sion of some great crime: this can be atoned for by great
penances; and the very enormity of it has a dark grandeur. Maybe, some
little deadly act of meanness, some hole-and-corner treachery? But
what a man has once willed to do, his will helps him to forget. The
unforgettable thing in his life is usually not a thing he has done or
left undone, but a thing done to him--some insolence or cruelty for
which he could not, or did not, avenge himself. This it is that often
comes back to him, years after, in his dreams, and thrusts itself
suddenly into his waking thoughts, so that he clenches his hands, and
shakes his head, and hums a tune loudly--anything to beat it off. In the
very hour when first befell him that odious humiliation, would you have
spied on him? I gave the Duke of Dorset an hour's grace.

What were his thoughts in that interval, what words, if any, he uttered
to the night, never will be known. For this, Clio has abused me in
language less befitting a Muse than a fishwife. I do not care. I would
rather be chidden by Clio than by my own sense of delicacy, any day.

XII

Not less averse than from dogging the Duke was I from remaining another
instant in the presence of Miss Dobson. There seemed to be no possible
excuse for her. This time she had gone too far. She was outrageous. As
soon as the Duke had had time to get clear away, I floated out into the
night.

I may have consciously reasoned that the best way to forget the present
was in the revival of memories. Or I may have been driven by a mere
homing instinct. Anyhow, it was in the direction of my old College that
I went. Midnight was tolling as I floated in through the shut grim gate
at which I had so often stood knocking for admission.

The man who now occupied my room had sported his oak--my oak. I read the
name on the visiting-card attached thereto--E. J. Craddock--and went in.

E. J. Craddock, interloper, was sitting at my table, with elbows squared
and head on one side, in the act of literary composition. The oars and
caps on my walls betokened him a rowing-man. Indeed, I recognised his
somewhat heavy face as that of the man whom, from the Judas barge this
afternoon, I had seen rowing "stroke" in my College Eight.

He ought, therefore, to have been in bed and asleep two hours ago. And
the offence of his vigil was aggravated by a large tumbler that stood
in front of him, containing whisky and soda. From this he took a deep
draught. Then he r