The hall where we stood was full of the memory of jolly comings and goings. The field out there seemed to echo with the whizzing of balls and the war-whoops of combatants. The very schoolroom we had just left, from which even now came the hum of work in which we were no more to join, had its pleasant associations of battles fought, friends gained, difficulties mastered. How I would have liked to run down to get a last look at the pond, or upstairs for a farewell glance round the dormitory! But now we were out of it--Dux and I. The place belonged to us no more. We were outsiders, visitors whose time was up, and whose cabs were due at the front door at any moment. And what was it all for? "If it hadn't been for that beast Hector," said the Dux rather dismally, "we shouldn't have been out here, Tommy." He rarely called me by my Christian name. It was always a sign he was out of sorts. "I do wish you'd missed him," said I. "Missed him! What on earth do you mean?" "Not made such a good shot--that's what I mean." "Shot! Young Brown, are you crazy?" "Most likely," said I, beginning to get hot and cold at the same time. "Why, do you mean to say you didn't, then?" "Didn't what?" "Shoot him." "Shoot him? Me shoot? I no more shot the beast than you did." The perspiration started to my forehead. "But the pistol. Dux?" "What pistol?" "The one I found in your locker, when I went to get your book, you know." "That thing? It's been there all the term. It hasn't even got a trigger!" "It's not there now. It's at the bottom of the pond." The Dux looked at me as if he were about to eat me up, I looked back as if I were ready for it. "You didn't shoot Hector, then?" I faltered. "What do you take me for, you young ass? Of course not." "Then Brown and I have both--" "Brown? What about him? He didn't think I'd done it?" "He wouldn't have been expelled if he hadn't." The Dux gave a whistle of mingled dismay and fury. "You know," said I, "I saw you come in that night, just after I'd heard the shot, and made sure--" "Oh, you--you beauty!" cried the Dux, with a bitter laugh. "Why, I'd just gone down for my watch, which I'd left in my blazer, so as to wind it up--and you--you actually go and set me down as a murderer!" "Oh, Dux, I'm so awfully sorry! Let me go and tell Plummer." "If you do, I'll wring your neck. I wouldn't stay in this hole another day if he came on his knees and asked me. What right has he to want to make sneaks of us? Do you mean to say you and young Brown thought all along I had done it, and that I was telling lies when I said I didn't?" "I thought perhaps you'd done it in your sleep, and didn't know." He laughed scornfully. "That's why you two were mum?" asked he. "Didn't want to let out on me?" "Well, yes, partly. I'm awfully sorry, Dux. Will you ever forgive me?"