He sat for a long time on the edge of his couch with his face in his hands, staring blankly in front of him. The world upon which his soul looked out was as bare, as comfortless as his little room. He was dumbly miserable. He knew he had hurt Deering, but just how, he could not see. The fear that possessed him chiefly was that Deering would throw him over. “And I did it because of him,” he would say now and then between his clenched teeth. He could not understand Tony’s horror of the deceit, he could not fathom his unwillingness to take advantage of the information which he himself had risked so much to obtain. He knew of course that he had done a wicked thing, but the wickedness seemed almost justified because the temptation had been so strong. He was sorriest about Wilson. As for the eavesdropping—when he thought of that, he clenched his fists. If Roylston were successful! I may be a sneak, he thought, but so is he. All was fair in war—and if Tony didn’t get the Head Prefectship, whatever Tony might say or feel, war it should be. “I’ll show him,” he muttered, conjuring up the vision of Mr. Roylston reading _The Spectacle_ to his colleagues. “If he queers Deering, I’ll get even with him whatever happens!” When Tony returned to Number Five study he found that the boys had left and that Jimmie had gone to bed. He undressed slowly, trying to think out the situation. Of course, he had misjudged Finch almost from the first, he realized that. The others were right. He was a difficult case, too difficult for a place like Deal. He could not have believed, had he not heard it from the boy’s own lips, that he could stoop to such methods for revenge. But there it was! He had an actual situation to deal with; a living soul, just so tempted, so weak, so corrupted by misery, to help or hurt now by fresh judgments, which might be right or wrong. That he had been too generous before toward Finch, was no reason, however, with Tony, even for a moment, why he should be ungenerous now. He must do his best. He hoped Finch would be willing for him to talk it all over with Mr. Morris. After a time, as he lay in bed, sleepless and still feverishly thinking, his attention wandered from Finch to his own case, to the facts, that, much as he wished to close his mind to them, were very much there. It was hard to believe that Mr. Roylston was so bitterly hostile, so absolutely unforgiving. His own conscience had long ceased from troubling him about _The Spectacle_, and he wondered if the Head could take Mr. Roylston’s point of view. He had forgiven himself in that matter so completely, that he could hardly realize how it still rankled with the offended master, how it might impress others. At last he fell asleep, quite assured that things would right themselves and confident that on the morrow he would learn that he had been appointed Head Prefect.