“But why didn’t he let us know before where he was?” asked Roy.
“Bless you, he only knew himself yesterday. He’s had a hard tug of it,
and not a scrap or a card could we find about him, only the letters R.
B. P. P, on his linen.”
“Then he’s been out of his head?”
“Yes; and you must be prepared to find him greatly changed. But he’ll
come around again all right, the doctor says. I’ll go up now and see if
he is awake and call you.”
The summons to ascend came a few minutes later, and presently Roy found
himself standing by his brother’s bedside. Mrs. Raynor considerately
withdrew and left the two together, warning them that she should be
back in ten minutes to prevent her patient from becoming unduly
excited.
Rex had changed. There was no longer any plumpness in his cheeks, and
his face was very white. But so were his teeth, and his eyes were as
lustrous as ever.
“Roy!” He uttered the one word in a weak voice, and held tightly in
both of his the hands that his brother extended to him.
A moment of the precious ten was lost to silence as the two looked at
each other, but in that look was that which hours of speech could not
have expressed. Roy read in it true repentance, a pleading for
forgiveness, and Rex saw that there was no chiding for him from those
at home, only love and pity.
“Do you know all, Roy; the very worst?” Rex then whispered.
“Don’t think of that now, Reggie. It is all right. I want to talk about
yourself—your sickness.”
“But I must think of it. I have been thinking of it ever since I came
to my senses yesterday. Did you know that I told you lies, that I acted
them, that I took the money I had been saving up for mother’s present
to pay the expenses of this wretched trip?”
“But you didn’t go all the way, Reggie. I found that out. You turned
back. What happened to you then?”
Rex told the terrible tale of the robbery, of the awful night he had
passed riding back and forth across the river, and had got as far as
his falling asleep on the train when Mrs. Raynor appeared and smilingly
announced that time was up.
“Miles will tell you the rest, Roy,” said Rex. “He’s the best fellow. I
don’t know what would have become of me if it hadn’t been for him. And
Mrs. Raynor, too. When I get well they must all come to Philadelphia
and we’ll give them the very best time.”
There was a touch of his old self in the heartiness with which he
uttered these words. Roy’s coming and comforting words had lifted a
heavy burden from his heart.
They left him to try to get to sleep again. Roy went down stairs with
Mrs. Raynor.
“I ought to go home at once and tell my mother about Rex,” he said.
“Why not send a message and stay with him?” suggested the other. “We
should be very glad to have you. There is plenty of room in the house.
Or send word for your mother to come on. I know she must be anxious to
see her son.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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