"I shall not speak--on my honour!"

"It is hard, hard indeed, that I should have to foul my own nest, but
it must be so. Good night."

John went back to his room, calm without, terribly agitated within.
What ruthless spirit had driven him to Warde's study? Yes; at last,
inexorably, discovery, disgrace, the ineffaceable brand of expulsion,
impended over the head of his enemy, to whom he was pledged to utter no
word of warning. Like Warde, he did not know absolutely, but he
guessed that Scaife had spent another riotous night to town since the
match. He had read it in the eyes glittering with excitement, in the
derisive smile of conscious power, in the magnetic audacity of Scaife's
glance. And then he remembered Lawrence's parting words--

"It will be a fight to a finish, and, mark me, Warde will win!"

Two wretched days and nights passed. More than once John spurred
himself to the point of going to Warde and saying, "Think what you like
of me, I am going to warn the boy I loathe that you are at his heels."
Still, always at the last moment he did not go. Some power seemed to
restrain him. But when he tried to analyse his feelings, he confessed
himself muddled. He had obtained, nay, invited, Warde's confidence;
and he dared not abuse it. It was a time of anguish. He was unable to
concentrate his mind upon work or play, deprived of sleep, haunted by
the conviction that if Desmond knew all, he would turn from him for
ever. Then, at the most difficult moment of his life, the way of
escape was opened.

Since the match, John and Caesar had resumed the former unrestrained
and continual intimacy and intercourse. John was in and out of
Desmond's room, Desmond was in and out of John's room, at all hours.
They "found" together, of course, but it is not, fortunately, at meals
that boys or men discuss the things nearest to their hearts. But at
night, just before lights were turned out, or just after, when an
Olympian is privileged to work a little longer by the light of the
useful "tolly," Caesar and Jonathan would talk freely of past, present,
and future. It was during these much-valued minutes, or on Sunday
afternoons, that John would read to his friend the essays or verses
which always fired Desmond's admiration and enthusiasm. To John's
intellectual activities Caesar played, so to speak, gallery; even as
John upon many an afternoon had sat stewing in the covered
racquet-court, applauding Desmond's service into