Edwards was able to sit up now, and Crawley read amusing books, and played games with him whenever he could leave school or pupil-room.
"What a kind chap you are!" said Edwards with a broken voice, and with water in his eyes, for he was very weak and nervous; "I--I don't deserve it."
"Not?" exclaimed Crawley. "Why, surely I ought to do what I can, when it is my fault that you got hurt. I am most unlucky this term; I get robbed, and am suspected of inventing the story of it to cover my misappropriation of the money; and then I wind up with breaking a fellow's ribs!"
"No one thinks for a moment that you were not robbed as you say; I am certain of it!" cried Edwards.
"I don't know about that; some of them said they did, and I would give anything to prove that they did me wrong. It will stick in my gizzard a long time, I can tell you."
Edwards buried his face in his hands and fairly sobbed.
"I can bear it no longer," he cried at last. "You so kind to me and all! I know who robbed you."
"You!" exclaimed Crawley, thinking the boy had gone delirious again.
"Yes, I," repeated Edwards. "I did not see it done, and he never told me he had done it, but I know he did, and--and, I profited by the money and never said anything."
"Come, come, Edwards, you are ill and weak, and exciting yourself too much. We will talk about this another time."
"No, no, now; I must speak; it is killing me."
And then he rapidly told the whole story; how Saurin and he had gambled and lost, and the peril they had brought themselves into; and how Saurin had gone that fatal Saturday afternoon to try and borrow money of Gould--all he knew, in short.
"Saurin!" said Crawley, when he had heard all. "I never thought very much of him, but I had no idea he was so bad as that. But don't you fret, Edwards; you were put in a very queer position, and nobody could say what he would do if he suddenly found it his duty to denounce an intimate friend for a crime which was committed to get out of a scrape in which he himself was implicated. It would be an awful hole to be in! How far have you told me all this in confidence?"
"I leave that quite to you. I do not ask to be spared myself, but if you could be cleared and satisfied without Saurin being publicly tried and sent to prison, I should be very grateful."