Already I was repenting of my determination, and this attitude of his quite disheartened me.
Still I could not draw back now—speak to him I must.
“Oh, Jack,” I cried, as I came up. “It really wasn’t my fault—indeed it wasn’t. I only—”
He put up his hand to stop me and said, his eyes blazing with indignation as he did so, “You’ve been a liar and a coward!”
He may have been right. He was right! But the words were ill-judged and rash. I had followed him ready to do anything to show my contrition, ready to make any atonement in my power for the wrong I had done him. One gentle word from him, one encouraging look, would have made the task easy. But this angry taunt, deserved as it was—nay, just because it was so fully deserved—stirred up in me a sudden sense of disappointment and resentment which choked all other feelings.
This was my reward for the effort I had made! This was the friend I had striven so desperately to recover!
He gave me no time to retort, even if I could have found the words to do so, but turned on his heel and left me, humbled and smarting, to find out that it would have been better far for me had I never tried to make matters right with Jack Smith.
But I was too angry to be dispirited that night. His bitter words rang in my ears at every step I took, and though my conscience cried out they were just, my pride cried out louder they were cruel. I longed to get out of their sound and forget the speaker. Who was he, a convict’s son, to accuse me as he had? Half an hour ago it had been I who had wronged him. Now, to my smarting mind, it seemed as if it was he who was the wronger, and I the wronged.
“Hullo, old fly-by-night,” suddenly exclaimed a voice beside me, as I walked slowly on my way; “what’s the joke? Never saw such a fellow for grinning, upon my honour. Why can’t you look glum for once in a way, eh, my mouldy lobster?”
I looked up and saw Doubleday, Crow, Wallop, and Whipcord, arm-in-arm across the pavement, and Hawkesbury and Harris following on behind.