ummy had been
there all the time, that young Lee had tumbled into the river as any
other man tumbles into a river, and that a blue pill was the best thing
for a disordered liver. He felt that he would have said as much if the
positions had been reversed. And yet he could swear that Bellingham
was a murderer at heart, and that he wielded a weapon such as no man
had ever used in all the grim history of crime.

Hastie had branched off to his rooms with a few crisp and emphatic
comments upon his friend's unsociability, and Abercrombie Smith crossed
the quadrangle to his corner turret with a strong feeling of repulsion
for his chambers and their associations. He would take Lee's advice,
and move his quarters as soon as possible, for how could a man study
when his ear was ever straining for every murmur or footstep in the
room below? He observed, as he crossed over the lawn, that the light
was still shining in Bellingham's window, and as he passed up the
staircase the door opened, and the man himself looked out at him. With
his fat, evil face he was like some bloated spider fresh from the
weaving of his poisonous web.

"Good-evening," said he. "Won't you come in?"

"No," cried Smith, fiercely.

"No? You are busy as ever? I wanted to ask you about Lee. I was
sorry to hear that there was a rumour that something was amiss with
him."

His features were grave, but there was the gleam of a hidden laugh in
his eyes as he spoke. Smith saw it, and he could have knocked him down
for it.

"You'll be sorrier still to hear that Monkhouse Lee is doing very well,
and is out of all danger," he answered. "Your hellish tricks have not
come off this time. Oh, you needn't try to brazen it out. I know all
about it."

Bellingham took a step back from the angry student, and half-closed the
door as if to protect himself.

"You are mad," he said. "What do you mean? Do you assert that I had
anything to do with Lee's accident?"

"Yes," thundered Smith. "You and that bag of bones behind you; you
worked it between you. I tell you what it is, Master B., they have
given up burning folk like you, but we still keep a hangman, and, by
George! if any man in this college meets his death while you are here,
I'll have you up, and if you don't swing for it, it won't be my fault.
You'll find that your filthy Egyptian tricks won't answer in England."

"You're a raving lunatic," said Bellingham.

"All right. You just remember what I s