I would allow no one but myself to liquidate on behalf of Bindo. But I as steadily refused to be the bearer to him of the discovery we had made. None of the others volunteered for the office, or showed the faintest ambition to be the one selected for the murder of a friendship. So we cast lots for the office, whose it should be, in true melodramatic style, and the lot fell upon me.
“Cheer up, old fellow,” said Eastonville. “Bindo’s a deal fonder of you than he is of the rest of us, and won’t take it so hardly if it comes through you. The fact is we’ve spoiled him; all of us, that is, but you. And he knew it too, and I believe he liked the preaching you gave him better than all my five-pound notes; not that he showed any objection to the notes, I’m bound to say. Now, don’t look so savage, old man. I’m bound to try and laugh over it, because, if I didn’t, I feel sure I should do the other thing. And after all this business may be the making of Bindo.”
But he didn’t know Bindo as I did. The boy came to me with outstretched hand, and with the old frank look in his eyes. But I could not trust myself to return it. What I did, must, I felt, be done quickly. If I waited for words in which to break the news to him; above all, if I gave him the chance of speaking first, I knew it was all up with me. So I just put the things on the table in front of him—how I hated the sight of them!—and said, “These things have come into my hands, no matter by what means.” He looked at them, and the faintest flush imaginable crept over his face. “Before you leave me to-night we will do them up for the post, and you will address them to the respective owners and leave them in my hands.” I did not dare to look at him, but turned away to another table, making up the parcels one by one and handing them to him where he stood behind my back. He addressed each parcel as he received it, never betraying by a word or sign what I knew the effort must have cost him.
“And now, Eric, you and I part company.” I saw him wince at the name; almost as if he had received a blow. No doubt it implied to him, far more plainly than I had intended, that the Bindo of the past was lost beyond recall. It was not said in heedlessness, still less in heartlessness; it was simply loss of self-control. The old familiar name could not be forced past my lips. In a moment I saw what I had done, and would have given worlds to repair it. “Bindo,” I cried impulsively, “come back.” But it was too late; the mischief was done. I had lost my last chance by that one word.
“Good-bye,” he answered, and was gone.
III
The characters we meet with in this world are composite, all of them—not saint or sinner; not this or else that, but something betwixt and between; the good in them not permanent, the bad in them not hopeless; and Bindo’s short life had exemplified the fact with startling clearness.
From that day forward my influence over him was gone. He must have kept studiously out of my path—an easy thing for him to do, as he knew all my habits and places of resort. I used to try and persuade myself that I was guiltless of the result, whatever it might be; that “unstable as water” his character was past all guidance, and would in any case have drifted to the end that seemed to be in view. Yet it was hard to feel all the while that a strong, kind word from me that night might have nerved him to fresh energy.
“And what about Bindo?” I asked of Eastonville one day.
“Going to the dogs, and pretty rapidly, too, I’m afraid. The last time I saw him, he was with Hutchinson and all that crew. You know what comes of mixing with loafers like that. He wouldn’t look at me, though I tried hard to get a talk with him. He’d had more to drink, too, than a boy of seventeen can carry. The pity of it all. What a voice he had, and what a good fellow, too, at heart! How he nursed poor Harry! Few Samaritans of the present day would have given up six months of their time to spend them in a sick room. But I’m afraid it’s all up with him.”