When it was finished they stood there, Frank looking straight at the dark-faced lad, whose eyes were on the floor. The silence caused Hodge to look up.
“I don’t blame you, Merriwell!” he exclaimed. “I don’t blame you for despising me! I’m a bad fellow to think such things of you, after all you have done for me!”
“It’s not that I am thinking, Hodge,” said Frank gently. “I am thinking of the great change in you since the days when we first met. Then you would not have confessed you were wrong if you had committed a crime; now you are eager to confess, when you have no more than thought wrong of me.”
“That was a crime! How could I think wrong of you after all you have done?”
“What have I done? We have been friends, and I’m sure you’ve done as much for me as I ever did for you.”
“No, no!”
“You saved my life. You dragged me from the burning hotel.”
“You have done a thousand times more than that for me. You have saved me from dishonor and disgrace. You have saved me from going wrong and becoming a dissolute reprobate. All that I am and all that I hope to be I owe to you! Yet I could hold hatred for you in my heart this day! Oh, Merriwell, the shame of it is too much to bear!”
He shook with the intensity of his emotion, covering his drawn face with his hands. Quickly Frank advanced to his side, and his arm went across Bart’s shoulders.