id.

They walked back along the shore side by side.

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE WAND OF OFFICE

Robin was in disgrace. He crouched in a sulky heap in a far corner of the
schoolroom, and glowered across the empty desks and benches at his elder
brother who sat in the place of authority at his writing-table with a
litter of untidy exercise-books in front of him. There was a long, thin
cane also at his elbow that had the look of a somewhat sinister wand of
office. He was correcting book after book with a species of forced
patience, that was not without an element of exasperation.

The evening sunlight slanted through the leaded windows. They were open
to their widest extent, but the place was oppressively close. There was a
brooding sense of storm in the atmosphere. Suddenly, as if in some
invisible fashion a set limit had been reached and passed, Richard Green
lifted his head from his work. His keen eyes sent a flashing glance down
the long, bare room.

"Robin!" he said.

Robin gave a violent start, and then a shuffling, reluctant movement as
if prodded into action against his will.

"Get up and come here!" his brother said.

Robin, in the act of blundering to his feet, checked abruptly, as if
arrested by something in the peremptory tone. "What for?" he asked, in a
surly note.

"Get up," Green repeated, with grim insistence, "and come here!"

Robin grabbed at the end of the row of desks nearest to him and dragged
himself slowly up. But there he hung irresolute. His heavy brows were
drawn, but the eyes beneath had a frightened, hunted look. They glared at
Green with a defiance so precarious that it was pathetic.

Green waited inexorably, magisterially, at his table. The sunlight had
gone and the room was darkening. Very slowly Robin moved forward,
dragging his feet along the bare boards. At the other end of the row of
desks he halted. His eyes travelled swiftly between his brother's stern
countenance and the wand of office that lay before him on the
writing-table. He shivered.

"Come here!" Green said again.

He crept a little nearer like a guilty dog. His humped shoulders looked
higher than usual. His eyes shone red.

Across the writing-table Green faced him. He spoke, very distinctly.

"Why did you throw that stone at Mrs. Fielding's car?"

Robin was trembling from head to foot. He drew a quivering breath between
his teeth, and stood silent.

"Tell me why!" Green insisted.

Robin lock