Then Dudley, with his new understanding, had grasped all that the dying man hoped.
“I love her,” he said very simply. “I have been a blind fool, but I am awake now. I shall give my life to trying to win her.”
“Oh! thank God… thank God,” Basil whispered. “It is certain to come right some day—don’t lose heart. You have made me very happy.”
He sank into stupor after that, and spoke no more, except for a whispered “Chum”, just before he died.
Then it was that the full flood of Dudley’s bitterness seemed to close in upon him, for his tortured mind translated Ethel’s stunned grief into veiled antipathy to his presence; and when there was nothing left for him to see to, he went home for Hal.
In his chair, with his head bowed on his hands, Hal thought he had aged years in the last three months.
“What shall I do?” she asked. “Shall I go to Ethel?”
“Yes—will you? She doesn’t want me. I feel as if she hated my being there now. But if you would go—?”
“It is your imagination, Dudley. Things have all got a little topsy-turvy since Doris went, but presently you will see you were mistaken. Don’t lose heart too quickly.”
But he refused to be comforted, and merely shook his head in silent desolation.