“Well, what?” returned Varrell, coolly.
“Why did you make me let that fellow go?”
Varrell laughed. “Because Mr. Graham evidently wanted him to go. He had his wits about him if you had lost yours.”
“But why?” persisted Dick.
“Put yourself in his place and you’ll see,” retorted Varrell. “Bosworth, in the eyes of the law, is a felon. Mr. Graham cannot condone a criminal offence, and he doesn’t want the scandal of a public trial in the courts. Bosworth has helped us out by running away. He’ll never be seen again in this town. Now come up to the room, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Varrell’s prediction proved true. Bosworth disappeared suddenly and completely. His mother came a day or two later and spent a few hours in packing her son’s goods, and a few minutes in a sad interview with the Principal. The boys who had lost money had it restored to them through Mr. Graham, and the thieving in the dormitories ceased.
The whereabouts of the wretched Bosworth remained for some time a mystery even to his mother. A year later, Vincent, who took his meals at Mrs. Bosworth’s in Cambridge, reported having seen a letter postmarked “Texas” addressed to his landlady in handwriting which he thought he recognized. In his last college vacation Marks ran across Bosworth himself among a set of gamblers offering bets at the professional ball games in Chicago. It is safe to say that they did not renew their acquaintance.
Eddy, relieved of the burden of his secret, convalesced rapidly, and was soon taken home by his father. Fortunately for the repentant lad, Mr. Eddy, himself an old Seatonian, had a frank talk with Mr. Graham before seeing his son, which deprived the dreaded meeting of half its terrors. It was a new idea to Mr. Eddy that a boy might be driven to continue in an evil way from which he wished to escape, through fear of the uncompromising harshness with which his confession would be received. The parting word of the Principal sent the father home somewhat comforted by the thought that there might yet be a chance for the boy to retrieve himself in the old school.
For Phil and Dick and Wrenn Varrell the last days of school were pleasantly uneventful. Dick had a peaceful fortnight in which to prepare his class-day oration, which he delivered with becoming gravity, as if it were a serious contribution to the wisdom of the world. Wrenn returned to the modest tenor of his life; and when Planter, in his class prophecy, predicted for Varrell a career which should rival that of Sherlock Holmes, hardly half a dozen fellows in the class understood the point of the reference. Phil went rejoicing home at the end of the school term, leaving his older friends to miss his cheerful presence. His study chair was more than filled by John Curtis, who settled himself in it as the most favorable place for “grinding,”—a place which he left only to sleep and eat during the long week which preceded the college examinations.
John was rather subdued when the final good-bys were said, and the fellows around him were promising one another a speedy and happy reunion at Cambridge or New Haven or Hanover or some other of the half-dozen places to which their choice of college called them. Melvin felt much concerned at the solemn look on the big fellow’s face, and the artless subterfuges with which he sought to avoid committing himself as to his plans for the future.