“I hope it’s not so bad as that,” said he, quietly. “Everybody here hates me, and they’ll hate me all the more now,” said Gilks. “You and young Wyndham are the only fellows that have been good to me, and I’ve done both of you nothing but mischief.”
“I think,” said Riddell, “the fellows will soon forgive. They would, I know, if they guessed how you have suffered already.”
“You are right. I have suffered,” said Gilks. Another long pause followed, during which the minds of both were full.
The one sensation in the captain’s heart was pity. He forgot all about the crime in commiseration of the wretchedness of the criminal. Yet he knew it was useless to hold out any hope of a reprieve, even if that had been to be desired. All he could do was to let the poor fellow know at least that he was not friendless; and this sign of sympathy Gilks gratefully appreciated.
“I don’t know why you should trouble yourself about me,” he said, after some further talk. “You owe me less than anybody. I’ve been nothing less than a brute to you.”
“Oh, no,” said Riddell; “but, do you know, I think it would be well to go to the doctor at once?”
“I mean to go at once. Do you think he’ll let me go off this afternoon, I say? I wouldn’t dare to face the fellows. I’ve got most of my things packed up.”
“I expect he would. But you stay till the morning. You can have my study. It’s quieter than this.”
Perhaps no more hospitable invitation had been issued in Willoughby, and Gilks knew it. And it was too welcome not to be accepted gratefully.
The captain soon afterwards departed, leaving the penitent behind him, subdued and softened, not by any sermon or moral lecture, which at such a time Riddell felt would be only out of place, but by sheer force of kindness—that virtue which costs so little, yet achieves so much.