“Yes, yes; but that’s all over, old chap,” I said huskily. “You’ll get well, and do your bit of punishment, and make a fresh start.”
He looked at me with a smile on his poor wan face, and I never realised before how good-looking he was. And then I shuddered, for he said quietly—
“Yes, I shall make a fresh start—somewhere else.”
“Walters!” I whispered.
“Yes, somewhere else,” he repeated. “It was all wrong; and just when I was at my worst, that wretch, who had been watching me and reading it all, came to me, and, as if he were some evil spirit, kept on day after day, laughing and jeering at me, till he regularly worked round me like the snake he is, and flattered, and planned, and talked of the future, till in my weak, vain folly I drank it all in. For I was weak, and he was strong; and at last, though I didn’t know it then, I was his slave, Dale, and ready to do every bit of villainy he wished. But there, I need not tell you any more. I only want you, knowing all you do, to go to my poor old father and mother and tell them everything—how it all happened. It will be better than for them only to know it from the papers. They will understand then how it was I went wrong so quickly, right to the bitter end.”
“No,” I cried; “you shall go and confess it all yourself.”
He laughed gently.
“Oh no. I’m glad Jarette aimed so straight, Dale. It was the kindest thing he could do. It’s all over now. Can’t you see it’s best?”
“No,” I said more firmly. “It would be best for you to get well, and prove in the future as a man, that you have repented your weakness as a boy.”
“Yes, perhaps,” he said, after a long pause; “but it is not to be so. I’m not going to be tried here, Dale, where no one can tell everything, and understand how weak I was, and how, from the first day, I bitterly repented giving that man such power over me. I’m going to be judged there, Dale, where everything is known.”