‘The brute has not been thrashing you, Charley!’ I cried, in a wrath that gave me the strength of a giant. With that terrible bruise above his temple from Home’s fist, none but a devil could have dared to lay hands upon him!
‘No, Wilfrid,’ he answered; ‘no such honour for me! I am disgraced for ever!’
He hid his wan face in his thin hands.
‘What do you mean, Charley?’ I said. ‘You cannot have told a lie!’
‘No, Wilfrid. But it doesn’t matter now. I don’t care for myself any more.’
‘Then, Charley, what have you done?’
‘You are always so kind, Wilfrid!’ he returned, with a hopelessness which seemed almost coldness.
‘Charley,’ I said, ‘if you don’t tell me what has happened—’
‘Happened!’ he cried. ‘Hasn’t that man been lashing at you like a dog, and I didn’t rush at him, and if I couldn’t fight, being a milksop, then bite and kick and scratch, and take my share of it? O God!’ he cried, in agony, ‘if I had but a chance again! But nobody ever has more than one chance in this world. He may damn me now when he likes: I don’t care!’
‘Charley! Charley!’ I cried; ‘you’re as bad as Mr Forest. Are you to say such things about God, when you know nothing of him? He may be as good a God, after all, as even we should like him to be.’