e friendship of his Ivo. He now seized
various opportunities of feeding this jealousy. Once he did not
exchange a word with Ivo for a whole week; while his eyes followed him
everywhere as with a passion bordering on insanity. On the last evening
he threw a bit of paper on the book Ivo was reading, on which he had
written, "Come to the top of the church-steeple at the stroke of twelve
to-night, or we part forever."

Ivo tossed about his bed in an agony of fear lest he should oversleep
the time. When the first stroke of twelve was heard, he stole from his
chamber; Clement came out of the one in which he slept at the same
instant. They went up the turret-stairs in silence, and, when the last
stroke had sounded and died away, Clement began:--

"Give me your hand and promise me to have nothing more to do with Bart,
or I'll throw myself down this instant."

Ivo took his friend's hand, shuddering.

"Not a word! Yes or no!" muttered Clement.

"Yes, yes. But I pity the poor fellow. You've grown very strange this
last week."

Clement embraced and kissed him, descended the steps in silence, and
returned to his chamber.

Next day Clement was, as he had always been, cheerful and warm. He
never permitted Ivo to speak by daylight of their nightly meeting.
Bart's grief at his dismissal was not of long duration.

While Clement's restless spirit thus flitted about in search of
adventure, Ivo experienced a different sort of disquietude. His body
had grown with almost greater rapidity than his mind, and he was tall
and broad-shouldered; but, when he sat at the desk with his books, the
blood seemed to foam through his veins in torrents, often obliging him
to get up and restore his internal balance by violent motions. He would
fain have carried a heavy load suspended in his arms; but nothing
offered resistance to his powers except sometimes a knotty construction
in a classic author. Gymnastic exercises were not very assiduously
cultivated, nor did Ivo take much interest in them: he longed to
accomplish some real task with a definite object. In walking with his
friend he would often complain that he was not allowed to plough or to
reap. Inured from his childhood to bodily activity, during his visit to
the grammar-school the long daily walk had compensated for the inaction
of his arms: now he felt like a giant whose club has been taken from
him and a sewing-needle thrust into his fingers.

Once he said to Clement, "Do you know I am