“Is that so?” exclaimed Clark, in surprise. “Why, how had they found it out so quickly?”
“Mr. Horton sat where he could see both Henderson and our fellows in the bleachers.”
“Queer that the boys didn’t see him,” said Clark, wonderingly.
“His eyes were troubling him, and he wore dark glasses that day. I suppose that’s why we didn’t notice him. And, Stanley, he even knew that I threw the marble that smashed Raleigh’s glasses, and if I hadn’t acknowledged it to-night, he was going to call me up before the school next Monday. So you see, Stanley, I owe it all to you that I am to be let off so easily.”
“Without punishment, Ray?” questioned Clark.
Freeman’s sensitive face flushed, even in the darkness, as he answered in a voice that he vainly tried to steady, “No—I’ve got to make acknowledgment before the whole school, and apologize to Mr. Horton.”
Clark flung his arm affectionately across the boy’s shoulders.
“It will be a tough job for you, Ray, but I’m sure you’ll brace up and be a man about it; and if you do it in manly fashion, no fellow that amounts to anything will ever cast it up to you again.”
Freeman made no reply, and presently, at his own gate, he bade his cousin “good-night,” adding only, “I’ll never forget this day, Stanley.”
Before Freeman slept, he had to tell his story once more, to his mother and Edith; but he knew them too well to shrink from their verdict, and he knew, too, that they would but too freely forgive and forget all his wrong-doing in the gladness of the assurance that henceforth he would do his best to make up to them for all that he had made them suffer.