"Can't you guess?" smiled Paul. "Nobody very dreadful. Three or four of the fellows of your Form—Bember, Baldry, Sedgefield, Viner."
"I might have guessed it; but then I'm not like other boys. I'm such a coward—coward. I've fought against it so hard, but I can't get over it. I've tried to be brave—as brave as you are——"
"Hush! Don't talk of bravery. You're forgetting the sand-pit. Don't put me on stilts, for I could never walk in them. We're just what God makes of us. There are plenty of thorns and thistles about, heaps of 'em; but not many sensitive plants. That's what you are Hibbert—a beautiful, sensitive plant."
"Ah, you don't know what I am. If only I could tell you—if only I could tell you. You would hate me—hate me. Yes, Percival—hate me. You can call me a beautiful, sensitive plant, while all the time I'm a beastly hypocrite. Oh, why didn't you let me die—why didn't you let me go down in the river? Why did you save me?"
He spoke with a sudden outburst of energy, raising himself, in his feverish excitement on his elbow.
"Come, come! Master Percival will have to leave you, if you take on that way," said the matron.
"Yes, I think I'd better go now and come again to-morrow," said Paul, alarmed at this sudden outburst, which he took to be a slight touch of delirium.
"Don't leave me, Percival—don't leave me just yet!" pleaded the boy. "I—I was forgetting myself. I'll be quieter if you'll stay with me a little longer."
The thin fingers slipped into Paul's hand again, and clung to it tightly.
"I'll stay with you a little longer, if you'll just do what I tell you."