“No, I cannot do that!” he moaned. “I cannot do that!”
It was as he uttered this lament in an incoherent wail that was somehow like the cry of a wounded animal, that a white figure came bounding toward him among the trees.
“Oh, Mr. Gordon!” she panted. “I had to come and thank you for taking my part so nobly!”
“Nobly?” he echoed bitterly. “Don’t you know that there was more of it after that, and that I was anything but noble then?”
“I know,” she answered. “And I think you were quite right. You’d done enough.”
“They call me a coward!”
“What of that?” demanded the girl, her eyes sparkling in her anger as she thought of the attack on Gordon. “You’re not a coward! You’ve given too many proofs that you are just the reverse. Just because you would not fight that big ruffian! Call you a coward! Why, I saw his head towering far above yours. He is a giant!”
Bob Gordon flushed. He knew that the girl’s excuse for him was well meant. But it hardly soothed him or helped to restore his self-respect.
“It wasn’t that,” he assured her hastily. “I was not afraid of him—not of him! I wish you would believe that, Bessie, although I’m afraid no one else ever will.”