The doctor closely studied the earnest face before him; then he rose and took one or two turns up and down the room.
“Alex,” he said, as he came back to his chair; “I can trust you, and I am going to talk plainly to you. The boys did have a very wild time at their spread, last night, and one or two of them were the worse for the champagne. For some time I have been suspicious of their spreads, but this was the first time I could prove anything against them. This morning I saw them, and quietly told them not to come back here, after the close of this term. I have been thinking for months that this must come, but the year is so nearly over that I thought best not to make a public expulsion of it. I had no idea that Max was there, or he might have shared the same fate. But if you can tell me on your honor that this is his first offence, I will let him off this time. Max isn’t a bad fellow, only too full of fun and a little weak, too easily made by his companions of the moment. I will give him another chance, but I must have a long talk with him. Can you see him this afternoon, tell him what has occurred and ask him to come to me this evening?”
Alex tried to thank him; but he interrupted,—
“Never mind the thanks, Alex; they come to me in the perfect freedom you have shown in talking with me. If only all my boys had felt to me as you do, this miserable affair need never have taken place. But don’t go; stay and tell me about yourself, for it’s a long time since I’ve had a chance to talk with you.”
“I’d better not,” Alex answered. “I want to see Max, if I can, before he gets wind of this.”
“Go, then; perhaps you’d better. I am glad you came to me as you did, for if I had heard that Max was there, and nothing more, I might have been unwisely severe.”
As Harry had suggested, Alex found the two boys in the ravine. After the heat of the May afternoon and his rapid walk, the coolness around them was a great relief, and Alex was glad to drop down on the coarse, uneven turf by their side, and rest for a few moments, before beginning upon the subject which was weighing so heavily on his mind. The ravine, as the boys called it, was a deep gorge in the hills, worn away by the swift mountain brook that hurried through it, to seek the calmer waters of the Connecticut and go with them to the sea. The brook was so narrow and the slant of its sides so abrupt that the branches of the trees on either side mingled overhead to form one common shade; while below them the water now plunged over a little precipice, now raced along the shallows, breaking into a lacelike foam over its rocky bed, now flowed smoothly and silently through the still pools, so dark and deep, where trout love to hide under the shelter of the over-hanging ferns, then rushed away, to go on racing and plunging and eddying, over and over again, till it joined the quieter current of the mighty river, three miles and more away.