Tom gasped as he got so far; and well he might.

"I'll tell you all the news when I come. I suppose, by your not
writing, you are saving yours up for me. Ta, ta, old boy, and _au
revoir_ in twenty-one days! Hurrah! Yours ever,--C.N."

Tom, in his misery, crushed the letter up in his fingers and flung it
from him. If a passing pang shot through his breast, it was followed
almost instantly by other feelings of vexation and shame. One moment he
was ready to sink to the floor in a passion of penitence and remorse--
the next, he was ready to resent Charlie's influence over him even at a
distance, and to sneer, as Gus and his friend had done, at the boy's
expense. His brain was too muddled with the excitement and the strange
emotions of that evening to reason with himself; his head ached, and his
mind was poisoned.

"What right has the fellow always to be following me up in this way?" he
asked. "I'm a fool to stand it. Why can't I do as I choose without his
pulling a long face?"

Thus Tom questioned, and thus he proved that it was Charlie's influence
more than his letter that worried him; for what had the latter said,
either in the way of exhortation or reproof?

Then he threw himself on the bed, and lay with the wild memory of the
evening crowding on his feverish mind. He rose, and, lighting a candle,
endeavoured to read; but even his novel was flat and stupid, and in the
midst of it he fell asleep, to dream of Gus and his friend all night
long. Long ere he awoke my senses had left me, for he had neglected to
wind me up. Next morning he went to lectures as usual. To his fellow-
students he appeared the same shy, quiet youth he had always seemed; to
Mr

Newcome, whom he met in the street, he appeared still as Charlie's
chosen and dear friend, ready for his holiday and rejoicing in the
prospect of the coming meeting; to his professors he appeared still the
same steady, hard-working student, bent on making his way in his
profession. But to himself, alas! how altered, how degraded he
appeared!

In the midst of his duties his thoughts ran continually--now back to the
strange experience of last evening, now forward to the doubtful events
of this.

The recollection of the past had lost a good deal of its repulsiveness
after twelve hours' interval, and although he still felt it to be low
and harmful, he yet secretly encouraged his curiosity to revisit the
place of his temptation.

"After all, it did me