He received no letters at my house. They waited for him at the village post office. He invariably called for them himself, and invariably forbore to trust any of my servants with his own letters for the post. Again, when we were out walking together, I more than once caught him looking furtively over his shoulder, as if he suspected some person of following him, for some evil purpose. Being constitutionally a hater of mysteries, I determined, at an early stage of our intercourse, on making an effort to clear matters up. There might be just a chance of my winning the senior pupil’s confidence, if I spoke to him while the last days of the summer vacation still left us alone together in the house.
“Excuse me for noticing it,” I said to him one morning, while we were engaged over our books—“I cannot help observing that you appear to have some trouble on your mind. Is it indiscreet, on my part, to ask if I can be of any use to you?”
He changed color—looked up at me quickly—looked down again at his book—struggled hard with some secret fear or secret reluctance that was in him—and suddenly burst out with this extraordinary question: “I suppose you were in earnest when you preached that sermon in London?”
“I am astonished that you should doubt it,” I replied.
He paused again; struggled with himself again; and startled me by a second outbreak, even stranger than the first.
“I am one of the people you preached at in your sermon,” he said. “That’s the true reason why I asked you to take me for your pupil. Don’t turn me out! When you talked to your congregation of tortured and tempted people, you talked of Me.”
I was so astonished by the confession, that I lost my presence of mind. For the moment, I was unable to answer him.
“Don’t turn me out!” he repeated. “Help me against myself. I am telling you the truth. As God is my witness, I am telling you the truth!”
“Tell me the whole truth,” I said; “and rely on my consoling and helping you—rely on my being your friend.”
In the fervor of the moment, I took his hand. It lay cold and still in mine; it mutely warned me that I had a sullen and a secret nature to deal with.