"I walked away," he echoed; "and then?"
"Why, then," smiled Wyndham, "things couldn't have happened better. Some bounder amongst your mob was anxious to bound into your shoes. He jumped up in an awfully excited way, muttering something about 'the honour of the Form.' He insisted on fighting me, and I didn't mind in the least. You know how it ended."
"Too well—too well," repeated Paul sadly. "Better far had I stayed. That was my friend you punished so."
"Your friend!"
"The best friend I had at Garside. We are friends no longer. Instead of that, he looks upon me now as his worst enemy, while all the school look upon me as a cur. But it isn't that I mind so much, it's losing the friendship of Stanley Moncrief."
"I'm sorry. I did not dream things were as bad as that. Who is this Stanley Moncrief?"
"He is the son of that gentleman for whom I took the letter to Redmead on the night you met me, and did me so great a service."
"If it was a service, I've undone it now," answered Wyndham sorrowfully. "I could not have done a worse one than I did you at the sand-pit. Why couldn't you explain to your friend?"
"I've tried to, but he won't listen. He is smarting under his defeat, and I don't wonder at it."
There was silence between them for a minute or two, then Wyndham exclaimed: