Gazing at the boy's tortured face, Felix grasped the gruesome fact that this idea amounted to obsession.
“Derek,” he said, “you've dwelt on this till you see it out of all proportion. If we took to ourselves the remote consequences of all our words we should none of us survive a week. You're overdone. You'll see it differently to-morrow.”
Derek got up to pace the room.
“I swear I would have saved him. I tried to do it when they committed him at Transham.” He looked wildly at Felix. “Didn't I? You were there; you heard!”
“Yes, yes; I heard.”
“They wouldn't let me then. I thought they mightn't find him guilty here—so I let it go on. And now he's dead. You don't know how I feel!”
His throat was working, and Felix said with real compassion:
“My dear boy! Your sense of honour is too extravagant altogether. A grown man like poor Tryst knew perfectly what he was doing.”
“No. He was like a dog—he did what he thought was expected of him. I never meant him to burn those ricks.”
“Exactly! No one can blame you for a few wild words. He might have been the boy and you the man by the way you take it! Come!”