t stop long to think, for the call of his books
was imperative, and happen what might, he must see to it that he passed
that examination.

Having again locked the door into the hall, he sat down to his books and
resumed his notes on _materia medica_ where he had left off when the
bell rang. But it was difficult for some time to concentrate his mind on
the subject. His thoughts kept wandering to the picture of that
white-faced, strange-eyed fellow, starved and dirty, lying in his
clothes and boots on the bed. He recalled their schooldays together
before they had drifted apart, and how they had vowed eternal
friendship--and all the rest of it. And now! What horrible straits to be
in. How could any man let the love of dissipation take such hold upon
him?

But one of their vows together Marriott, it seemed, had completely
forgotten. Just now, at any rate, it lay too far in the background of
his memory to be recalled.

Through the half-open door--the bedroom led out of the sitting-room and
had no other door--came the sound of deep, long-drawn breathing, the
regular, steady breathing of a tired man, so tired that, even to listen
to it made Marriott almost want to go to sleep himself.

"He needed it," reflected the student, "and perhaps it came only just in
time!"

Perhaps so; for outside the bitter wind from across the Forth howled
cruelly and drove the rain in cold streams against the window-panes, and
down the deserted streets. Long before Marriott settled down again
properly to his reading, he heard distantly, as it were, through the
sentences of the book, the heavy, deep breathing of the sleeper in the
next room.

A couple of hours later, when he yawned and changed his books, he still
heard the breathing, and went cautiously up to the door to look round.

At first the darkness of the room must have deceived him, or else his
eyes were confused and dazzled by the recent glare of the reading lamp.
For a minute or two he could make out nothing at all but dark lumps of
furniture, the mass of the chest of drawers by the wall, and the white
patch where his bath stood in the centre of the floor.

Then the bed came slowly into view. And on it he saw the outline of the
sleeping body gradually take shape before his eyes, growing up strangely
into the darkness, till it stood out in marked relief--the long black
form against the white counterpane.

He could hardly help smiling. Field had not moved an inch. He watched
him a