Presently there was a momentary pause, and then came the deep, thunderous, blood-stirring roar of marshaled cheering, from a thousand throats:
“Demarest! Demarest! Demarest!”
As he stood in the centre of the stage, with Marion Gray at his side, Dick felt an odd lump in his throat, and something like a mist came before his eyes. He had never known such a sensation before.
“Aren’t you happy?” whispered the girl.
Dick looked down into her eyes, which were bright with tears.
“Yes,” he said simply.
And he was. He had won out for his friend. He had also done a piece of good work which Demarest would find it hard to equal, but the Yale man did not realize that at the time. He had simply done his best, and had succeeded.
At last, after Merriwell had appeared alone before the curtain eight or ten times, the enthusiastic audience seemed to be content, and, leaving their seats, began to file slowly out of the theatre. But throughout the college buildings that night, and in a good many other parts of New Haven, “Jarvis of Yale,” and the superb acting of Austin Demarest, were the sole topics of conversation.
About eleven o’clock next morning Merriwell sat alone in his room, waiting for Demarest. A wire had come two hours before, saying that he was at liberty, and would take the next train to New Haven, so that Dick momentarily expected to see him.