"I hope old Dick will be the one to lose it!" cried Roland, with fervour, as he quitted the stool for his place by Mr. Hurst. "Forty-four pounds! it's stunning. He's the meanest old chap alive, Mr. Greatorex. I'd almost have taken it myself from him."
"Did you take it?" questioned Hurst in a whisper. "What's that?" retorted Roland.
He faced Hurst as he spoke, waiting for a reply. All in a moment the proud countenance and bearing changed. The face fell, the clear eyes looked away, the brow became suffused with crimson. Hurst saw the signs, and felt sorry for what he had said; had said in thoughtlessness rather than in any real meaning. For he knew that it had recalled to Roland Yorke a terrible escapade of his earlier life.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
TAKING THE PLACE OF JELF.
"It will stick in my gizzard for ever. I can see that. An awful clog, it is, when a fellow has dropped into mischief once in his life, and repented and atoned for it, that it must be cast in his teeth always; cropping up at any hour, like a dead donkey in the Thames; I might as well have stayed at Port Natal!"
Such was the inward soliloquy of Mr. Roland Yorke as he bent over his writing after that overwhelming question of Hurst's, "Did you take it?" Hurst, really grieved at having hurt his feelings, strove to smooth away what he had said.
"I beg your pardon, old fellow," he whispered. "On my honour I spoke without thought."
"I dare say you did!" retorted Roland.
"I meant no harm, Roland; I did not indeed. Nothing connected with the past occurred to me."