"Let me go and find out," Roger said huskily, moving forward. There was a mist in front of his eyes, but he saw several figures bending over the inanimate form of his cousin at a little distance. "Is he dead?" he asked with a sob. "Oh!" he cried as he caught sight of Edgar's pallid face and closed eyes. "Tell me he is not dead!"
"No, no," someone answered, "and no bones are broken; the injury seems to be to his head. He fell on a piece of timber and stunned himself."
Roger did not hear the completion of the sentence, for suddenly he found himself confronted by his uncle's familiar figure.
"Uncle John!" he gasped, terror-stricken by the sight of Mr. Marsh's countenance, which was ghastly in its pallor. "Oh, Uncle John!"
His uncle took him by the arm and drew him aside so that they could not be overheard.
"How is it you are here?" he demanded sternly. "Did you persuade Edgar to come?" Then, as Roger assented, never dreaming of explaining how little persuasion had been required, he continued, "I thought as much. Go home and keep out of my sight. I never wish to see you again. You are a worse boy than I thought. Go."
"But is Edgar much hurt?" asked Roger, too full of anxiety on his cousin's account to resent his uncle's words. "Oh, Uncle John, tell me, do!"
"I don't know myself," Mr. Marsh replied. "I have sent for a doctor and a carriage to convey my poor boy home. The best thing you can do is to go home yourself."
Roger obeyed without further demur; and half an hour later he turned the corner of Princess Street, and caught sight of Polly's face at the sitting-room window. She saw at once that something had happened, and met him at the front door; but he brushed past her into his mother's presence, and flung himself, weeping bitterly, into his mother's arms. It was such an unusual sight to see her brother in tears that the little girl was struck with mingled awe and dismay; but when, between his sobs, he explained what had happened, she no longer wondered at his emotion, but cried bitterly too.