A little disappointment mingled with his feelings which were somewhat mixed. After a pause, he said, "You are a good fellow! To think of doing that for me! What would you have done if I hadn't jumped in to save you?"
Then Dudley raised his head:
"I knew you wouldn't fail me," he said, triumphantly; "I knew I could trust you!"
Roy put out his thin little arm and drew Dudley's bonny face down by the side of his on the pillow.
"I don't think," he whispered, "that even I could have been plucky enough to do that—not in sight of that old mill wheel!"
Neither spoke for a few minutes; then Dudley said,
"I should have been your murderer if you had died. That has been the worst of it. But you did like saving a drowning fellow, didn't you?"
"Ye-es, but it wasn't quite real—at least it isn't as if you really had tumbled in by accident."
"Well but I only did what you said we must do. I made an opportunity."
And after this remark Roy had nothing more to say; but neither he nor Dudley ever enlightened any one as to the true cause of the accident.