Now, with every nerve alert and
pricking with suspense, it returned to him very forcibly. Dicky was
hungry perhaps--or consumed with thirst, as he himself had been. And he
would certainly go empty to bed unless he, Robin, plucked up courage to
go down and wait upon him.
It needed considerable courage, for his instinct was always to hide when
he had incurred Dick's anger. Judicial though it invariably was, it was
the most terrible thing the world held for him. It shook him to the
depths, and to go down and confront it again with the penalty still
unpaid was for a long time more than he could calmly contemplate. But as
the minutes crept on and still Dick did not come, it was gradually borne
in upon him that this, and this alone, was the thing that must be done.
It was his job, forced upon him by an inexorable fate. Dick would
probably be much more angry with him for doing it, but somehow in a
vague, unreasoning fashion he realized that it had got to be done.
Even then it took him a long time to screw himself up to the required
pitch of nervous energy required. He ached for the sound of Dick's step
on the stairs, but it did not come. And so at last he knew there was no
help for it.
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