"What!" he said, angrily, "tell a wilful lie to blacken my own innocent
character? Never!"

The consequence was, they all began to shun him. Eric was put into
Coventry. Very few boys in the school still clung to him, and maintained
his innocence in spite of appearances, but they were the boys whom he
had most loved and valued, and they were most vigorous in his defence.
They were Russell, Montagu, Duncan, Owen, and little Wright.

On the evening of the Saturday, Upton had sought out Eric, and said in a
very serious tone, "This is a bad business, Williams. I cannot forget
how you have been abusing Gordon lately, and though I won't believe you
guilty, yet you ought to explain."

"What? even _you_, then suspect me?" said Eric, bursting into proud
tears. "Very well. I shan't condescend to _deny_ it. I won't speak to
you again till you have repented of mistrusting me;" and he resolutely
rejected all further overtures on Upton's part.

He was alone in his misery. Some one, he perceived, had plotted to
destroy his character, and he saw too clearly how many causes of
suspicion told against him. But it was very bitter to think that the
whole school could so readily suppose that he would do a thing which
from his soul he abhorred. "No," he thought, "bad I may be, but I
_could_ not have done such a base and cowardly trick."

Never in his life had he been so wretched. He wandered alone to the
rocks, and watched the waves dashing against them with the rising tide.
The tumult of the weather seemed to relieve and console the tumult of