“No, no,” gasped Slegge, in a low, husky voice, and with his face now all of a quiver. “I can’t—I won’t! I tell you I can’t come!”
“And I tell you you shall come,” cried Glyn, dragging him along a step or two.
“Don’t, I tell you! You will have Morris see,” gasped Slegge.
“I want him to see, and all the fellows to see what a coward we have got amongst us. So come along.”
Slegge caught him by the lapel of his jacket, and with his voice changing into a piteous whisper, “Pray, pray don’t, Severn!” he panted. “Do you know what it means?”
“I know what it ought to mean,” cried Glyn mockingly; “a good flogging; but the Doctor won’t give you that.”
“No,” whispered the lad piteously. “I’d bear that; but he’d send me back home in disgrace. There was a fellow here once, and the Doctor called it expelled. Severn, old chap, I am going to leave at the end of this half. It will be like ruin to me, for everything will be known. There, I confess. I was a fool, and what you called me.”
“Then come like a man and say that to the Doctor.”
“I can’t! I can’t! I—oh, Severn! Severn!”
The poor wretch could get out no more articulately, but sank down upon his knees, fighting hard for a few moments to master himself, but only to burst forth into a fit of hysterical sobbing.