"He never said he was in bed."
"You weren't to know of it on any account. But I thought you would be prepared for it."
"Not with those letters. I can hardly believe it. Will he—won't he be able——"
"No, never; but you will find him as keen about it as ever, and as mad on cricket. He tells me, by the way, you've been doing great things yesterday—in fact I read him the report—and he's wild with delight about it. Come up and see him. You'll get another ovation."
Forrester nodded, setting his teeth. While they were conversing Ethel had entered the hall, shaken hands with him, and vanished up the shallow stairs, leaving the hall more gloomy than before. He remembered this presently; also that Ethel, in a single year, seemed changed from a child to a woman. But at the time he could see one thing only, a vision, a memory. The peculiar sadness in Mr. Harwood's tones, the tenderness which was still untender, though very different from last year's note, was yet to strike him. He could think only of Kenyon as he best remembered him, playing cricket with a sunburnt face, ardent, triumphant, angry, penitent, ashamed—and of Kenyon as he dreaded to look upon him now.
Mr. Harwood stopped on the stairs.
"I wish you could help me in one thing, Charlie. He is still counting on your school, and now he can never go. He needn't know this; but could you—I do so wish you could make him think less about it!"
Forrester coloured a little. "I wish I could," he said, thoughtfully; "and perhaps I can, for somehow I myself am less anxious to have him than I was last year. I have often been thankful he wasn't one of the boys this last term. I couldn't have borne to pitch into him as I have had to pitch into most of them. When I was here before I only looked on the pleasant side of it all.... Yes, I can tell him there's another side."
Kenyon looked a great length as he lay stretched out in bed; he seemed to have grown a good deal. His thin face was flushed with anticipation; his fine eyes burnt eagerly; he had heard the wheels in the wet gravel under his window, and C. J.'s voice in the hall and on the stairs. A thin white arm lay over the counterpane, the fingers clasping a newspaper. As Forrester entered, with a trepidation of which he was ashamed, the thin arm flourished the newspaper wildly.
"Well played, sir!" thundered Kenyon from his pillow, "Your score won the match; come and shake hands on it!"