"But being out after hours wasn't anything. It wasn't knocking those blackguards about. Why didn't you deny that anyway?" "Oh, shut up, Alick." Again Gell tugged at his shoulders and said, "But why didn't you?" "If you must know, I'll tell you--because they would have had you for it next." Mrs. Gale had found the big window of the lavatory open at a quarter-past nine, and when she sent Jamieson down he saw Gell closing it. "Do you mean that.... that to save me, you allowed yourself to...." "Shut up, I tell you!" There was silence for a moment and then Gell began to cry openly, and to pour out a torrent of self-reproaches. He was a coward; a wretched, miserable, contemptible coward--that's what he was and he had always known it. He would never forgive himself--never! But perhaps he had not been thinking of saving his own skin only. "That was little Bessie Collister." "I know." If he had stood up to the confounded thing and confessed, and given her away, after she had been plucky and refused to speak, and his father had heard of it.... _her_ father also.... her stepfather.... "Dan Baldromma, you know what he is, Vic?" "Oh, yes, there would have been the devil to pay all round." "Wouldn't there?" "The College, too! Dan would have had something to say to old Peacock (nickname for the Principal) on that subject also." Yes, that was what Gell had thought, and it was the reason (one of the reasons) why he had stood silent when the Principal challenged them. Nobody knew anything except the girl. The Police didn't know; the Principal didn't know. If he kept quiet the inquiry would end in nothing and there would be no harm done to anybody--except the town ruffians, and they deserved all they got. How was he to guess that somebody else was out after hours, and that to save him from being exposed, perhaps expelled, his own chum, like the brick he was and always had been.... "Hold your tongue, you fool!" Gell made for the door. "Look here," he said, "I'm going to tell the Principal that if you were out last night it was on an errand for him--that can't hurt anybody." "No, you're not." "Yes, I am--certainly I am." "If you do, I'll never speak to you again--on my soul, never." "But he's certain to remember it sooner or later." "Let him." "And when he does, what's he to think of himself?" "That's his affair, isn't it? Leave him alone." Gell's voice rose to a cry. "No, I will not leave him alone. And since you won't let me say that about you, I'll tell him about myself. Yes, I will, and nobody shall prevent me! I don't care what happens about father, or anybody else, now. I can't stand this any longer. I can't and I won't." "Alick! Alick Gell! Old fellow...." But the door had been slammed to and Gell was gone. III