f you
have concealed or taken it, you will give it back at once."

There was deep silence.

"Once again," he asked, "where is my imposition-book?"

"Burnt, sir; burnt, sir," said one or two voices, hardly above a
whisper.

"And my manuscript?" he asked, in a louder voice, and in still greater
agitation. "Surely, surely, you cannot have been so thoughtless, so
incredibly unjust as to--"

Walter stood up in his place, with his head bent, and his face covered
with an ashy whiteness. "I burnt it, sir," he said, in an almost
inaudible voice, and trembling with fear.

"Come here," said Mr Paton impetuously; "I can't hear what you say.
Now, then," he continued, as Walter crept up beside his desk.

"I burnt it, sir," he said, in a whisper.

"You--burnt--it!" said Mr Paton, starting up in uncontrollable emotion,
which changed into a burst of anger as he gave Walter a box on the ear
which sounded all over the room, and made the boy stagger back to his
place. But the flash of rage was gone in an instant; and the next
moment Mr Paton, afraid of trusting himself any longer, left his desk
and hurried out, anxious to recover in solitude the calmness of mind and
action which had been so terribly disturbed.

Mr Percival, who taught his form in another part of the room, seeing
Mr Paton box Walter so violently on the ear, and knowing that this was
the very reverse of his usual method, since he had never before touched
a boy in anger, walked up to see what was the matter, just as Mr Paton,
with great hurried strides, had reached the door.

"What is the matter with Mr Paton?" he asked.

There was a general murmur through the form, out of which Mr Percival
caught something about Mr Paton's papers having been burnt.

Anxious to fend him, to ask what had happened, Mr Percival, leaving the
room, caught sight of him pacing with hasty and uneven steps along a
private garden walk which belonged to the masters.

"I hope nothing unpleasant has occurred," he said, overtaking him.

"Oh, nothing, nothing," said Mr Paton, with quivering lip, as he turned
aside. And then, suppressing his emotion by a powerful effort of
self-control, "It is only," he said, "that the hard results of fifteen
years' continuous labour are now condensed into a heap of smut and ashes
in the schoolroom fire."

"You don't mean to say that your Hebrew manuscripts are burnt?" asked
Mr Percival in amazement.

"You know how I have been toiling at them for year