"Of course," Cousin Becky replied with a soft laugh, "or I should not be here with you now."
"But I thought you intended going with them?"
"I hope to join them later on when you are better, my dear boy. I have promised your mother to remain at the Rookery till you are properly convalescent."
"Thank you so much," he said gratefully, "I—I really don't think I can do without you yet; that is, unless you want to go very particularly. Do you know there was a talk of my going to Lynn too? Mother and father wished it; but Roger didn't want me, and I don't suppose Polly did either."
"Why not, my dear?"
"Because—because—Roger said I was not to be trusted, and, it's true, I'm not. You don't know what a bad boy I've been, no one knows except Roger, I had to tell him."
He raised himself in bed as he spoke and looked at his companion with feverishly bright eyes. "You found the Calais Noble," he said with a slight sob, "so you know something about it, but not all. I took it from father's cabinet to show it to a boy at school, weeks ago, and I lost it; but I never told father, I was afraid to, because it's a valuable coin and very rare. Father thought Roger had stolen it, I heard him tell mother so, and—and I let him believe it. Oh, no wonder you look so surprised and shocked! Oh, dear, you'll never like me again!" And the little boy burst into a storm of tears.
Cousin Becky made no response; but she rose and put her arms around his quivering form, and her silent sympathy soothed and comforted him. He felt she understood his remorse and his wretchedness; and, by-and-by when he grew calmer, he told her the whole story of his cowardice, and, in her pity for his distress of mind, she volunteered to lay all the details before his parents.
"They will forgive you, I know, for you are so very dear to them both," she said earnestly; "but at the same time I am sure they will be very hurt to think that you allowed them to harbour a baseless suspicion of your cousin, simply to save yourself from blame. And Roger is so straightforward, too!"
"Yes!" sighed Edgar. "It has made me dreadfully miserable to know that father thought badly of him."