions kept him back. He tried to laugh the
thing to scorn inwardly, and called himself a villain and a traitor
twenty times for admitting even the shadow of a doubt into his own mind.
Yet, as Wraysford sat that afternoon and brooded over his friend's new
trouble, he became more and more uncomfortable.

When on a former occasion the fellows had called in question Oliver's
courage, he had felt so sure, so very sure the suspicion was a
groundless one, that he had never taken it seriously to heart. But
somehow this affair was quite different. What possible object would
Simon, for instance, have for telling a deliberate lie? and if it had
been a lie, why should Oliver have betrayed such confusion on hearing
it?

These were questions which, try all he would, Wraysford could not get
out of his mind.

When Stephen presently came in, cheery as ever, and eager to hear how
the examination had gone off, the elder boy felt an awkwardness in
talking to him which he had never experienced before. As for Stephen,
he put down the short, embarrassed answers he received to Wraysford's
own uneasiness as to the result of the examination. Little guessed the
boy what was passing in the other's mind!

There was just one hope Wraysford clung to. That was that Oliver should
come out anywhere but first in the result. If Loman, or Wraysford
himself, were to win, no one would be able to say his friend had
profited by a dishonourable act; indeed, it would be as good as proof he
had not taken the paper.

And yet Wraysford felt quite sick as he call