Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/126

114 It seemed he had quite forgotten the story he had told me of his friend's death. He began to explain the object of the expedition: what was to be done this time: what was to be done next time: lastly, what he wanted me to do. I listened patiently, although I was, as it were, physically wearied of it all.

Dawn was breaking as I stood looking from my bedroom window. I wished that I stood on some Thames bridge, to look at the sleeping town: then turned away sighing, and glad that I was not there—anywhere but where I was, a few yards off my cool, comfortable bed. As I had one knee on it, getting in, I paused, made half-irresolute by a thought. How long was it since I had prayed? Had I grown so sure, then, that there was no 'good' in it?—''None! none!'' 'If God is, He knows what is in my heart without my telling Him. And yet I haven't given much thought to the subject of late: not had time to go searching for new material with which to build up my belief in disbelief, as I used to do at Glastonbury. Ah, I was a boy then. Now I am a fool to be standing here like this!' I was into bed and had the clothes over me.

' I wonder what Rosy 's doing now? Asleep, of course, like a good little girl. I wish I was! I wish this world had never been made. I wish I had never been born, and then I shouldn't have been plagued with all these things No; this world is not much of a place to be happy in!

 

some time, when I lay half-awake next morning, I was aware of a letter with the usual cup of tea by my bedside. At last I roused myself sufficiently to stretch out my hand and lift the letter into the bed by me. Then I managed to open it, and began, still half-awake, to read it:

',—I have been informed of your appointment as private secretary to Mr. Brooke, and that you are about to accompany him on his expedition to Central Africa, to which I wish all possible success. I have a 