It was a thing which his neighbors and
associates and family felt in his presence but could not name--a thing
which made him turn his eyes away from a frank, straightforward look
and forbade him to look his fellows in the face save by an exertion of
his will.
Through the vines, Helen saw her father stoop to pick from the ground a
few twigs that had escaped the eyes of the caretakers. Deliberately he
broke the twigs into tiny bits, and threw the pieces one by one aside.
His gray face, drawn and haggard, twitched and worked with the nervous
stress of his thoughts. From under his heavy brows he glanced with the
quick, furtive look of a hunted thing, as though fearing some enemy
that might be hidden in the near-by shrubbery. The young woman,
shrinking from the look in his eyes, and not daring to make her
presence known, remembered, suddenly, how the Interpreter had been
reluctant to discuss her father's illness.
Casting aside the last tiny bit of the twig which he had broken so
aimlessly, he found another and continued his senseless occupation.
With pity and love in her heart, Helen wanted to go to him--to help
him, but she could not--some invisible presence seemed to forbid.
Suddenly Adam raised his head. A moment he listened, then cautiously he
rose to his feet--listening, listening.
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