Part 52

"Thank you!" Paul faltered, with a sudden sinking sensation.

"Mrs. Grimstone, too," said the Doctor, "has been interceding for you; she has represented to me that a public expression of my view of your conduct, together with a sharp, severe dose of physical pain, would be more likely to effect a radical improvement in your character, and to soften your perverted heart, than if I sent you away in hopeless disgrace, without giving you an opportunity of showing a desire to amend."

"It's--very kind of Mrs. Grimstone," said Paul faintly.

"Then I hope you will show your appreciation of her kindness. Yes, I will not expel you. I will give you one more chance to retrieve your lost reputation. But, for your own sake, and as a public warning, I shall take notice of your offence in public. I shall visit it upon you by a sound flogging before the whole school at eleven o'clock. You need not come down till then--your breakfast will be sent up to you."

Paul made a frantic attempt to dissuade him from his terrible determination. "Dr. Grimstone," he said, "I--I should much prefer being expelled, if it is all the same to you."

"It is not all the same to me," said the Doctor. "This is mere pride and obstinacy, Bultitude; I should do wrong to take any notice of it."

"I--I tell you I have great objection to--to being flogged," said Paul eagerly; "it wouldn't improve me at all; it would harden me, sir,--harden me. I--I cannot allow you to flog me, Dr. Grimstone. I have strong prejudices against the system of corporal punishment. I object to it on principle. Expulsion would make me quite a different being, I assure you; it would reform me--save me--it would indeed."

"So, to escape a little personal inconvenience, you would be content to bring sorrow upon your worthy father's grey head, would you, sir?" said the Doctor. "I shall not oblige you in this. Nor, I may add, will your cowardice induce me to spare you in your coming chastisement. I leave you, sir--we shall meet again at eleven!"

And he stalked out of the room. Perhaps, though he did not admit this even to himself, there were more considerations for commuting the sentence of expulsion than those he had mentioned. Boys are not often expelled from private schools, except for especially heinous offences, and in this case there was no real reason why the Doctor should be Quixotic enough to throw up a portion of his income--particularly if he could produce as great a moral effect by other means.

But his clemency was too much for Mr. Bultitude; he threw himself on the bed and raved at the hideous fate in store for him; ten short minutes ago, and he had been so happy--so certain of release--and now, not only was he as far from all hope of escape as ever, but he had the certainty before him of a sound flogging in less than two hours!

Just after something has befallen us which, for good or ill, will make a great change in our lives, what a totally new aspect the common everyday things about us are apt to wear--the book we were reading, the letter we had begun, the picture we knew--what a new and tender attraction they may have for us, or what a grim and terrible irony!

Something of this Paul felt dimly, as he finished dressing, in a dazed, unconscious manner. The comfortable bedroom, with its delicately-toned wall-paper and flowery cretonnes, had become altogether hateful in his eyes now. Instead of feeling grateful (as he surely ought to have been) for the one night of perfect security and comfort he had passed there, he only loathed it for the delusive peace it had brought him.

There was a gentle tap at the door, and Dulcie came in, bearing a tray with his breakfast, and looking like a little Royalist bearing food to a fugitive Cavalier; though Paul did not quite carry out his share of the simile.

"There!" she said, almost cheerfully; "I got Mummy to let me take up your breakfast; and there's an egg for you, and muffins."

Mr. Bultitude sat on a chair and groaned.

"You might say 'thank you,'" said Dulcie, pouting. "That other girl wouldn't have brought you up much breakfast if she'd been in my place. I was going to tell you that I'd forgiven you, because very likely you never meant her to write to you" (Dulcie had not been told the sequel to the Davenant episode, which was quite as well for Paul). "But you don't seem to care whether I do or not."

"I feel so miserable!" sighed Paul.

"Then you must drink some coffee," prescribed Dulcie decidedly; "and you must eat some breakfast. I brought an egg on purpose; it's so strengthening, you know."

"Don't!" cried Paul, with a short howl of distress at this suggestion. "Don't talk about the--the flogging, I can't bear it."

"But it's not papa's new cane, you know, Dick," said Dulcie consolingly. "I've hidden that; it's only the old one, and you always said that didn't hurt so very much, after a little while. It isn't as if it was the horsewhip, either. Daddy lost that out riding in the holidays."

"Oh, the horsewhip's worse, is it?" said Paul, with a sickly smile.

"Tom says so," said Dulcie. "After all, Dick, it will be all over in five minutes, or, perhaps, a little longer, and I do think you oughtn't to mind that so much, now, after mamma and I have begged you off from being expelled. We might never have seen one another again, Dick!"

"You begged me off!" cried Paul.

"Yes," said Dulcie; "Daddy wouldn't change his mind for ever so long--till I coaxed him. I couldn't bear to let you go."

"You've done a very cruel thing," said Paul. "For such a little girl as you are, you've done an immense amount of mischief. But for you, that letter would not have been found out. You need not have spoilt my only chance of getting out of this horrible place!"

Dulcie set down the tray, and, putting her hands behind her, leaned against a corner of a wardrobe.

"And is that all you say to me!" she said, with a little tremble in her voice.

"That is all," said Paul. "I've no doubt you meant well, but you shouldn't have interfered. All this has come upon me through that. Take away the breakfast. It makes me ill even to look at it."