Robin locked his working hands together. Green waited. "It--it--I didn't see--Mrs. Fielding," he blurted forth at last. Green made a slight movement that might have indicated relief, but his tone was as uncompromising as before as he said, "That's not an answer to my question. I asked you why you did it." Robin shrank from the curt directness of his speech. His defiance wilted visibly. "I--didn't mean to break the window, Dicky," he said, twisting and cracking his fingers in rising agitation. "What did you mean to do?" said Green. Robin stood silent again. "Are you going to answer me?" Green said, after a pause. Robin made a great effort. He parted his straining hands and rested them upon the table behind which Green sat. Standing so, he glowered down into his brother's grim face with something of menace in his own. "I'll tell you one thing, Dicky," he said, with stupendous effort. "I'm not going--to take a caning for it." Green's eyebrows went up. He sat perfectly still, looking straight up into the heavy face above him. For several seconds a tense silence reigned. Then: "Oh yes, you will," he said quietly. "You will take--whatever I decide to give you. Sit down there!" He indicated the end of the bench nearest to him. "I'll deal with you presently." Robin did not stir. In the growing gloom of the room his eyes shone like the eyes of an animal, goaded and desperate. But the man before him showed neither surprise nor anger. His clean-cut lips were closed in a straight, unyielding line. For a full minute he looked at Robin and Robin looked at him. Then he spoke. "I've only one treatment for this sort of thing--as you know. It isn't especially inspiring for either of us. I shouldn't qualify for it if I were you." Robin had begun to shake again. The cold, clear words seemed to deprive him of the brief strength he had managed to muster. His eyes fell before the steady regard that was fixed upon him. With an incoherent murmur he turned aside, and dropped upon the end of the bench indicated, his trembling hands gripped hard between his knees, his attitude one of utter dejection. Green went back to his correcting with a frown between his brows, and a deep silence fell. Minutes passed. The room grew darker, the atmosphere more leaden. Pencil in hand, Green went over book after book and put them aside. Suddenly he looked across at the silent figure. The humped shoulders were heaving. Slow tears were falling upon the clasped hands. There was no sound of any sort. Green sat and watched, a kind of stern pity replacing the unyielding mastery of his look. He moved at length, was on the verge of speech, when something checked him. Footsteps fell beyond the open door, and in a moment a man's figure appeared entering through the gloom. "Hullo, Dick!" a voice said. "You here? There's going to be the devil of a storm. Where's that scoundrel Robin?" Robin stirred with a deep sound in his throat like the growl of an angry animal.