This was a damper certainly to Wraysford. At least Oliver might have guessed why his friend was coming after him.
It was desperately hard to know how to begin a conversation. Oliver trudged on, sullen and silent, in anything but an encouraging manner. Still, Wraysford, now his mind was made up, was not to be put from his purpose.
“Noll, old man,” he began, in as much of his old tone and manner as he could assume.
“Well?” said Oliver, not looking up.
“Aren’t we to be friends still?”
The question cost the speaker a hard effort, and evidently went home. Oliver stopped short in his walk, and looking full in his old friend’s face, said, “Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m afraid we are not friends at this moment.”
“And whose fault is that?” said Oliver, scornfully.
The question stung Wraysford as much as it amazed him. Was he, then, of all the fellows in the school, to have an explanation thus demanded of him from one who had done him the most grievous personal wrong one schoolboy well could do to another?