"Really, I don't know," smiled Wyndham. "Does it matter much? Do you mind?"
"Mind! After what happened at the sand-pit the other day. Mind! I would rather have been under an obligation to any one than you."
"Do you mean it?" asked Wyndham, now quite grave.
"Of course I do. I was never more in earnest in my life. I had hoped to clear off the debt that was between us, and now you have placed me in your debt a second time."
"If you mean by debt that little service I was only too pleased to do for you at the well, I thought it was quite cleared off."
"How?"
"By the service you did for me at the sand-pit the other day."
"You are mocking me?"
"I was never more serious in my life," answered Wyndham, using Paul's words. "When I saw you standing before me at the sand-pit—saw who your fellows had selected as their champion—I was staggered. You were the last in the world I dreamt of seeing. I could see that you were bewildered, but not more than I was. I knew not how to act. Fight you? Impossible! Go away—turn on my heel? That seemed impossible, too. I should be stamped as a coward. I could not explain, because that would have meant giving away your secret. Then, as the thoughts flashed through my mind, you solved the riddle. You had the courage to do what I couldn't—you walked away."
Paul regarded Wyndham in wonder. The thoughts which had passed through Wyndham's mind were almost the same thoughts that had passed through his. The same struggle had gone on in both. For the moment the hard, bitter feeling that had stirred within him softened, and he was on the point of holding out his hand, when he remembered that it meant clasping the one that had so severely punished Stanley.