"You killed them!" Gilbert declared indignantly.
"I didn't!" Gerald retorted hotly. "How can you tell such a big lie? I'm not going to stand here and let you talk to me like this. I never hurt the young birds, I tell you, and you're very wicked to say I did. Tom never told you so, I'm sure."
"No, Tom did not see you touch them; but he remembers you went back to look at them again when he was at the other side of the garden. Perhaps you didn't mean to hurt them," Gilbert proceeded, "but you killed them nevertheless. Surely you must know that if birds are taken from their nest they never settle in properly again? This morning, when Dora went to look at the young robins, she found them all dead on the ground, having fallen out of the nest. So you see, indirectly, you did kill them."
Gerald looked really shocked, for he had had no intention of doing harm when his curiosity had prompted him to take the half-fledged birds out of their nursery; he had promised Tom not to touch them, but he had thought it would never be known he had broken his word. He now recalled the anxiety the Mickle children had all evinced that the robins might save their brood, and he was conscious that they would view his conduct very unfavourably.
"I am so sorry," he said in a low voice. "I never meant to hurt them—truly, I did not. I would not have taken them out of the nest if I had known what would happen."
"Tom said you solemnly promised not to touch them."
Gerald made no response, but his crimson face plainly expressed that Tom had spoken the truth.
"What a young storyteller you are!" Gilbert exclaimed contemptuously. "I could understand your interfering with the robins if you had not given your word not to do so, because you did not know the mischief you were doing; but it was so fearfully dishonourable to deliberately break your promise in that way."
Gerald felt bitterly ashamed of himself at that moment, but he considered the lame boy was taking too much upon himself in speaking to him in such scornful, reproving tones.
"I believe your father would be awfully mad with you if he knew how you have behaved," Gilbert proceeded, "and Mr. Bailey too. I—"