Silk looked at him in astonishment; then, relapsing into a smile, said,
"Oh, indeed! a brute, am I?"
"Yes, you are!"
"And, let's see; I forget what the little favour was you wanted the
brute to do for you?"
"I want you to do _no_ favour!" cried Wyndham, passionately.
"No? Not even to allow you to go to the doctor and tell him about
Beamish's?"
"No; not even that! I wouldn't do it now. He may now find out what he
likes."
"It might interest him if I went and told him a few things about you?"
said Silk.
"Go! as soon as you like--and tell him anything you like," cried
Wyndham. "I don't care."
"You wouldn't even care to have back your three pound ten?"
"No," said the boy, "not even if you ever thought of paying it back."
Silk all this time had been growing furious. The last thing he had
expected was that this boy, whom he supposed to be utterly in his power,
should thus rise in revolt and shake off every shred of his old
allegiance. But he found he had gone too far for once, and this last
defiant taunt of his late victim cut him to the quick.
He sprang from the seat and made a wild dash at the boy, but Wyndham was
too quick for him, and escaped, leaving his adversary baffled as he had
never been before, and almost doubting whether he had not been and still
was dreaming.
Wyndham ran as fast as he could in the direction of the school, and
would have probably gone _on_ running till he reached his own study, had
not the sight of Riddell slowly going the same way ahead of him suddenly
checked his progress.
As it was, he almost ran over him before he perceived who it was. For
Riddell just at that moment had halted in his walk, and stooped to pick
up a book that lay on the path.
However, when Wyndham saw who it was, he swerved hurriedly in another
direction, and got to his destination by a roundabout way, feeling as he
reached it about as miserable and hopeless as it was possible for a boy
to be.