“Do you want me?” he said.
“No,” said Wyndham. “I only just came across to see you, because I thought you’d wonder what had become of me.”
“Yes,” said Riddell, trying to compose himself, “with all this cricket practice there’s not been much chance of seeing one another.”
“No,” replied Wyndham, whom the very mention of cricket was enough to excite. “I say, wasn’t it an awfully fine licking we gave them? Our fellows are crowing like anything, and, you know, if it hadn’t been for your catch it might have been a much more narrow affair.”
“Ah, well! it’s all over now,” said Riddell; “so I suppose you’ll come and see me oftener?”
“I hope so. Of course, there’s the second-eleven practices still going on for the Templeton match, but I’ll turn up here all the same.”
Riddell took a turn or two in silence. What was he to do? A word from him, he felt, could ruin this boy before all Willoughby, and possibly disgrace him for life.
He, Riddell, as captain of the school, seemed to have a clear duty in the matter. Had the culprit been any one else—had it been Silk, for instance, or Gilks—would he have hung back? He knew he would not, painful as the task would be. The honour of the school was in question, and he had no right to palter with that.
Yet how could he deal thus with young Wyndham?—his friend’s brother, the fellow he cared for most in Willoughby, over whose struggles he had watched so anxiously, and for whom, now, better resolves and honest ambitions were opening up so cheery a prospect. How could he do it?
Was there no chance that after all he might be mistaken? Alas! that cruel knife and the memory of that evening crushed out the hope. What could he do? To do nothing would be simply adding his own crime to that of another. If only the boy would confess voluntarily! Could that have possibly been the object which brought him there that evening? The last time they had talked together, even in the midst of his contrition, he had been strangely reserved about something in the past. Might not this be the very secret he had now come to confide?