"Why that has been my comfort," said Roy, with shining eyes; "I felt when I was very bad, that if I died, I might have lived for something. It would have been lovely to die for you, Dudley—at least you know to have got myself ill from that reason; it's so very tame when I get bad from nothing at all; but I'm well again now, so I know God is letting me live to do something else!"
"I was the one that ought to have been made ill to punish me," blurted out Dudley, and then he was silent.
Roy's eyes rested on his flushed face with some wonder.
"It wasn't wicked of you to fall into the river; you couldn't help it."
A crimson flush crept over Dudley's face up to the very roots of his hair; he picked the fringe of the counterpane restlessly between his fingers, and kicked his heels against the legs of his chair. Silence again: Roy looked steadily at him; and then an expression of astonishment and bewilderment flitted across his face, followed by one of strange, conviction.
"Dudley, look at me."
Roy's tone was peremptory, but Dudley never moved, until the command was given in a sharper tone. Then he raised his head, but his blue eyes had a guilty harassed look in them, and he dropped them quickly again.
"It's no good; I've found you out. Did you tie up your feet like that yourself?"
After a minute, in a sepulchral tone, came the words, "Yes, when you weren't looking!"
Roy lay back on his pillows with a sigh.