But Edwin did not sleep. There was no reason why he should not have slept; but he couldn’t help feeling, against reason, that in some way he might be dragged into the toils of vengeance; that some peculiar combination of circumstances might implicate him in the business, even though he had never had anything to do with it. Somehow appearances might be against him. In particular he became suspicious of Mr. Leeming’s attentions to him in the past. He imagined that the wily creature had suspected him, and tried, for that reason, to find a way into his confidence. What other explanation could there be? His avoidance of Mr. Leeming could only have increased the suspicion. Plainly, he was done for. He remembered, with a perilous clearness, words that had passed between them to which he had given no thought. Now they appeared terribly significant. “You and Ingleby are great friends, Widdup,” Leeming had said only a few days before. “Quite inseparable. I’ve often seen you walking up and down the quad at night. I wonder what you have in common, eh?” Now Edwin knew why he wondered. And Widdup, like a damned fool, had said that they slept alongside each other. Supposing old Leeming imagined. . . . It was too bad. He lay there staring at the rafters and wondering what could be done. He would like to write to his mother about it. But a man couldn’t write to his mother about a thing like that. And his father wouldn’t understand. In the end he determined that the only thing he could possibly do was to go and see Leeming next day and assure him that there was nothing wrong with their friendship. “And then,” he thought, “the old beast won’t believe me. He’ll think that I’ve gone to him because I have a guilty conscience, and he’ll suspect me more than ever. He’ll go and make all sorts of inquiries and something will come out that will be difficult to explain.” How could anything come out when there wasn’t anything wrong? He could not give a reasonable answer to this question, and yet he was afraid. From this spiritual purgatory of his own making he passed into an uneasy sleep. Next morning, in the middle of early school, the sergeant entered with a message for Mr. Cleaver, and waited while the master read it. “Ingleby,” he said at last, “Mr. Selby wants to speak to you. You had better go at once.”