re their friends and enemies added
keenly to the misery they felt. So, with eyes bent on the floor, Eric
and Charlie awaited their sentence.

"Williams and Wildney," said Dr. Rowlands in a solemn voice, of which
every articulation thrilled to the heart of every hearer, "you have been
detected in a sin most disgraceful and most dangerous. On Saturday night
you were both drinking, and you were guilty of such gross excess, that
you were neither of you in a fit state to appear among your
companions--least of all to appear among them at the hour of prayer. I
shall not waste many words on an occasion like this; only I trust that
those of your schoolfellows who saw you staggering and rolling into the
room on Saturday evening in a manner so unspeakably shameful and
degrading, will learn from that melancholy sight the lesson which the
Spartans taught their children by exhibiting a drunkard before them--the
lesson of the brutalising and fearful character of this most ruinous
vice. Eric Williams and Charles Wildney, your punishment will be public
expulsion, for which you will prepare this very evening. I am unwilling
that for a single day either of you--especially the elder of
you--should linger, so as possibly to contaminate others with the danger
of so pernicious an example."

Such a sentence was wholly unexpected; it took boys and masters equally
by surprise. The announcement of it caused an uneasy sensation, which
was evident to all present, though no one spoke a word; but Dr. Rowlands
took no notice of it, and only said to the culprits--

"You may return to your seats."

The two boys found their way back instinctively, they hardly knew how.
They seemed confounded and thunderstruck by their sentence, and the
painful accessories of its publicity. Eric leaned over the desk with his
head resting on a book, too stunned even to think; and Wildney looked
straight before him with his eyes fixed in a stupid and
unobserved stare.

Form by form the school dispersed, and the moment he was liberated Eric
sprang away from the boys, who would have spoken to him, and rushed
wildly to his study, where he locked the door. In a moment, however, he
re-opened it, for he heard Wildney's step, and, after admitting him,
locked it once more.

Without a word Wildney, who looked very pale, flung his arms round
Eric's neck, and, unable to bear up any longer, burst into a flood of
tears. Both of them felt relief in giving the reins to their sorrow