papers. It seemed that he had made
a gallant spurt into the road, and there paid the penalty of his
rashness by a sudden incapacity to move another inch. It had
eventually taken him twenty minutes to creep back to locked doors, and
another ten to ring up the inmates. His description of my personal
appearance, as reported in the papers, is the only thing that
reconciles me to the thought of his sufferings during that half-hour.

But at the time I had other thoughts, and they lay too deep for idle
words, for to me also it was a bitter hour. I had not only failed in
my self-sought task; I had nearly killed my comrade into the bargain.
I had meant well by friend and foe in turn, and I had ended in doing
execrably by both. It was not all my fault, but I knew how much my
weakness had contributed to the sum. And I must walk with the man
whose fault it was, who had travelled two hundred miles to obtain this
last proof of my weakness, to bring it home to me, and to make our
intimacy intolerable from that hour. I must walk with him to Surbiton,
but I need not talk; all through Thames Ditton I had ignored his
sallies; nor yet when he ran his arm through mine, on the river front,
when we were nearly there, would I break the seal my pride had set
upon my lips.

"Come, Bunny," he said at last, "I have been the one to suffer most,
when all's said and done, and I'll be the first to say that I deserved
it. You've broken my head; my hair's all glued up in my gore; and what
yarn I'm to put up at Manchester, or how I shall take the field at
all, I really don't know. Yet I don't blame you, Bunny, and I do blame
myself. Isn't it rather hard luck if I am to go unforgiven into the
bargain? I admit that I made a mistake; but, my dear fellow, I made it
entirely for your sake."

"For my sake!" I echoed bitterly.

Raffles was more generous; he ignored my tone.

"I was miserable about you--frankly--miserable!" he went on. "I
couldn't get it out of my head that somehow you would be laid by the
heels. It was not your pluck that I distrusted, my dear fellow, but it
was your very pluck that made me tremble for you. I couldn't get you
out of my head. I went in when runs were wanted, but I give you my
word that I was more anxious about you; and no doubt that's why I
helped to put on some runs. Didn't you see it in the paper, Bunny?
It's the innings of my life, so far."

"Yes," I said, "I saw that you were in at close of play. But I don't
believe