Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction; Love stories
And Harry drove off with his hand aching from a pressure which he had,
indeed, returned; almost forgetting the enormity of the other's offence
in the zest, humour, and promptitude of the amend; and actually
feeling, for the moment, under a fresh obligation to Gordon Lowndes.
CHAPTER XIV.
A CHANGE OF LUCK.
Quite apart from all that came of it, this visit to Guildford was
something of a psychological experience at the time. The devotion of
Harry Ringrose to his first school had been for years second only to
his love for his old home, and now that the old home was his no longer,
the old school was the place he loved best on earth. He knew it when he
saw the well-remembered building once more in the golden light of that
summer's evening. He knew it when he knelt in the school chapel and
heard the most winning of human voices reading the school prayers. The
chapel was new since Harry's day, but the prayers were not, and they
reminded him of his own worst acts since he had heard them last. Mr.
Innes sang tenor in the hymn, as he had always done, and Harry kept his
ear on the voice he so loved; but the hymn itself was one of his old
favourites, associated for ever with his first school, and it reminded
him too. He looked about him, among the broad white collars, the
innocent pink faces, and the open, singing mouths. He wondered which of
the boys were leaving this term, and if one of them would leave with
better resolutions than he had taken away with him seven years before
... and yet.... He had not been worse than others, but better perhaps
than many; and yet there seemed no measure to his vileness, there
certainly was none to his remorse, as he knelt again and prayed as he
seemed never to have prayed since he was himself a little boy there at
school. Then the organ pealed, and Mr. Innes went down the aisle with
his grave fine face and his swinging stride. Mrs. Innes and Harry went
next; the masters followed in their black gowns; and they all formed
line in the passage outside, and the boys filed past and shook hands
and said good-night on their way up to the dormitories.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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