"
The two boys found their way back instinctively, they hardly knew how.
They seemed confounded and thunderstruck by their sentence, and the
painful accessories of its publicity. Eric leaned over the desk with his
head resting on a book, too stunned even to think; and Wildney looked
straight before him with his eyes fixed in a stupid and
unobserved stare.
Form by form the school dispersed, and the moment he was liberated Eric
sprang away from the boys, who would have spoken to him, and rushed
wildly to his study, where he locked the door. In a moment, however, he
re-opened it, for he heard Wildney's step, and, after admitting him,
locked it once more.
Without a word Wildney, who looked very pale, flung his arms round
Eric's neck, and, unable to bear up any longer, burst into a flood of
tears. Both of them felt relief in giving the reins to their sorrow.
"O my father! my father!" sobbed Wildney at length. "What will he say?
He will disown me, I know; he is so stern always with me when he thinks
I bring disgrace on him.
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