"No!" answered the boy shortly. "There's never any good times for me. My old skates have given out entirely, and I cannot afford a new pair. I thought I'd come down and see the boys off; but I'd better have stayed at home," and he choked a little at the thought of his poverty.
"No," said Herbert, "it's a good thing you came. My skates are aching for a chance to cut that ice; so, if you will take charge of them, I'll be much obliged. I don't feel like going."
He turned and ran up the street before the astonished boys understood what he was about.
"Well, Johnny," said Lewie Amesbury, "that's good for you; but for the life of me, I can't make out what the fellow means. He has acted like sixty all the week!"
While the boys were puzzling over his queer behaviour, Herbert was walking rapidly up the street, thinking in this wise:
"A pretty mess I've made of it! What will the boys say? And what would they say if they knew that I was afraid to go on the ice? Yes! Actually afraid. Fool and coward that I am. But they won't think of that, for I have often been down the river when the ice bent and cracked under me. But I couldn't go to-day, though it is thick and strong. The fact is, I am afraid to die; and it seems as though death was lurking around somewhere, waiting for me. This question will have to be settled pretty soon, or I shall be crazy. Dear me! What did I promise for, and why did Tom's letter come just then, and why did everything happen just in the way it did. There's Mr. Earle now! I've got to meet him—there's no dodging that!"
[CHAPTER VI.]
SURRENDER.
"Here is my heart."
INSTEAD of passing on, Mr. Earle turned quietly about and walked back with Herbert, chatting upon indifferent matters in his usual entertaining way. Pretty soon he said—