hrong of the shouting,
jostling dancers. Of the next two hours Gordon could remember nothing.
He had vague recollections of streaming hair, of warm hands, and of
fierce, wild kisses. Lights flickered, shot skywards, and went out.
Forms loomed before him, a strange weariness came over him, he
remembered flinging himself beside her in the grass and burying his face
in her hair. She seemed to speak as from a very long way off. Once more
the dance caught them. Then _Auld Lang Syne_ struck up. Hands were
clasped, a circle swayed riotously. There were promises to meet next
night, promises that neither meant to keep. Rudd was waiting impatiently
at the cafe. Once more the wall by the Abbey rose spectral, once more
the cloisters echoed vaguely. The boot-hole window creaked.

As the dawn broke tempestuously in the sky Gordon fell across his bed,
his brain tired with a thousand memories, all fugitive, all vague, all
exquisitely unsubstantial.

* * * * *

With heavy, tired eyes Gordon ran down to breakfast a second before
time. He felt utterly weary, exhausted, incapable of effort. People came
up and asked him in whispers if everything had turned out well. He
answered absentmindedly, incoherently.

"I don't believe you went there at all," a voice jeered.

Gordon did not reply. He merely put his hand in his pocket and pulled
out the china shepherdess that he was about to place on the rickety
study bracket.

Doubt was silenced.

The long hours of morning school passed by on leaden feet; he seemed
unable to answer any question right; even the Chief was annoyed.

Rain fell in torrents. The Colts game was scratched.

On a pile of cushions laid on the floor Gordon slept away the whole
afternoon. From four to six he had to write a Greek Prose in his study.
The tea bell scattered his dreams. He rose languidly, with the
unpleasant sensation of work unfinished.

The row of faces at tea seemed to frighten him. He felt as if he had
awakened out of a nightmare, that still held on to him with cold, clammy
hands, and was trying to draw him back once more into its web. Visions
rose before him of shrieking showmen's booths, blinking with tawdry
yellow eyes. Emmie's hoarse laugh grated on his ears; he was overwrought
and wanted to shout, to shriek, to give some vent to his feelings. But
he seemed chained to the long bench, and his tongue was tied so that he
could only mouth out silly platitudes about the w