Others who met him in the passage and on the stairs glared at him with looks of mingled horror and aversion, which would have frozen any ordinary fellow.
Jeffreys, however, did not appear to heed it, still less to avoid it.
Entering the Sixth Form room, he found most of his colleagues gathered, discussing the tragedy of the day in the dim light of the bay window.
So engrossed were they that they never noticed his entrance, and it was not till after standing a minute listening to their talk he broke in, in his loud tones-- "Is Forrester dead ?" The sound of his voice, so harsh and unexpected, had the effect of an explosion in their midst.
They recoiled from it, startled and half-scared.

Then, quickly perceiving the intruder, they turned upon him with a howl.
But this time the Cad did not retreat before them.

He held up his hand to stop them with a gesture almost of authority.
"Don't!" he exclaimed.

"I'll go.

But tell me, some one, is he dead ?" His big form loomed out in the twilight a head taller than any of his companions, and there was something in his tone and attitude that held them back.
"You will be sorry to hear," said Scarfe, one of the first to recover his self-control, and with a double-edge of bitterness in his voice, "that he was alive an hour ago." Jeffreys gave a gasp, and held up his hand again.
"Is there hope for him, then ?" "Not with you in the school, you murderer!" exclaimed Farfield, advancing on the Cad, and striking him on the mouth.
Farfield had counted the cost, and was prepared for the furious onslaught which he felt certain would follow.
But Jeffreys seemed scarcely even to be aware of the blow.