The doctor was astounded. “My boy, my boy!” he exclaimed; “what do you mean? It is you who must shrink from me, for I have heard how Leon Bentley has confessed, clearing you of everything. I can never forgive myself for permitting a suspicion of your possible guilt to creep into my mind. And they say you won the game to-day by a wonderful kick after I was suddenly called to attend a patient. I’m sorry I could not have been there, but I’m proud of you, my son—proud of you!”
Don choked, beginning to tremble in every limb. He suffered then such anguish and remorse as seldom comes to a person more than once in a lifetime.
“You don’t know, father,” he said, hoarsely; “you haven’t heard——”
“They told me all about it,” insisted the doctor. “And you had genuine grit to get up and continue playing after you were stunned. Do you feel your injury much now?”
It was not an injury to his body that was giving the boy such exquisite pain; it was a far deeper wound.
“Oh, I don’t care for that!” he cried, despair in his voice and manner.
“Then you should be happy,” declared his father, wondering and perplexed over the boy’s appearance. “You were not hurt as badly as young Renwood. Why, they had to take him home in a carriage. I met them on the road, and they had me attend him. It was a bad knock on the head, and might have caused concussion of the brain, but he came round all right, and he’ll be well as ever in a day or two.”
The strength went out of Don’s legs, and he dropped heavily on the hall seat. Up to that moment, he had thought Dolph Renwood’s blood was on his hands.
“Father!” he panted, “is it—is it—true? Are you sure I didn’t kill him?”
“Of course it is true; he is not seriously injured. But what are you saying? Do you mean——”