"You are dismissed," said Mr. Merton, appearing at the door. "Lewis
Flagg, you are to go to the doctor in his study."
What sentence was meted out to Lewis in that interview with the
doctor the boys did not know until their return to school after the
holidays, when he did not appear among them, and they were told on
inquiry that he would not do so.
He endeavored to brazen it out with Dr. Leacraft as he had with the
boys, insisting that the whole affair, the abstraction of the money
and the placing it in Seabrooke's trunk, was "only a joke;" but the
doctor altogether refused to look upon it in any other light than
that of an unmitigated theft and an atrocious attempt to fasten it
upon another when he feared detection for himself.
No protestations to the contrary served Lewis' turn, and from this
day forth his evil influence was happily lost to the school.
And this was the story which Percy had to pour into the ears of his
innocent young sister on his return home.
On the first opportunity which presented itself the morning after his
arrival at his uncle's he told her all, extenuating nothing of his
own misconduct and weakness in the beginning, and acknowledging that
he had almost wilfully suffered himself to be led into disobedience
and wrong, and richly deserved all the shame and trouble which had
fallen upon him.
Lena was inexpressibly shocked by the account of this last wickedness
of Flagg's, for she, in common with Dr.
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