“No! you might say what you like, I could never be angry with you. But I didn’t think you would believe anything so very bad of me, just from what other people say. I hoped at least you would wait and hear my story first.” And Jack, still turning from her, wiped his quivering eyes with his sleeve.
“Have I said I believed anything very bad of you?” asked Annie, softly.
“No, but whatever I might have done, you said. That is, you don’t quite give me up, in spite of my awful conduct!”
“Don’t you see, Miss Felton,” cried Aunt Patsy, “he’s been so put upon and misused, he can’t be satisfied without his friends take his part in downright ’arnest? That’s nat’ral. Half-way words won’t suit him.”
“I know!” added Jack, with a passionate outburst; “Phin’s her cousin; he’s a saint, and I am a liar and a villain, of course, if he says so!”
“You know very well I don’t think Phin a saint,” replied Annie, with gentle dignity, “any more than I think you a villain. You are both boys, with the faults of boys. From all I hear, you have not done perfectly right in every respect; and I don’t think you will claim that you have. If you expected me just to pat you on the back, and say, ‘Poor Jack! good Jack! how they have abused you!’ why, then, you haven’t known what a real friend I am to you. I came here this evening, hoping to find you, and to do something for you. But if this is the way you meet me, I suppose I might as well have stayed at home.” And now she turned away.
“Don’t go!” Jack entreated. “O Miss Felton! forgive me if I am unreasonable! But it seems so hard to know that you think my enemies are in the right! Do you believe I would break into a house and steal; that I would make up a lie, to shift the blame to Phin or his father or any one else? I can bear to have others think so meanly of me, but not you!” And the boy’s passion broke forth in uncontrollable sobs.
She took his hand with one of hers, and laid the other kindly and soothingly upon his shoulder.
“There, there, Jack!” she said, her own voice full of emotion; “I don’t believe you would deliberately steal or make up such a lie. I know you wouldn’t!”
“And as for the money,” sobbed Jack, “I did just what Peternot’s own nephew, who is studying law, said he should advise any one to do who found treasure on another man’s land; he said, ‘Pocket it and say nothing about it; keep possession, any way; fight for it.’ That’s what I tried to do. Then after I had been robbed of it, I went to take it again, and that’s the cause of all my trouble.”