A glance sufficed to show that at any rate the worst had not happened, but Wyndham's face was such a mixture of relief and woe that the captain felt some misgivings as he inquired eagerly what was the news.
"He was frightfully kind," said Wyndham, "and talked to me like a father.

I never felt so ashamed of myself.

I'm certain it's what you said made him let me off so easy--that is, so what he means for easy.
He said nothing about expelling, even when I couldn't tell him the names of those two fellows.

But he's gated me till the end of the term! I may only go out for the half-hour after first school, and half an hour after half-past five.

And you know what that means," he added, with a groan.
"What ?" asked Riddell, too rejoiced that his friend was safe to be over- curious as to the exact consequence of his sentence.
"Why!" exclaimed Wyndham, "it's all up with the second-eleven!" It was a blow undoubtedly--perhaps the next hardest blow to expulsion-- but so much less hard that not even the boy himself could for long regard it as a crushing infliction.
He had had his lesson, and after the suspense of the last few weeks he was ready to expiate his transgression manfully, if sorrowfully.
"Anyhow," said he, after pouring out all his disappointment into the captain's sympathetic ear, "it's not as bad as being sent off home.