Left with a trust

by Nellie Hellis

[CHAPTER VII.]

CONFESSED AT LAST.

VERY few words passed between the boys on the journey. Jack proposed that Robert should go home with him, and wear a suit of his clothes while his own were being dried. And when Robert said he was afraid his aunt would think this a very strange and bold proceeding, he replied that she had gone into the country for a few days, and that though his father would return from one of his "rounds" that night, he was not expected until ten or eleven o'clock.

Robert, when he heard this, leaned back in his corner with a sigh of relief. Perhaps after all his mother would never know. Ah how he hoped it might be so. As long as he lived he would never go on the ice again. The terrible fate which had so nearly been his would never be forgotten. Suppose he had been drowned? Others had been brought lifeless from the water, and why not he? God was very good to have spared him. He had not deserved such mercy. Nay, had he not by his disobedience and deceit towards his earthly parents cut himself off, as it were, from the protection and love of his heavenly Father? And all for the sake of a little pleasure and excitement! A heavy penalty indeed was he paying for his sin.

The poor boy was shivering with cold when presently the train arrived at the station that was only a two minutes' walk from his friend's home, and Jack, seeing how his teeth chattered and how white he looked, said decidedly that he must go to bed while his clothes were being dried. And though Robert declared he should be all right as soon as he had got off his wet things and given himself a rub, Jack had his own way.

And well and kindly did he look after Robert. Jack had owned to himself that, if his schoolfellow had been drowned, he should always have felt that his death was on his head, for had it not been for his persuasions and sneers, Robert would never have learnt to skate, and therefore he would not have gone on the ice that day.

Then the horror of the scene was still fresh in his memory, and again and again he seemed to see it acted before his eyes. He had heard the cries of warning and the piercing shriek that followed. He had been almost paralyzed with fear at the panic that seized the skaters as they turned and fled from the direction in which Robert had disappeared. He had been thrust back when he approached the spot of danger; and oh! the agony of those few minutes of suspense until he saw the dripping form of his friend being borne towards him. To Jack, he appeared already dead. But the people near assured him "he'd soon come round," and presently the chafing and rubbing took effect, and to Jack's joy, Robert opened his eyes.

So now, he helped him undress, and then, going down to the kitchen, he spread the wet clothes over a couple of chairs, and by some means or other extracted a promise from the servant that she "wouldn't let nothing interfere with the drying of 'em."

Then he coaxed her to let him have tea in his bedroom. But it was not until he said it wouldn't be so much trouble as spreading it in the dining room, as he himself would both carry the tray upstairs and bring it down again, that she consented to such an unusual proceeding.