"Has he told you that?" Dick asked quickly. "Jack, old chap"—rather reproachfully—"it was a thing I never spoke of."
"Nonsense, my dear fellow!"
"No, it's a fact. I never cared to talk about it, I felt it so strongly."
"Too strongly," said Flint; "I said so at the time."
For a little while Dick was silent; then he said:
"Since he has told you, it doesn't matter. I can only say it nearly drove me out of my mind; it was the bitterest hour of my life!"
A little earlier that day this would have been true.
His mother's eyes filled with tears. "I can understand your feeling, dear Dick," she murmured; "yet I wish you had told us—though, indeed, it would have made me miserable if you had written it. But now Mr. Flint has given us a graphic account of the whole incident. Thank Heaven you were spared, my boy!"
"Thank Sundown," said Dick dryly.
"Oh, yes!" cried Fanny. "Noble fellow! Poor, wicked, generous man! I didn't think such robbers existed; I thought they went out with wigs and patches, a hundred years ago."