going to have anything to do with you.'

I don't know how he could have done it, but William kept his word, and
for three days he only spoke to Harold when other people were about.
This was horrible for Harold; he had been used to being his father's
pride and his mother's joy, and now he was Nobody's Anything, which is
the saddest thing in the world to be. He tried to console himself by
making kites all day long, but even kites cannot comfort you when nobody
loves you, and when you feel that it really is not your fault at all.

William went about his own affairs; he was not at all happy. He finished
his kite and flew it, and he lost it because the string caught on the
church weather-cock, which cut it in two. And he tried to rewrite his
prize essay, but he couldn't, because he had taken all the stuffing for
it out of books and not out of his head, where it ought to have been.

Harold found some moments of forgetfulness when he was making the patent
kite. It was very big, and the roll of paper he had found in his dream
in the chimney was exactly the right thing for patent kite-making. But
when it was done, what was the good? There was no one to see him fly it.
He did fly it, and it was perfect. It was shaped like a bird, and it
rose up, and up, and up, and hung poised above the church-tower, light
and steady as a hawk poised above its prey. William wouldn't even come
out to look at it, though Harold begged him to.

The next morning Harold dreamed that he had not been able to bear things
any longer, and had run away, and when William woke up Harold was gone.
Then William remembered how Harold had offered to help him with his
kite, and would have helped him to rewrite the essay, and how through
those three cruel days Harold had again and again tried to make friends,
and how, after all, he was with his own people, and Harold was a
stranger.

He said, 'Oh, bother, I wish I hadn't!' and he felt that he had been a
beast. This is called Remorse. Then he said, 'I'll find him, and I'll be
as decent to him as I can, poor chap! though he _is_ silly.' This is
called Repentance.

Then he found a letter on Harold's bed. It said (and it was blotted with
tears, and it had a blob of glue on it):

'DEAR BILLY,

'It wasn't my fault about your essay, and I'm sorry, and am going
to run away to India to find my people. I shall go disguised as a
stowaway.

'Your affectionate cousin,

'HAROLD EGBERT DA