Why should he keep secrets from me, when I kept none from him? No, when I came to think over it, I did not keep a single secret from him! Did he think I was not to be trusted, or was too selfish to care? He might have known me better by this time. It was true I had told him my secrets without his asking for them; in fact, all along he had not seemed nearly as anxious as I had been for this friendship of ours. My conscience stung me at this last reflection; and there came upon me all of a sudden a sense of the utter desolation of this awful place without a single friend! No, I determined it should take more than a little pique to make me cast away my only friend. And with the thought, though it must have been far on in the night, I slipped from my bed and crawled to his.
He was fast asleep, but at the first touch of my hand he started up and said, “What’s the row?”
“I’m sorry, Jack; but I was in a temper to-night, and couldn’t go to sleep till I made it up.”
“A temper! what about?” said he. “I didn’t know you were.”
“I fancied you wouldn’t—that is, that you thought—you didn’t trust me, Jack.”
“You’re the only fellow I do trust, Fred, there,” said he, taking my arm. Then, with a sigh, he added, “Why shouldn’t I?”
“What a beast I was, Jack!” cried I, quite repentant. “I don’t—”
“Hush!” said Jack. Then, whispering very close to my ear, he added, “There are some things, you know, I can’t tell even you—about home—”
There was a sound in the room, as of a boy, suddenly aroused, starting up in his bed. Our blood turned cold, and we remained motionless, hardly daring to breathe, straining our ears in the darkness.
Suddenly the boy, whoever he was, sprang from his bed, and seizing the lucifers, struck a light.