Page:Dr Adriaan (1918).djvu/85

Rh "Try and trust me, Alex."

"I do trust you."

"Well, then, talk to me."

"But I . . . I've nothing to tell you, Addie."

"I know, Alex, that you must have something to tell me. . . ."

"No. . . ."

"I know it, Alex."

"No, Addie, really. . . . I've nothing to tell you. . . ."

The lad tried to release his arm from Addie's, but Addie held him tight:

"Walk a bit more with me."

"Where are you going?"

"I have a couple of patients to see. . . . Take me there, Alex . . . and speak, speak openly. . . ."

"I can't speak."

"Then try and find your words. I'll help you."

"Not to-day . . . not to-day, Addie, out here, in the roads. . . . Perhaps another time . . . indoors."

"Very well, then, another time, indoors. I'll keep you to your word. And now let's talk of nothing but the Merchants' School. . . ."

And, with Alex still hanging on his arm, he told him about the head-master, the staff, the lessons there. . . making a point of holding out hopes to Alex that everything would go easily and smoothly. Did Addie not know, did he not diagnose that the boy was so terribly afraid of life, of the days to come, because a twilight had always continued to press down upon him, the twilight of his father's suicide? . . . It had given the child a fit of shuddering in so far as he had realized it at the time; and things had suddenly grown dark, about his child-soul; and, when the power of thought had