Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/123

111 in the roar and very breath of the mighty waters; but then I went apart, and sat, and looked at the smoking columns of the Falls fading into the purpling sky, and wept. It seemed to me, as I sat there alone that evening, that I was not turning back, to come again with new victorious face and reach to It: but it seemed to me—I cannot tell you how, or why; I can only tell you that so it was.—It seemed to me, I say, that a still small voice spoke whispering to my heart, and I knew that I should not see Mount Nebo again; should not even cross the desert again, but die far away in the land of Egypt, in a land of glory and sin.'

Another pause.

He went on: 'Since then, I have tried to persuade myself that I was mistaken. Life is so ordinary: it is hard to believe always in the faith of one's higher moments.—And you see, my dear boy, in a few days we are off! What do you say?—Well, what I want to tell you is this. Supposing aliquid humanitus.—You follow me?' He looked at me, who was a little mystified by it all.

'Yes,' I said, 'to a certain extent.'

He smiled.

'Ah, you've grown deep into my heart, boy? you cannot know how deep! Perhaps there is some selfishness in my love for you: I do not say that there is none. But I do love you!—I have been rather sharp with you at times: forget it! It is, that I cannot bear to see you with the ideas you have, about this beautiful world—and God. It seems to me almost a crime that you … Forgive me! Now you do, now?' He had touched my leg: laid his hand on it, and looked so fondly into my eyes that I was moved, but not quite with an answering feeling to what he called his love. I turned my look aside.

'You see that I believe in you,' he said, 'Believe in you even as you are now, a mere boy! I know that if you only had some great work cut out for you to do, you would do it, and that there would be no need for it to be done again—something that would require all your heart and soul! At present … Why, I am afraid for you, and that is the truth! And being