Both of them fixed their eyes on the ground, whence they never once raised them; and in the deadly pallor of their haggard faces you could scarcely have recognised the joyous high-spirited friends, whose laugh and shout had often rung so merrily through the playground, and woke the echoes of the rocks along the shore. Every eye was on them, and they were conscious of it, though they could not see it--painfully conscious of it, so that they wished the very ground to yawn beneath their feet for the moment and swallow up their shame. Companionship in disgrace increased the suffering; had either of them been alone, he would have been less acutely sensible to the trying nature of his position; but that they, so different in their ages and position in the school, should thus have their friendship and the results of it blazoned, or rather branded, before 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 school-fellows 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 unobservant stare.