“Oh I wish I could, Stanley. You don’t know how much I wish it sometimes. You think I don’t try, but I do. Lots of times I’ve made up my mind that I would break with Crawford and all that lot, and then he’d come and coax me to go for a drive or a sail, and I’d give in and go and do anything they wanted me to, though I knew all the time I was breaking mother’s heart and Edith’s. I’m just a weak good-for-nothing—I never shall amount to anything in the world,” he added, hopelessly.
“Raymond,” said Clark, solemnly, “I believe that you have come to a turning-point in your life. You’ve been going down hill—you acknowledge it. Now, if you will, you can turn right about, and go up. It will be hard at first, I know, but I’ll stand by you, and Hamlin will too, I’m sure, and when Gordon and the rest see that you mean to do the right thing, they’ll back you up too.”
“Oh, Stanley, I wish I could. I do so wish I could,” cried the boy. “But you forget about the drill. Prof. Keene will find out that I lied to him, and he’ll expel me—and mother”—he broke off, and groaned.
“Ray, if things at school could be made all right for you, would you really break with Crawford and that crowd, and try to live down this year’s doings?”
“Oh, I would, I would so gladly,” cried the boy, “but it can’t be. It can’t be made right about the drill.”
“It can in one way, Ray. If you will go to Prof. Keene and tell him what you have told me, and how sorry you are for it all, I’m sure he will forgive you.”
Freeman fairly gasped. “Go to the professor? Oh, I never could in the world!” he said, “and Henderson—he vowed he’d kill me if I told a soul, and you must never let him know that I’ve told you, Stanley.”
“Ray, you must go to the professor. He told me that he was determined to get to the bottom of the affair, and what he sets out to do, he does. He suspects Henderson, I am sure, and I believe that he will ferret out the whole business. Then you would be punished sure; but if you go and confess of your own accord, it will make all the difference in the world to him; I am certain of it.”
“But Henderson, Stanley. I’ve no right to tell on him,” said the boy.
“I think you have, in such a serious business as this. I think he deserves heavy punishment. But, Ray, you need not mention his name. You can tell what you did without implicating anyone else. Oh, Ray, do it. Your father would tell you to do it, if he could speak to you.”