As the days went by, and the situation remained unchanged, Parmenter began to feel relieved. The dread of discovery and consequent punishment was rapidly disappearing from his mind; but he was troubled about Lee.
Charley had sobered much since the night of the hazing. It is true he worked harder; but he went about his tasks with an anxious face, and his laugh had lost much of the old-time, merry ring.
He told Parmenter one day that it was a constant trial to him to face his father, who had heard with the utmost chagrin and sorrow that the hazing had occurred, and who spoke bitterly of it, but who evidently did not suspect that his son had been one of the offenders.
“I feel guilty every time he looks at me,” said Charley, “yet I know he doesn’t imagine that I was in it. Why, he’d as soon think I’d hang a man as haze him. That’s what’s hurting me, you see. I can’t get over it. Fred, I’d give up every college prize and honor I ever hope to get, and do it gladly, if I could blot out my part of that miserable night’s business.”
Parmenter threw back his head impatiently. He felt, whether justly or not, that he was responsible for Lee’s participation in the hazing, and the young man’s passionate words of regret cut him deeply.
“Well,” he said finally, “I don’t know that there was any law obliging you to take part in it. You joined us voluntarily, didn’t you?”
“Yes, of course. But after I’d helped start the thing, and after what you said about my backing out, you see I couldn’t very well—Fred, forgive me! I didn’t know how that was going to sound. I don’t mean to blame you, because you’re not to blame, but—”
“Oh, go right on!” interrupted Parmenter, coolly, his face a little pale and his lips drawn; “go right on! I’m the only one who’s in danger, anyway, and I might as well shoulder the whole burden and have done with it. I’m perfectly willing that all blame of any kind connected with the affair shall be laid on me.”
Lee protested earnestly that he had no feeling against Parmenter in the matter, and could not have any. A truce was patched up between them, but their relations afterward were not quite the same.
Each felt a certain restraint while in the other’s presence,—a restraint that might have worn away in time, but which now had only the effect of pushing them farther and farther apart.