Graham rose obediently, but he still lingered in the cubicle, held by a vague yet very strong desire—desire to unburden himself of that which filled his soul, and which a feeling of shyness kept locked up in his breast. Then suddenly he overcame his cowardice, and kneeling down on the floor beside the bed, he kissed his friend as he lay there half asleep. That was all: he could not have spoken if he had tried to: even as it was his eyes were wet with tears. But he felt a kind of ecstasy of happiness as he stole back to his own bed, for it seemed to him that just then, when his lips had touched Harold’s cheek, he had given himself to him for better or worse, had given him his life, his trust. In the morning, he knew, all would be a little different; in the morning he should have to come back to an everyday world. But he should be no longer alone there; oh, he should never be alone again. With his face buried in his pillow, and his cheek still a little damp, he prayed that all might be well, prayed that Harold might come to care for him; and day was breaking when at last he fell asleep.
[V]
He awoke with a feeling of delightful joyousness, a sense that something beautiful had happened. It was as if the summer were quite suddenly and unexpectedly come; as if the whole world were full of happiness and sunshine.
Then he remembered—remembered it all; and a strange passionate tenderness filled his heart. Yes! it was the summer—summer indeed—the sun shone all around him. At the same time he felt within him a deep and unaccountable shyness, which kept him from joining his friend, which kept him alone with his own thoughts until morning school was finished.
By then he had turned things over in his mind, by then he had come even to wonder a little at his first bewilderment. It all seemed now so natural, so only what he had awaited, had come here for. Already a thing without beginning, without end! It was simply there—there like the air he breathed—something that had wrapped itself about his life, his whole being. And it slid back and back, without a break, without a pause, back into the past. There had been no first meeting at all; he had no need even to ask a question; there was no ambiguity to be explained, still less an anomaly. He knew, he felt; and as day followed day, and week followed week, he knew and felt more and more. He listened to the undertone, listened to it growing deeper and more melodious, becoming at times almost articulate, pointing the way; only when he strained his ear for the word, the word at last, definite, decisive, it died back again into silence.
And yet he had had other moments—moments when he had seen, or had seemed to see, that Brocklehurst understood little enough of all that their friendship meant to him. How could he understand? Graham, at least, could never tell him. Ah, no one, no one but himself understood, no one but himself knew how the gentle tone of his friend’s voice had a power to draw the tears to his eyes, a power to sink into his inmost soul. Oh, he loved him so dearly! There was something in the very secrecy of his affection that permitted him to keep it passionately apart from everything else, from his life of everyday, from any vulgar or prosaic encroachment. He kept it in a place sacred, beautiful, quiet; a chapel within his own spirit, a chapel into whose soft light he passed from time to time to worship, to be alone there, alone there with his love, alone there before the altar he had decked with candles and flowers, with the white stainless flowers of his boyish admiration, his innocence and faith....
Nevertheless, little by little, it was forced upon him—incredulous at first, reluctant to believe—that Brocklehurst’s reputation was not a good one. Nothing very precise as yet; only a few vague rumours; but he knew, could easily see, that his friend was not liked. At first he had found this hard to credit, inconceivable almost; but when one boy after another practically advised him to drop his chum he could no longer close his eyes to the fact. Naturally he felt tremendously angry. It seemed so mean, so cowardly, so unfair; for no one, though all were willing enough to hint, to suggest, appeared able to tell him anything definite. He knew, of course, that Brocklehurst had been absent from the school for a while—had been removed, more than one boy quite plainly told him—but even were this the case (and Brocklehurst himself had never alluded to it), the fact of his having been brought back again, in Graham’s opinion, openly, triumphantly, established his innocence. And innocence of what? When all was said and done, one could be sent away for merely asserting what one believed to be one’s rights—for impatience of routine, a hundred things that did not in the least imply any serious fault. It must be confessed that in his heart of hearts he now and then wondered if assertion of his rights, any more than impatience of routine, could very greatly imperil a boy’s popularity; but it was not until some time had elapsed that it actually occurred to him that he ought, after all, to speak to Brocklehurst himself of the matter, not telling him of course how far public opinion was against him, but putting him a little on his guard, giving him a little advice.