chair, and, flinging his arms upon his reading-table, rests his head upon them with an air of wretched self-reproach.
The gentle Minor Canon has had it in his thoughts to leave the room, without a word. But looking round at the door, and seeing this dejected figure, he turns back to it, touches it with a mild hand, says “Good night!” A sob is his only acknowledgment. He might have had many a worse; perhaps, could have had few better.
Another soft knock at the outer door attracts his attention as he goes downstairs. He opens it to Mr. Jasper, holding in his hand the pupil’s hat.
“We have had an awful scene with him,” says Jasper, in a low voice.
“Has it been so bad as that?”
“Murderous!”
Mr. Crisparkle remonstrates: “No, no, no. Do not use such strong words.”
“He might have laid my dear boy dead at my feet. It is no fault of his, that he did not. But that I was, through the mercy of God, swift and strong with him, he would have cut him down on my hearth.”
The phrase smites home. “Ah!” thinks Mr. Crisparkle, “his own words!”
“Seeing what I have seen tonight, and hearing what I have heard,” adds Jasper, with great earnestness, “I shall never know peace of mind when there is danger of those two coming together, with no one else to interfere. It was horrible. There is something of the tiger in his dark blood.”
“Ah!” thinks Mr. Crisparkle, “so he said!”