“Well, you are a chap!” said Bob sourly, but Dexter hardly heard him, for he was trying to get his wet body covered from the chill night air; and he could think of nothing but the fact that he had taken a very desperate step, and the boat was bearing them rapidly away from what seemed now to have been a very happy home—further out, further away from the doctor and from Helen, downward toward the sea, and over that there was a great black cloud, beyond which, according to Bob Dimsted, there were bright and glorious lands.
At that moment, chill with the cold and damp, Dexter would have given anything to have been back in his old room, but it was too late, the boat was gliding on, and Bob had now got out the sculls. The town lights were receding, and they were going onward toward that dark cloud which Dexter seemed to see more dimly now, for there was a dumb depressing sensation of despair upon him, and he turned his eyes toward the river-bank, asking himself if he could leap ashore.
Chapter Thirty One.
Times of Delight!
“Here we are!” said Bob Dimsted, as he sat handling the sculls very fairly, and, as the stream was with them, sending the boat easily along. “I think we managed that first-rate.”
Dexter made no reply, for he had his teeth fast set, and his lips pressed together to keep the former from chattering, but he thought a great deal, and found himself wondering what Bob had done toward getting the boat.
With the covering up of his goose-skinned body, and the return of some of his surface heat, the terrible fit of despondency began to pass away, and Dexter felt less ready to sit down in helpless misery at the bottom of the boat.
“Getting nice and warm, ain’tcher?”