"That's one of the reasons I don't dare go back. I'm afraid. You can't guess what it is," he choked. "He taunts and jeers and curses in a breath and he gets drunk every night. I wish to God he would die!"
The wish was horrible in its sincerity. Brian ignored it.
"If you were older," said Brian, "and your chief need wasn't school, I'd take you abroad with me, free lancing. But in the circumstances, with your welfare somewhere else, that's impossible."
Donald hung his head.
"I—I wish it wasn't," he blurted. "I want to go wherever you go."
"That first night when I asked you to tramp along with me," said Brian gently, "I said, in my letter to your sister, that I'd see you through. That I'm going to do. But you've got to help me. I want you, after I'm gone, to stay up here at the quarry, study nights, and next year work your way through college."
The boy stared, blank terror in his eyes.
"A year's work will put you on your feet—your kind of work when the mood is on you—and you can enter in the fall. I know a chap who's working his way through Yale. He'd show you the ropes."
"Here!" said Donald. "Alone!"
"Here," said Brian quietly, "alone. I know you can do it."